Hilaria grew up in Patzicia, Guatemala, which is a neighboring village. Now she has a home near Casa Angelina in the village of Teluche. When she was 12 years old, her mother died, and she moved in with her aunt. When she was 17, she fell in love with a man who worked at a store in her village, and they got married. Three years later, she gave her life to the Lord at church. Since that point, she has developed a strong relationship with God and is a woman of prayer.
Hilaria and her husband had seven children together. They were married for many years, but in 2002, his throat became inflamed to such a point that he could no longer eat. The hospital didn’t help him, and when he returned home, the situation worsened until he died. Hilaria used to sell coffee a few times a week in the village while her husband worked in the fields, but after he died, she never left the house again. Her children had already grown up and gotten married. She lived in a cornstalk shack with a hole in the ground for a toilet and used a filthy hand-dug well that left her water brown. Although she did her best, she and her closest family still lived in poverty and barely had enough to get by. They lived off of beans and corn tortillas. But she relied on the Lord through this time, and she says that when she prayed He would take away her sadness and replace it with joy.
One day Ivan, the co-founder of Casa Angelina, was walking through the village looking for widows or needs that needed to be met, and he came to Hilaria’s house. She ran out crying, “Thank you, Jesus! Thank you, Jesus!” She had been praying for help to come since she did not have food to eat the next day. She told Ivan, “I’ve been waiting for you!” She was confident that God had answered her prayer, and that day He did.
Thanks to the help of our supporters, we have built her and her daughter a new home with a proper bathroom. We have adopted Hilaria as one of our closest widows, and she has been a part of our Casa Angelina family for years. We visit Hilaria frequently, as her health is steadily declining. We are able to provide her and her family with food and water on a regular basis, and bring her to our onsite clinic. Hilaria is a strong woman of God who loves to sing to the groups that visit her, and she always expresses thankfulness for all she has been given.