From broken heart to boundless hope
Today, Dr. Danny Gonzalez serves God and practices
medicine in Costa Rica.
By LACC staff
Danny knew his dad was no good. His father often came home drunk and beat his mother. Yet when Danny’s mother took him and fled, his heart was grieved all the same.
“Like every child, I loved my dad, and I didn’t want him to go,” Danny recalls.
They went to live with his grandparents in Linda Vista, a rough barrio of Costa Rica.
“The place was dangerous — lots of drugs and violence,” Danny says.
Maybe even worse than the violence was the stigma . . . children growing up in Linda Vista were thought to have no future.
“It’s as if every child there grows up with a label on their forehead: ‘loser’ or ‘failure,’” he says.
Then the Assemblies of God church in the neighborhood began to build a school, and Danny’s mother enrolled him. He enjoyed classes at the Latin America ChildCare school, but he was sad because most of his classmates had fathers in their lives . . . and he felt all alone.
“One day my teacher said something that changed my life forever,” Danny says. “She told me that I had a Father in heaven who would be my protector and help me fulfill my dreams. The label on my forehead was changed from ‘loser’ to ‘God’s son’.”
Danny went on to excel in school and to participate in ministry. After graduation, he was chosen for a scholarship that would send him to medical school.
“I used to tell my mom, ‘When I grow up, I want to be a doctor.’ She would respond with tears in her eyes, ‘Study hard, trust in God, and when you grow up, you can be a doctor.’”
Danny went to medical school in Cuba. School rules required that he spend his freshman year on campus almost all the time. As soon as he had liberty to visit the surrounding neighborhood, Danny found a church; he also became active in ministry throughout his years of college education and medical school.
Danny launched a student ministry among fellow students from all over the world that grew from seven students to over 200 during his second year of medical school. In the community where he served his internship, he developed a children’s ministry called Friends of the King — which now has clubs in 13 churches around the island.
Danny graduated from medical school in 2007 and is now practicing medicine in Costa Rica.
“Today, I am serving God with all my heart,” he says. “And it all started with the transformation power that was planted in my heart by my teacher at the Latin America ChildCare School.”
“Latin America ChildCare gives children the possibility of realizing their dreams,” says Ken Dahlager, director of LACC. “There is tremendous power in the Seed when it is planted in the heart of a child.” To be a part of planting that Seed in the heart of a child through sponsorship, go to www.lacc4hope.org to learn how or to get more information.