A Legacy of Faith, Family, and Perseverance

Abriana Fernandez: Good morning.
What's up,
guys?
Okay.
Oh,
there goes first page,
but that's okay.
Hola y bienvenidos.
Good morning and welcome.
I am really nervous.
I'm just going to be like really honest.
I'm about to share a really big piece of me that I've never shared in front of this many
people before,
which is really funny because a lot of you guys follow me on TikTok and Instagram,
and I'm pretty open with my life,
and I love sharing about who I am,
but this story is just
a little bit more personal and means a lot to me.
So to begin the story, I want to start with
the very first sentence that I learned in Spanish.
I learned both languages simultaneously,
but my first full sentence was,
mi papá es café y mi mamá es leche y yo soy café con leche.
And that translates to,
my dad is coffee and my mom is milk,
and I am coffee with milk.
This is my family.
I have twin brothers.
This is a more recent photo of us.
My sister-in-law was pregnant with my sweet little niece. Y'all, she's so cute.
She is about to be three months old,
and I love her with my whole heart.
Tia Life is awesome.
And then this is our family while we were in Mexico.
My dad pastored a church in Juarez.
My story starts with two people falling in love from two very different cultures,
two
very different backgrounds,
and two very different places.
But they were brought together through their love to share Jesus with the people around
them.
They met in Juarez, Mexico,
and my mom decided that this was the life that the Lord was calling her to,
and my dad was praying fervently for a wife that would come alongside him
and help him build this church and this ministry that he knew he was called to.
And so that led to where I grew up.
This is a little bit of my life.
So I'm a pretty happy-go-lucky girl,
and we laugh because I don't know why I was so grumpy.
I was outside of the church.
I'm sure it was just a bad day, but this was not the normal photos of me as a little girl.
That is our children's ministry,
my parents,
and the little church that we grew up in.
This was something that was so sweet and special to us,
to get to watch my parents serve,
to get to see my mom embrace a culture and a language that was not originally her own,
but to come alongside my dad and choose to love people and love people well.
And I think that's the coolest part of how I get to be and where I come from and why I am the way that I am is because though I am part of a very rich culture and rich heritage,
I am part of too.
And the middle ground of that is Jesus.
And what I learned growing up here is that even though you can kind of see my brothers up here, they look like the two little white boys in a sea of Mexican kids.
And then I kind of like maybe fit in, maybe I don't.
But we didn't know any different.
We didn't know any different.
All that we knew is that we loved God and we loved people and nothing was going to change that.
And that was how my parents were.
They loved God and they loved people and that was never going to change.
But I also come from this rich legacy.
This is my nana.
I didn't get very many pictures with my tito, her husband.
But we come from a legacy that is based on hard work,
on hard work and family and loving one another and loving one another well.
I loved getting to spend time with my nana.
This is her.
Unfortunately, my other brother and our other cousin got cut off in that photo,
so unfortunate.
But that's my grandmother and her grandchildren.
She is the woman that I watched every morning get up, and she had her black coffee and her cigarette,
And she read the word of the Lord.
And she'd been doing that since she was 10 years old, guys.
And she lived to be 78,
which was pretty cool.
So this is a legacy that I get to come from.
My grandparents came here with nothing.
They came with quite literally the clothes on their back.
My grandfather worked here and would be here for about 13 months,
go back to Chihuahua for four.
And that was how he provided for the family.
And my grandmother,
she was so ferocious and kind and brave in the way that she chose to take care of her family.
In the way that she chose to love on her kids.
And that love stuck and continues through me and my brothers.
She learned how to make tortillas.
She learned how to sell.
She loved to read to us and tell us all of these stories.
And when they decided,
her and her youngest two, which was my dad and my younger uncle,
came to America not knowing the language,
not knowing what was going on,
but they came because their dad said to come.
And my dad always said, we always had each other.
No matter what, we always had our family.
No matter what, we always had each other.
And that was so beautiful and so rich.
And to see the way that he continued that through us and through our family was just sweet and special.
And for my nun, I just hope that I can continue some of that bravery,
that I can choose to not be afraid or scared of things that might be a little different or uncomfortable.
Because that's what she chose.
She chose to embrace.
She chose to stick to who she was,
but to also step into really,
really hard things.
So really, I want to talk about my dad.
And my dad,
I am daddy's little girl.
Okay?
I am the oldest.
I am his princess.
And he is the man that is truly who I am and why I work so hard.
So this is my dad.
His name is Ernesto.
And to see a man who just loves God so much and to get to be raised that way is so special.
But one of the biggest things that he used to tell me is,
Si se puede, mija,
si se puede.
And this is, yes, you can, and yes, you will.
He worked tirelessly.
He refused to ever give up.
And he would tell me, Princess,
you can make all your dreams come true if you're willing to work hard enough.
And I believed that.
And he didn't just say that.
He lived it.
When I was in the fourth grade,
I decided that I wanted to play volleyball.
And for my dad and for the Fernandez clan,
we were going to be the best of the best.
That's how it was.
