Faber’s Story

At seventeen, Faber is already carrying the weight of a much older man. Third of eight children, he lives with his mom, her new partner, and five younger siblings in a house that always feels a little too small for all the worry inside it. School had slipped away for him and his younger siblings—first because money got tight, then because the family broke in two and everything else broke with it. Somewhere along the way, Faber picked up a guilt that wasn’t his: if he’d “taken care of” his momma and siblings, maybe there wouldn’t be another baby on the way. That’s what he told himself.

He is concerned for his younger brother Jonathan most of all. Jonathan’s carries a lot of resentment—at mom, at dad, at the whole world, really—and he refuses to come to Esperanza de Ana. Faber worries for Jonathan’s future. So he prays for his brother to walk through Esperanza de Ana’s doors.

When Faber first joined the community of Esperanza de Ana, he didn’t arrive with a plan. He arrived hungry—hungry for food, yes, but also for a place safe enough to set down the backpack of blame he kept dragging behind him. At Esperanza de Ana he found tables that always had a plate for him, his own seat at the desk where homework could actually get done, and—maybe most surprising—adults who asked real questions and waited for real answers. With Miss Ana and Miss Irma, trust wasn’t a slogan; it was the way they looked him in the eye and stayed long after the bell would’ve rung anywhere else.

Jesus met Faber in relationships of trust, in a Community of Christ-followers actively loving one another and least of these.

Not in a thunderclap, not in a verse that solved everything in a single afternoon, but in the slow rescue of being seen. In the prayers that didn’t rush him. In the meals that showed up again tomorrow. In the quiet insistence that finishing high school wasn’t a luxury for other families—it was his path too, and his siblings were watching.

Some days, Jesus’ rescue looked like simple math: a hot lunch + a place at the table + a voice saying “let’s do this together” = homework done. Other days, it looked like the long work of learning to trust—choosing to open us about his life. All of it felt real.

Faber started to understand redemption and reconciliation the way the Gospels tell it: not just pulled out of something, but pulled into something. Into a community where neighbors become family. Into rhythms that rebuild a life—show up, eat, study, talk, pray, rest, repeat. Into a future larger than his worst day. He still worries about Jonathan, still asks God to draw his brother toward EA.

He was baptized in May.

When he talks about Esperanza de Ana, Faber doesn’t use fancy words. He says he’s grateful—that help arrived exactly when he needed it most. He says the space, the food, and the listening ears made room for a different story to grow. He says he wants to finish high school—not only for himself, but for his younger siblings and for his whole family—because hope moves best when it moves through a community, not just one person. And he names the people who keep showing up—Miss Ana, Miss Irma—because rescue has faces.

If you ask him what he prays for now, the list hasn’t changed much: for his siblings to be well; for his mom to show up for all her children, for this new baby; and for Jonathan to come to EA. But there’s something new underneath the words—a steadiness that wasn’t there before. He’s learning that Jesus doesn’t shame people into change. He sits with them, feeds them, walks the long road beside them, and then keeps walking.

Faber would probably tell you he’s not “perfect.” None of us are. But he knows this: the day he stepped into Esperanza de Ana, he stepped into the rescue Jesus was already weaving—through a community that makes space at the table, through mentors who stay, through daily bread and daily grace. And day by day, that rescue is becoming his story.