Hey Y’all,
My name is Gabriella Menchaca. I live in Cedar Park, Texas with my family and two dogs. This summer I will be going on a two-month mission trip and am so glad that I will be able to keep y’all up to date through this blog. A little bit about me:
I was born in March 2001, in San Antonio, Texas. It was my mom, my dad and my a two-year-old big brother. About a year and a half later, I became a big sister to a baby girl. Growing up we lived in a low income neighborhood where I played with my friends on the streets at the age of six every day because my parents were never home. Now, a lot of people may think that sounds nice, but they were out doing drugs. Being drug addicts was what they decided to be rather than be a family.
With that choice being made the three of us were taken up by CPS to our grandfather’s house. Little did CPS know he too was addicted to drugs and a part of gang-life just like our father. Once they had realized the choices that were being made by my grandfather we were taken up once more and placed with foster family. This time we were not related to this family and they had eight children living with them, mostly foster.
Living in a family with eight other “siblings” for a year in San Antonio, TX wasn’t the easiest time of my life. While in foster care, I was given the opportunity to have close relationships with many of the children but never took the chance because I was focused on keeping my brother, sister, and I together and safe. I was not ready to lose more of my family. All I remember from that time was I was on five different medications and somehow had to get through my day with a smile and being compliant. That was probably the hardest thing I had ever done in my seven years of life. A year had passed when two strangers had walked into our lives; a petite woman and a man who was a giant. They introduced themselves as Hector and Erica Menchaca, the people who we were going to live with next. We packed our things, said our goodbyes and we were on the road to Cedar Park, Tx.
After about seven months of living with Erica and Hector, we were eventually adopted on May 4, 2009, in Fredericksburg, Tx. Erica was a bilingual parent educator for the LISD school district where she worked with Spanish-speaking families in low income neighborhoods. Now, she is a stay at home mom and homeschools all six of my siblings. Hector, works in an office in downtown Austin as a software engineer and supports nine, all seven of his children and his wife. After about three years, as a family we decided to adopt more children and by the year 2013, there were four more children who were going to spend forever in our family.
It took me a while to recognize what true love actually was because of how much I had gone through in the past. After knowing that they were never going to stop loving me I became more relaxed and allowed them to love me. Growing up, my forever parents made sure that once it was my turn to leave the nest I would know my worth and identity in Christ. So, for the past eleven years and counting, I have grown up in a Christian home being raised in a specific way but good for my own benefit.
God loves us all so very much even those on the other side of the world. I cannot wait to share with them the crazy amount of love God has for them and that He is not finished yet and is still working in all of our lives.