So he'd tell me 10 push-ups, 10 sit-ups, and 10 squats.
And then I would wait.
He'd say, if you really want to be the best, you're going to learn how to run.
And I will run with you.
I will run alongside you, but you have to be waiting here with me.
And so I'd wait.
I'd have my little tennis shoes on.
I was probably 10 years old.
And I'd wait with my tennis shoes, my shorts, and my T-shirt.
And Dad would come home from a very,
very long day of work.
And he would gear up.
And out we would go.
We would run a mile.
And I'm just going to be really honest.
I was a little bit of a fluffy Mexican girl,
okay?
Running was not exactly like tip-top shape for me.
But as in goodness,
I was thinking about this the other day.
I was like, I was 10 years old.
I mean, I wasn't very big.
And I doubt my dad was really running.
I think he was more like pretending to run alongside me and just believing that I could do it.
And I would get to this point, he was like,
Dad,
I can't do it anymore.
I can't go any farther.
And he goes, si se puede,
mija,
si se puede.
Come on, let's just keep going.
No matter how long it takes you to get there, we're going to get there and we're going to come back.
And so that's what we did.
We ran along this little canal to the stoplight and back.
It was a little over a mile.
And slowly,
as time progressed, that became a little easier and a little easier.
And that was the precedent set for my life.
Si se puede, mija.
Yes, you can.
You can do hard things.
You can keep going.
You do not have to give up.
And what a sweet thing that is.
And as I think about my heritage and I think about my culture and how incredible my dad is,
Yes,
this is a rich culture and a beautiful heritage and a legacy that I get to live.
But this is a legacy that we all get to live.
This is the gospel.
Truly,
that is what my dad was living.
He was sharing,
and to be a Fernandez and to have that last name means a lot to me,
and it's a lot about who I am, and it's a lot that I care about.
But it is the gospel.
We talk about different cultures and how to accept people, and what does that look like.
That is the gospel.
All of these things that we talk about, it is the gospel.
It is the legacy of Jesus.
That is what he said is to love God and love others and to do it well no matter where they come from
or what language they speak or what they look like.
This is the gospel is yes,
you can to work hard and to love others well.
And this is what my dad set forth for me.
And then I have my clan,
my sweet,
crazy brothers.
I have twin brothers.
We are 13 months apart.
Yes, that is very close together.
And not only did my dad instill this in me,
but then I got to grow up with two brothers that it is truly, I think, the Fernandez way.
As long as you have your family,
you will be okay.
One brother actually followed me to LCU,
and he ended up pole vaulting here and graduated.
We are the first in our family to graduate with college degrees,
which was pretty cool.
but that was all because of the support of my dad
and the way that my brothers and I never chose to give up on each other.
And then the other one decided to start dating my best friend,
and thankfully they got married,
and that is what made me an aunt.
And so this is also so sweet.
Not only did I have my dad, but I had my brothers.
And so there is just this family.
There is this peace that as long as we had each other, we were going to be okay.
And then I got to introduce my one brother to the family that I found here at LCU.
And coming here was not easy.
Being a firstborn daughter, choosing to leave your household in a Hispanic household,
that
is not, that was not really ideal.
But my brothers really told me, sister,
you should follow your dreams.
You've always been here.
You've always been part of your family.
But keep going.
Follow your dreams.
Don't give up.
When I came home at Christmas and didn't want to go back, my brothers encouraged me, sister,
don't give up.
You can do it. Keep going.
Like, we believe in you, and we're going to follow alongside you.
And so this is just a little piece,
a huge part of who I am,
something that I don't share super publicly in a lot of ways
because I don't feel like I have to get into the details.
I hope that I live this out every single day.
And so all of these little stories and all of these little things
just come to a girl who believed that she can,
and I live a life not without heartache and not without hardship,
But those heartaches and those hardships and those things that make life difficult are made so much easier through the people that are around me,
through the family that I have, through the friends that I have invited into my life to walk alongside me.
And so I celebrate Hispanic heritage because I am very proud to be a Mexican woman.
I am very proud of where I come from.
But also,
I hope that you guys will join us in celebrating this and celebrating people
and celebrating the gospel and knowing that we are all brought together
through a faith and a love that we get to have in Christ.
I didn't just have my family.
I have so many friends and people who care about me
and who have chosen to walk life with me, but I also chose to walk life with them.
So my biggest encouragement to you guys is I hope here at your time at LCU
that you find your clan,
you find your people.
It's scary and it's vulnerable and it's hard to allow people into these spaces of your lives.
But God is good and people are good.
So loving God and loving people and getting to just be part of a culture and a community
is really special and that also lives here at LCU.
So I'm going to pray for us and then you guys will be dismissed.
Hey, God, I just want to thank you so much just for this space and your people that you've brought here and brought together,
Lord.
And I just pray that as we celebrate one culture and one heritage,
we also celebrate this beautiful faith and thing that we get to all come together and worshiping you and being in community with each other and with you, God.
Father, I just thank you for the rain and for the weather and pray that this week continues to go well.
And it's your name we pray. Amen.
You guys are dismissed.