"My Heroes - My Family"

My parents and my sibling have had more formative influence on my life than anyone else. I grew up looking up to everyone of them wanting to be just like my father and my big brother Aaron. My father was an Evangelist and the co-founder of the Pentecostal Bible School in Chile. I remember traveling with him and watching him preach, teach, and pray for the sick. I wanted to be just like him when I grew up.
As a young teenager, I was a carbon copy of my brother, Aaron. His prayer life was very formative of my own. Whenever my father had to travel for an extended period of time my mother would experience odd, inexplainable things take place around the home. One day after having left my father at the airport, a large glass light cover  fell where I normally played in my room for no apparent reason. My mother told my brother and it was then as a 14 year-old that he began praying every day for at least an hour. Nothing else happened in the months my father was absent.
Also, I remember my brother with posters on his wall regarding church planting. I got to be a part of planting Spanish speaking churches in Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Missourri. Those experiences definately formed me into who I am today. Now my desire is to do the same, but in Amsterdam.
My sister, Michelle, who is ten years older than me was my second mother. I wanted to marry her when I was 3 and I think we actually did a wedding ceremony with my brother being the pastor and  me marrying Michelle. My sister is an example to me of what it means to live by faith and not by circumstances. She is a wonderful mother and sister.
My mom, yeah, there is too much to say about her. Her children and grandchildren were and are her life. Although she could teach and minister very well, her primary ministry was her family. I remember her cancelling meetings to stay home and help me with my schoolwork or even discipline me if necessary (believe it or not). You can read more about her incredible sacrificial love if you read about my birth.
Now my brother is getting ready to move to Brazil and my own family is in the Netherlands far from the rest of them. Growing up in Chile and in Oklahoma meant that we switched friends, home, languages and cultures, but we always had each other. However, I nearly never saw my grandparent, cousins, aunts and uncles.  As I have followed my parents footsteps now I don't get to see them very much (other than Skype). Yet, they taught me that home is not determined by what land you live in or what language you speak, but wherever you are with your family. Home is where my family is...and the location is not nearly as important.