The Seven-Year Silence: How Profound Suffering Revealed Profound Faith

Doctors told Rosa her baby had died in the womb. She fiercely refused to believe them, insisting her son was alive. He was—and would survive against medical odds again decades later.

Listen to this powerful episode and reconsider what it means to truly know someone beyond their abilities, to love without conditions, and to find purpose in life's most difficult circumstances. Subscribe to Unwritten for more stories of how the Holy Spirit moves in unexpected ways through ordinary lives.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:06):
Welcome to Unwritten, a podcast dedicated to sharing
stories of the movement of theHoly Spirit in the world.
Today I'm your host, trevorBrecka, and on today's episode
we're getting to hear from ToriHara.
The greatest tragedies in lifeare often surrounded by mystery,
but God is always loving thoseduring them by mystery, but God

(00:27):
is always loving those duringthem.
In today's story, tori sharesthe pain and loss of watching
her friend lose almost all ofhis body's faculties, only to
deeply encounter the Lord's lovealong the way.
Welcome to the show and listenin.

Speaker 2 (00:38):
It's been one of the greatest privileges of my entire
life to know him.
His friendship has allowed meto know Jesus and his suffering
more intimately than I everthought I would.
We met in 2015 at Focus SummerTraining, but God had been
working in his life long beforewe ever met.
He was actually born in Angola,africa, in 1993.

(01:00):
His mom, rosa, is one of themost fierce and faithful women
I've ever met.
When she was pregnant with him,the doctors told her that he
had died in the womb and she,from the beginning, knew this
wasn't true and she told thedoctors over and over he's alive

(01:20):
.
He's alive, my son is alive.
And they kept trying topersuade her to come to the
hospital to have him removed.
She argued with them and keptsaying that her baby is alive.
And he did live and he's stillalive.
His family ended up moving toHouston for his dad's work when
he was four years old, so hisfirst language was Portuguese,

(01:42):
then English and Spanish.
Old, so his first language wasPortuguese, then English and
Spanish, and he has a big familywith lots of sisters and
brothers.
He grew up really faithful.
His mom made sure that all ofher children knew God and she
was the shiny example of faithand piety in their family.
She has a very special devotionto Our Lady and he's definitely

(02:04):
followed in her footstepsthroughout His life.
He would always tell me thatHis mom is going to be a saint,
and now I believe that they bothwill.
He experienced deeperconversion to Jesus in high
school and went to Baylor andgot involved with Focus and was
discipled there and madeincredible friends.
He served in Oklahoma andMissouri and he suffered a lot

(02:26):
to say yes to becoming afull-time missionary.
His dad is an incrediblebusinessman who has businesses
all over the world and I thinkthat was a really difficult
reality for him to see his sonfundraise and it caused a rift
in their relationship in acertain amount of time, and so I

(02:46):
think about the way that hechose God even when it was
really hard, and that wassomething that I noticed as soon
as we were becoming betterfriends.
He had just started going tolaw school at Ave Maria Law.
I was really sad that he leftFocus because I thought he was
an incredible leader anddisciple, but he was sharing
that the only reason he wasgoing to law school was to

(03:09):
discern if he could actually bea disciple of Christ as a lawyer
, he said he was completelyready to walk away from the
profession if he thought hewould be compromising his faith
or morality.
His attitude really astoundedme.
I was really impressed with hisconviction to do what the Lord
wanted him to do.
As I was getting to know himbetter, his strength, his

(03:32):
gentleness and his virtue seemedtoo good to be true.
We had known each other thepast I think three years and
leading up to that, I had seenhim discern a vocation with the
Dominicans, then later leavingFocus and then going to law
school.
I was really grateful that wegot to connect again that summer
.
We had a lot of mutual friendsas we were getting to know each

(03:54):
other.
Yeah, I just saw his devotionto the sacraments.
Law school is no easy feat andhe'd be in daily mass and
praying his holy hour, makingplans around his studying groups
, so I was really grateful toget to be up close.
As he was navigatingno-transcript.

(04:19):
And in November of 2018, he wasplaying indoor soccer in South
Central Florida and in themiddle of the soccer game, his
heart stopped.
Everyone was on the other sideof the field, so he went down,
so it took a little bit of timebefore anyone to notice that he
had collapsed, and when theparamedics got there, nobody had

(04:42):
really been able to perform CPRon him.
So they started working on himand it took them over 15 minutes
to get a heartbeat back, but inthat time a lot of damage had
been done.
He experienced a traumaticbrain injury from a lack of
oxygen and he was rushed to theICU where he was in a coma,

(05:02):
non-responsive, for about twoand a half weeks.
When he started to wake up,which everybody thought was
completely miraculous, after 24hours, all the doctors wanted to
stop all care.
They concluded that there wasno chance for him to recover and
that, unfortunately, there wasnothing any doctor could do to

(05:25):
change that.
I was completely grateful forhis family because they fought
so valiantly for him.
His dad actually grew up withpolio and he walks with a cane,
and we were in a meeting withprobably 20 doctors one day and
the subject of resuscitating himcame up and the doctors were

(05:47):
trying to be very I think theywere trying to give his family
permission to not give care thatwould maybe save his life in
the months or years to come, andhis dad stood up and shared the
story of his own life, whichwas that when he contracted
polio, the doctors told hismother to let him die because he

(06:07):
would be a burden and he wouldonly suffer.
And his dad really reminded allthe doctors what their job was
was to heal and not harm, and sohe said that they would not be
considering, you know, notgiving him life-saving help.
There was a deep silence in theroom after he shared that,
because I think there was someshame that they experienced for

