8 minute read
TESTIMONY OF FAITH
from 2022 Fall Newsvine
by The Newsvine
FROM THE MIRE TO THE MIRACULOUS!
A Compelling Story of Three Sisters
Text by Editor Leo Aguilera
Sisters Jackie Walls, Rosie Estrada, & Josie Barraza
(Editor’s Note: In previous two issues, we learned that the Hurtado sisters, Rosie, Josie, and Jackie, were born into extreme poverty. Their parents were field laborers and had to work hard, grueling hours in the hot sun, picking various fruit and vegetable harvests throughout California. The sisters joined their parents picking while still young girls, and their lives were dictated by a domineering, abusive father who beat them and their mother into submission, creating a hostile environment of fear and pain. Their misery was compounded with his drinking, gambling, and womanizing, building tension in the marriage until, one night, an explosion of violence left their father dead, shot by their mother in act of a complete meltdown. She was sent to the psychiatric ward of the state prison, where a team of psychiatrists determined she was innocent because of extreme mental and physical trauma leading to temporary insanity. Their mother was released after nine months. We continue with the family free from fear, but with the sisters still facing the struggle and challenges of life as one by one they are drawn to the only One who can deliver and heal their souls)
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Psalm 18:6 (NLT).
Rosie’s Story
A Horrendous Wreck with Fate!
Rosie met her husband, Javier, at a party. He was stationed in the reserves in Santa Barbara. It was late, but not too late to keep partying. After telling Rosie he was going home, he wrote his phone number on her arm. She gave him the impression that she also was going home. However, they were both embarrassed later when they ran into each other cruising down a city street to the next party. They kept in touch and eventually started dating.
Soon they became very serious, but then Javier’s mother persuaded him to move with the family to Hawaii for a job. Rosie was devastated, as they had just become serious. Angry, she moved in with her sister Terry and got a job. But she was depressed. She partied heavily, yet she could not escape from her loss. She would be bawling, crying, and drinking - missing Javier.
“All I saw was glass everywhere...”
One day she took out the brand new Thunderbird that Terry had purchased for her mother. Rosie was plastered. She partied with her friends, drinking more, and when it was time to go home, they begged her not to drive. She was stubborn and drove away alone before anyone could take away the keys. She remembers driving fast, at least 60 MPH. She is not sure what caused the accident, but thinks she may have swerved and gone out of control. She remembers hitting a white wall with her car, which later turned out to be the back of a giant water truck. “All I saw was glass everywhere, and this white, shiny wall,” she recalls. She was so intoxicated, she was not fully conscience and aware of any pain. The steering wheel was pushed up under her rib cage. “Everything flashed through my mind,” she said. “I started seeing picture after picture of different stages of my life. Everything was in slow motion. Glass was raining down around me like diamonds.”
“You’re going to bleed to death!”
She remembers someone banging against her car, trying to pull her out of the car. When they were finally able to open the car door, a police officer peered in and asked if she was all right. Although he was speaking, Rosie could not respond. She was in shock. Suddenly, panic hit her, seeing the large crowd of onlookers. She pushed the officer away, and she started running. They screamed at her to stop, “You’re going to bleed to death!” They finally caught up to her and took her to the hospital by ambulance.
“I shouldn’t be alive.”
The next day when Rosie woke up, she was in the prison ward of the hospital in downtown Los Angeles. She was in pain, but she did not know what was wrong. When her mother visited her for the first time, she passed out in front of her, requiring medical attention. Her brother gasped in horror. Rosie asked to see herself in the mirror and immediately regretted it. Her lips were grossly swollen and hanging down with stitches. Her face was black and blue. Her eyes were gruesomely blood-shot. She thought to herself, “I shouldn’t be alive.” Although her face and legs were lacerated and heavily stitched, miraculously, she did not break any bones. “It was only God,” she said, that saved her from an early death. She was also amazed that she did not have to go to jail. When she went to court, they dropped all the charges. And even to this day, her mother has never complained to her about the loss of the car. However, it took Rosie months to heal.
After Rosie recovered from her accident, Javier invited her to come to Hawaii. While she was there, she became pregnant. Javier had not found good employment. They needed a course of action. They decided to try Modesto. Josie was there, and his mom had also made a contact with a Modestan who could employ Javier immediately in construction. When they both returned to Modesto, they were married by a justice of the peace.
That is when Josie started inviting Rosie to church consistently. Rosie never wanted to go. Finally, she made a deal with her sister. She would come to church, if she could have a few beers first. When she walked into church, she was wearing her tight jeans, dark shades, and had a pack of cigarettes rolled up in the sleeve of her white T-shirt. Even dressed like that with the smell of beer on her breath, she was convinced that these church people were full of the devil when she saw them running around the church during worship. Even so, she kept coming back to church. When asked why, she replied, “I can’t explain it, but there was something I wanted to know more about. There was something I wanted more of.”
One night when Javier and Rosie were both at church, and it was near the end of the service, Brother Bobby Rodela went up to Javier. He asked him if he wanted the Holy Ghost. Javier was hesitant when he saw there was no one up at the altar. But when he went up, within 30 seconds, Javier got the Holy Ghost. It took Rosie another six months.
“I felt joy from the top of my head to the soles of my feet.”
She had been going to church regularly because she wanted to keep an eye on her husband. This one particular night, she was very moody. “I was sitting there all bitter and sour, wishing church would finish,” she said. She was startled when Javier accidentally hit her in the face while he was lost in worship. She became very angry. “I remember leaning forward. I clinched my fist, and I was getting ready to sock him, when suddenly I felt something come over me. It caused me to relax my hand and sit still in the pew. I recognized it was the Holy Ghost.” She stood up and told her husband that she was going to receive the Holy Ghost that night. When the altar call was given, she went to the altar expecting it. “I lifted my hands, and I remember getting lost in the Holy Ghost. I felt joy from the top of my head to the soles of my feet,” she said with tears in her eyes. On the way home, she asked her husband to stop by the liquor store because “she was thirsty. Instead of buying a beer, she purchased a soda. When she put her money down on the counter, she told the surprised clerk, “I got the Holy Ghost!” Pastor Keyes baptized her in Jesus’ name, and Rosie began her new life as an Apostolic saint.
Rosie Estrada today
