Way back in April of 1990, Fr. Richard Thomas wrote a newsletter sharing the testimony of Lupe Tapia. We recently found an old copy of that newsletter and showed it to Lupe and her now 31-year-old daughter Cristina. They confirmed all the facts of that story which we share with you now.
Father Thomas wrote:
Meet Cristina Morales Tapia, born on May 20, 1989, in the arms of her mother, Lupe Tapia. Here is her story: Hemorrhaging every second day during the pregnancy, Lupe got no hope from the doctors. “It’s a tumor… a ball… it’s not alive… it should be taken out and thrown away,” was their diagnosis. Lupe steadfastly refused to let the doctors do this.
On May 20th, the child was born very suddenly with no one else present. Five and a half months old at birth and weighing only one pound, Cristina had the umbilical cord wrapped three times around her neck. The doctors were stupefied when they found the baby alive.
Immediately they put her in an incubator, and there she stayed for the next three months. Each day Lupe would take two buses from her home to get to the clinic where her baby lay in the incubator with no hope of survival as far as the doctors could see. The child’s mouth was so small she could not nurse her mother, and her milk had to be expressed. One doctor told Lupe, “Don’t have any false dreams. This child only has one lung, and she will die.”
Three weeks ago, I saw Cristina in her mother’s arms, happy, smiling, and looking fine.
We love this story of the unwavering faith of a mother and the fight to survive of the child! Lupe still faithfully helps us at the Lord’s Food Bank to this day, and for the last 8 years or so, Cristina has volunteered to teach First Communion classes to the children at our Food Bank. Praise God!