When Dilo first came to Living Waters in 2019, he was full of anger, and extremely jealous towards those who had good relationships with others. His family were Catholic, but sadly he had no real knowledge of who Jesus is. He found the rules very difficult and almost thought of giving up, but eventually realised that he had been formed by God here - not for his own good, but rather to be a blessing to others.

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Not long after coming here - praise God - he made many friends and discovered his relationship with Jesus Christ. He finished high school, was baptised, and learned to pray and worship God - his wonderful creator who put him here to bless others.

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Over the past 2 years, Dilo has been through 2 immense trials, with both his parents suffering severe illnesses. Dilo's mother was a hardworking woman who did everything instead of her husband in a rubber plantation, after he could no longer work. This meant she worked extremely hard, sometimes so much so that she forgot to eat. In April 2023, she suffered a stroke and was hospitalized in a coma. She underwent surgery 2 months later, but subsequently suffered memory loss. This was so difficult for Dilo, as he thought that maybe she would forget who her family even were. She recovered well enough to be discharged from hospital, but eventually her health deteriorated again, and she died just seven months later on 15 February 2024.

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At the same time that his mother was suffering memory loss, Dilo’s father was diagnosed with kidney stones. They were removed successfully after surgery, but his father seemed to be getting worse and worse. A month later in hospital they found the cause - a spinal cord tumour. While the spinal cord tumour was removed successfully, his recovery was slow - and while he’s recovered from the tumour now, he’s still physically unable to work.

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The tumour wasn’t fully removed. The only option was laser treatment but only had a small success rate, and so they chose not to continue treatment.

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Although much of what he went through was so heartbreaking and difficult, Dilo didn’t lose faith - rather, he saw how God was using it as part of His plan, for Dilo and others around him. After the death of his mother, Dilo’s younger sister - named Flora - came to Living Waters. Flora had had an issue with her heart since birth called VSD which stemmed from one big hole in her heart. This meant Flora had a big lack of oxygen in her blood, which led to many problems - she couldn’t do exercise for a long time at all because it was extremely dangerous for her - walking for longer than 10 minutes and even jumping was too much! She even couldn’t sleep lying down or else she couldn’t breath due to fluid entering her lungs - she had to sleep sitting up!

This was all until the operation that the ministry was able to arrange for her, which finally closed up the hole in her heart. A month later, she can do so much more - jump, sleep lying down, walk and so much more that we all just take for granted! And God brought Dilo and Flora here to show how He works in people’s lives, in such incredible ways!

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Dilo has said about these difficult times with the health of his parents and little sister “I learnt about the importance of spending time with family and maintaining good health. It also taught me about strength in the face of hardships - that nothing can give you strength like Jesus can. Now I want to share this experience with others so that they too can learn from my hardships”.

2 Corinthians 5:17 says ‘Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!’

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What an amazing testimony Dilo is to just how true that verse is; when you talk to Dilo, you see no misery, no anger or jealousy at all. So clearly with Dilo you see kindness, warmth towards everyone and joy shining out of him - joy that comes from Jesus Christ and Jesus Christ alone. Even in the midst of his mother’s death and his father’s cancer, that joy could not be taken away from him. For years, he was a leader for the younger children who come to Living Waters, and now, studying at university to become a Civics teacher, still every day he tells everyone he meets how wonderfully Jesus is at work in his life, and how Jesus can do the same in their lives too! And what a glorious truth it is - Jesus will do the same in everyone’s lives, for those who give their lives to Him!