LISBON \u2013 Three siblings raised by a single mother in the Boston projects have voiced their conviction that God wanted them at World Youth Day in Lisbon this week, and that a miracle is what allowed all of them to make it.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m telling you, miracles. If you only knew. We grew up in the projects for more than 20 years and my mom, and faith, faith brought us out of there,\u201d the eldest of the siblings, Irvana Pereira, told Crux<\/em>.<\/p>\n She said her mom was a single parent who to this day works two jobs so that she could raise enough money for all three of her kids to travel to the global World Youth Day (WYD) gathering in Lisbon this week, with Pope Francis being the guest of honor.<\/p>\n \u201cWe talked about coming here, just getting outside the country,\u201d Irvana said, saying she and her siblings Iman and Yowen all wanted to attend WYD, but \u201cwe were stressed because we didn\u2019t know how we were going to be able to afford it.\u201d<\/p>\n Irvana, who is pregnant with her first child, said they had done fundraising to pay for the plane tickets and other travel costs, but were still quite a bit short as the deadline for the final payment approached.<\/p>\n \u201cWe had a check come in the mail, and that same day my mom said she put it down at the altar and said we\u2019re able to go,\u201d Irvana said, saying, \u201cGod is good, but you have to just trust in God\u2019s hand.\u201d<\/p>\n She described her mother as \u201ca fighter\u201d and credited her mother\u2019s faith for getting the family out of projects and into a better situation.<\/p>\n \u201cWe got a house for the first time, my mom got an education, she brought us out of the projects, to the point she was like, I\u2019m going to save up every penny,\u201d Irvana said, saying her mother has always held down more than one job, and there is not a day that has passed since they\u2019ve been in Lisbon that she has not called her mother to say thank you.<\/p>\n \u201cMy mom\u2019s faith is why we\u2019re even here today and we continue to be unified together. We love Christ. Miracles are real, you can\u2019t tell me miracles aren\u2019t real,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Irvana said she believes the money that allowed them to attend WYD came from an overdue paycheck, because her mother is a teacher and for several months worked at a public school in their area, but her salary for the months she worked there never came.<\/p>\n \u201cBut randomly, you don\u2019t understand, it was only a couple of days before, and we were struggling and she\u2019s like, where\u2019s this going to come from? And then she opens up the mail and there\u2019s a check. There was the check for every single thing we needed for this trip,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n \u201cAt the last minute, it just came to us in the mail. It could have come at any other time, but it came when we most needed it,\u201d Irvana said, saying she calls her mother daily from Portugal to show her \u201cthat it\u2019s not just for us.\u201d<\/p>\n Iman echoed the sentiment, telling Crux<\/em> that the experience of WYD is \u201cnot just about the people that are walking in the streets and the people that are participating in World Youth Day, but there are people at home that I know are also part of it.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s not just about physically being here, but there\u2019s so much love still going around all around the world at home as we speak, and at this moment,\u201d she said, saying it is \u201csurreal getting closer to God and seeing the love of God through other people.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe Lord is so real. Even when we stepped off the airplane, you could feel the love, you could feel the unity. It\u2019s almost like a glimpse of heaven on earth right now,\u201d Iman said.<\/p>\n Yowen, the youngest of the three, described the crowds at WYD as \u201ca community unlike any other. I came here with the intention of just following my faith and opening my heart up, and I\u2019ve been opened up to a community that I didn\u2019t even think existed like this, on this level, on this scale.\u201d<\/p>\n He said he initially did not believe that the predictions for a turnout of over a million youth would be accurate, but he has been surprised by the size and diversity of the crowds.<\/p>\n \u201cTo think about it and see it are two very different things and just seeing it and seeing so many people here just following their faith, exploring their faith, it\u2019s beautiful,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Irvana said the experience so far \u201chas exceeded all of our expectations,\u201d and that she is happy that her unborn child is surrounded by so much joy.<\/p>\n \u201cTo receive the blessing of so many people around, there are so many bishops, and they\u2019re willing to just stop and talk to you, it\u2019s such a great feeling. I\u2019m excited about just meeting so many other Catholics around the world, that\u2019s been a incredible experience,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n \u201cGod created so many miracles throughout this entire journey to the fact that we\u2019re able to be here at this point, it doesn\u2019t even feel real,\u201d she said, saying, \u201cI can\u2019t believe we were actually able to do this.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n #Boston #siblings #defy #odds #miracle #allowed #attend #WYD<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" LISBON \u2013 Three siblings raised by a single mother in the Boston projects have voiced their conviction that God wanted them at World Youth Day in Lisbon this week, and that a miracle is what allowed all of them to make it. \u201cI\u2019m telling you, miracles. If you only knew. We grew up in the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2734,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2733","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-trending-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsbuzz24x7.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2733"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsbuzz24x7.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsbuzz24x7.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsbuzz24x7.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsbuzz24x7.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2733"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newsbuzz24x7.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2733\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsbuzz24x7.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2734"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsbuzz24x7.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2733"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsbuzz24x7.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2733"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsbuzz24x7.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2733"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n