Dalva is the mother of 13 children, 6 of which are a part of our Hope family:  Gabriela, Jessé, Graciela, Greice, Glaúcia, and Luiz.  Luiz is is the only one of the siblings who did not live at the City of Youth, but he is now married to a Hope graduate and helps lead worship at the graduate church.  Gabriela is still at Hope Ranch, as she is only 16.  The remaining 4 siblings have all graduated.  

Dalva has lived her life in miserable conditions, much of it given away to drugs and alcohol.   The graduate church has adopted her cause this year and committed to praying and fasting for her.   She is now in rehab, and her children are working to renovate her home for her.   She recently wrote the following letter to Pastor Derli, and it is incredible to hear the words that come from her transformed heart!

Pastor Derli,

The peace of the Lord be with you and your entire family.  I am sitting here, it’s 7:25 pm, and I remember as if it were today, the day that the Lord extended his hands to me through a servant of God, a Christian man to help me.

I don’t have words to thank you for what you did and still do for me and for my children.  It is with much love that God and our Lord Jesus Christ have placed in you and in your soul, that I speak as a child of a living God.  May He bless you and multiply in your life.  May He exalt you more and more for the love you showed me.  The Bible says that whoever helps the poor helps God.  Or in other words, faith without works is dead.  And you showed your love for God when you pulled me out from the midst of pigs and made me to sit with the princes.

I am very happy in the presence of God, and I want to share this happiness with you. 

I went to church.  Service was wonderful, full of God’s power.  I am learning to worship, I read the Bible every day during devotional, and I pray often, both on my knees before God and in my heart.

I pray for you, and I pray that God would continue to take care of your ministry.

May God be with you.  I am well.  I won’t give up.  In 2 Cor. 5:17, it says that I am a new creation, the old things have passed away, and all is made new!  And I believe this.

I want to leave a passage from the Bible with you that speaks a lot about the moment that God used you to take me out of the mire.  It goes like this: Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God, and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.  (1 John 4:7 and on)

But what I really want to leave for you to keep in your heart is:

Behold, the Lord’s hand is not shortened, that it cannot save; nor His ear heavy, that it cannot hear.  (Isaiah 59:1)

And in that moment, it was the Lord using you!!!

God be with you!

Sister Dalva