Marina and Ernesto Pinto travelled to Honduras, Guatemala and the United States this summer. While there, they recorded interviews for their Spanish language radio programs. Since returning to Winnipeg, Marina has used some of the interviews to produce five new episodes of Encuentro Familiar that will begin releasing next week.
Marina recorded one of the episodes, “My God has been Faithful”, with Angela Fernandez in Seattle. Doña Angelita is Ernesto’s mother. Those who have heard her interview with Ernesto on Encuentro have been deeply impacted by her story of raising her children alone after their father left them. In "My God has been Faithful", Marina uses Doña Angelita's story to encourage young women who are struggling right now as they raise their families alone.
In a culture where men are not always taught to take responsibility for their families, there are many single mothers who must leave their children unsupervised to go to work, who struggle to rise above the poverty and provide for their children, and who despair under the overwhelming burden of doing it all alone.
“My advice for young women,” says Doña Angelita, “is to surrender to the Lord. I had many problems; I gave myself to the Lord and He took care of me. God is the only faithful one. The only one who can help us!”
Two interviews included in these five episodes are with women who learned to forgive the parents who abused them. Another one features a woman who set out alone when she was a teenager to join her mother in the United States. Her journey from Honduras meant crossing four borders and she knows it was only because of God’s protection that she made it safely.
During their time in Central America, the Pintos visited communities in Honduras affected by the hurricanes last year, they spoke live on radio and TV stations (in person or via Zoom), and Ernesto preached in churches and at the 71st anniversary of Radio Cultural, a large Christian radio station in Guatemala City.
Ernesto also met with the COICOM board – an organization he helped found and continues to be part of – to plan the annual conference for Latin American Christian media producers and distributors. Last year’s conference was held online through Zoom but, if circumstances allow, the 2021 conference will be an in-person event in Guatemala later this year.