(06:28):
just offering to not give asmuch medical help as they could.
I think in getting to see himgo through this illness, it
really started to challenge whatit means to love somebody and
to suffer with somebody, the waythat Christ seeks to do that
with us.
Yeah, jesus allowed me to startto see himself in my friend as

(06:51):
he suffered.
We know in scripture that whatyou've done to the least you've
done to me, and I think aboutwhat a privilege it's been to
sit with him in hospital roomsfor years, even because it meant
that he wasn't alone and hadthe opportunity to have a lot of
his friends come and visit.
One of my favorite authorswrites about suffering and he

(07:13):
says that we cannot love whatshocks us and my interpretation
of that is that when we'reshocked, we're focused on our
own experience.
And, to be honest, when youwalk into the hospital room to
see him after knowing howvibrant, athletic, joyful,
intelligent and faithful thathe's been in his life, it's very

(07:34):
shocking to walk into a roomand see him hooked up to a
ventilator or with a feedingtube and a trach, to be propped
up on pillows in a hospital bedand to watch him struggle in
physical pain because of hisbrain injury.
It was such a privilege toaccompany his friends, to start

(07:55):
to talk to him, because nobodyknows what to say.
I sure don't know what to say,but it was really beautiful to
get to ask his friends questionsabout their lives, because
that's all that he wanted toknow.
He wanted to know his friends.
Yes, eventually the shock wearsoff and then you can start to
see who he really is right Notjust the son of God, but your

(08:16):
friend, the person you love, andI think that Jesus sees us that
way.
He doesn't need us to doanything for him, he just wants
to know us and love us.
Through this experience I'vegotten to see, firstly, my
capacity for love.
Very quickly the desire changesfrom God, just deliver him from

(08:37):
this horrible illness to God,make him a saint.
And so my whole eternalperspective has completely
changed and I think about deathhonestly every day because of
him, because he experienced itat such a young age and I think
it reminds me that none of usare exempt from that and God is

(08:57):
completely in control.
And, if I'm being honest, somedays I wonder and hope if he had
passed he'd experience lesspain.
But somehow in salvationhistory God's decided that this
is going to bring about thegreatest amount of grace for the
world.
And I can't say that Iunderstand it.
But I can say that I trust theLord and I think it's so normal

(09:19):
to experience grief, verycomplicated grief based on
everyone's differentcircumstance, and I think I've
been able to receive permissionfrom friends and priests and
counselors to experience thatgrief, because what it means is
that you've loved.
I still desire that he'sdelivered from the illness.
I pray every day, but mostly nowI pray that he has the courage
and the strength to choose theLord, because he's still alive.

(09:42):
His name is Helcio Zumba andhe's still alive.
He was alive when the doctorstold his mom that he died in the
womb and he's still alive.
When the doctor said he didn'thave a chance at life and I
think this is one of thegreatest mysteries the Lord has
allowed me to see up close thateven when we're not delivered
from you know whatever sin ordifficulty, that he still wants

(10:08):
our good.
Helcio had many friends writeletters and reach out, and I
know so many people still prayfor him every day.
One of his friends wrote anincredible letter.
His friend is a religious andhe wrote to Helcio and he said
your body is your cell, the cellthat a monk, a religious, would
spend much of their day inpraying.
And he's still capable ofloving God.

(10:29):
And something that I thinkabout every day is that he
chooses God.
He still has his will and insome mysterious way, god wants
Helcio to keep his will in thisway, so he experiences what's
called locked-in syndrome, sohe's completely aware and awake,
but can't move any part of hisbody or speak, and so his

(10:49):
silence, I think, imitatesChrist in his passion.
I can't tell you exactly when,but at some point it was no
longer about our friendship andit was actually about the
particular mission of sufferingthat Jesus had given him.
I think that's why my prayerchanged.
There's still hope that hecould be completely healed
because God can do anything.

(11:10):
I think that was what Istruggled the most with that I
had seen God work miracles overand over in my life physical,
medical miracles and yet hewasn't allowing it here and I
think that was really difficultto even talk to Helcio about.
But it was kind of anunderstanding and I could see in
his eyes that he was acceptingwhat the Lord had given him,

(11:31):
even if it was bitter suffering.
And I've caught myself evenrecently because I can't know
his heart.
He can't speak and I hope thatone day I will.
But it's now more about askingGod to give him courage and
asking Our Lady to be close tohim.
And they've assured me thatthey're really close to him and
I think that brings deep comfortto my heart and allows me to

(11:54):
keep trusting in the Lord andhis plan.
Even though it's so confusingand it's so hurtful, god is
still a good God, he's a goodfather and I know that Halcio
believes that.
I'm just really grateful thatGod allowed me to be close to
Halcio's suffering, to see theways that he chose the Lord over
and over and over again.
Most people in this state oftraumatic brain injury

(12:14):
understandably give up.
There's really no end to thishorrific suffering.
But Helcio has held on now forseven years and if anybody knows
him personally, you know thathe's a really fierce guy.
He's really competitive, heloves a challenge, he loves God.
He was an incredible athlete.
He knows what it means tosuffer.
I think right now he'sexperiencing the physical

(12:37):
suffering in a very intense way,but he, yeah, he still chooses
the Lord.
He's still alive.

Speaker 1 (12:44):
Thank you so much, tori, for sharing your story
with us this week.
I'm so struck by the deep faiththat has marked everyone in
this story, from Helcio's fathernot giving up on his son to
Tori's immersion into God's lovealong the way of her
accompaniment.
This heroic witness of faithinspired me greatly and I can't

(13:04):
help but hope the same for youlistening.
Thanks so much for listening tothis week's episode of
Unwritten.
We hope to see you next week.