Manuel Rodriguez

During a day and age when greed and prosperity tend to dominate the world we live in, one local church has decided to do things a little different. After one of its members originally from Mexico came down with terminal cancer, New Life Community Church in Louisa, VA, decided to bring a separated family back together again. After more than 20 years apart, Manuel Rodriguez was reunited with his brothers and sisters in a Charlottesville hospital.

The idea of a reunion took place when Manuel walked in to Pastor Josh Turner’s office one day expressing the desire to reunite with his family again. Manuel remembered that he had a sister in El Paso, Texas where he grew up as a child. Immediately, Pastor Josh got on the internet and began a people search where he located Candy Ramirez and found her telephone number. Within minutes, Manuel and Candy were talking about his changed life in Jesus Christ. By the time Manuel had hung the phone up, he had contact information for the rest of his siblings scattered across the United States. Little did Manuel know that he was carrying terminal cancer throughout his body. Within a month of him contacting his family, Manuel was diagnosed with terminal bone cancer. After several tests and procedures, the cancer was much worse than originally thought and Manuel was told that he would probably soon die. Within weeks, the family was contacted and unbeknownst to Manuel, a reunion was scheduled. The church took up a love offering totaling more than $3000.00 and plane tickets were purchased to fly three of his siblings to Virginia from such places as Texas, Colorado, and California.

As the siblings walked into the hospital that day there were many tears of joy at what was taking place. At first, Manuel couldn’t believe his eyes and didn’t even recognize his brothers and sisters. His daughter Kelly and wife Denise were by his bedside during the surprise. Soon after, Manuel was able to get out of the hospital and spend some time with his family at home. The most important topic discussed while they were together was how Manuel left them during a heroin spree, ended up in jail, and eventually in Virginia. While in jail, Manuel found a personal relationship with Jesus Christ and turned his life around. After attending New Life Community Church for some time, Manuel entered ministry and began preaching the message of hope to the community. Manuel was involved in feeding the poor, the prayer ministry, and the preaching ministry at New Life Community Church. He founded the holiday feeding ministry of Share Food/Share Love, a New Life ministry dedicated to feeding those less fortunate during the holiday seasons of Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Three months after the reunion, Pastor Turner got a call that Manuel had breathed his last and went to be with the Lord. This past Thanksgiving (2008), Share Food/Share Love was able to feed over 77 local families and all of these families heard the life changing message of Jesus Christ with two on record as making a decision for Christ. While it has been nearly two years since Manuel departed, his legacy still continues through a local church ministry.