Nothing foreshadowed the tremendous blow that Pamela Balda’s family would suffer that Thursday afternoon, on May 30, 2024. In the house where she lives with her parents and sister in Guayaquil, Ecuador, daily activities were going on as normal when, at around 1pm, her mother, Anita Mariela Desiderio Hinostroza, was the victim of a kidnapping while driving her car.
The news left immediate family members in a state of shock. Equally stricken were relatives, friends and acquaintances… The incident took place in broad daylight, on a busy street and, as is often the case, the initial efforts to locate Mariela’s whereabouts were unsuccessful.
First rescue attempt
Mariela’s family was visited by great suffering, in an unforseen way. At that moment, how did they keep their faith from being shaken?
As the hours passed, the ordeal weighed more and more heavily on all the family members, as their hearts were wrung with uncertainty, fear and anguish over Mariela’s fate. Pamela describes some details of the drama they underwent:
“We received many extortion messages, asking for an enormous sum of money, which we could not pay. Negotiating with the kidnappers, we agreed to pay them a certain amount for my mother’s release. We deposited the money, waited all night, until the early hours of the morning, but there was no sign of her arrival.
“In our despair, we thought she would never come back. To be honest, I had a crisis of faith, because the evil one usually takes advantage of these moments of anguish.”
But shortly afterwards, watching a video of the Heralds of the Gospel on the internet, Pamela felt as if God was speaking to her, and she regained her confidence. Nothing could be more natural. The trials and difficulties we go through are all the harder the more unexpected they are and the more they wound us in what we hold most precious; in this case, filial love.
In such circumstances, the temptation to despair can be strong, and if it had not been for supernatural help, Pamela, like anyone else, would have succumbed to the trial. However, being consecrated as a slave of love to Mary Most Holy, this Heavenly Mother came to her aid, showing her a way to obtain the grace she so anxiously desired: by requesting the intercession of Dona Lucilia.
Good advice at the opportune moment
Pamela continues her story:
“I had never heard of Dona Lucilia, but I learned about her because I have a childhood friend, whom I consider as a brother, in the Heralds of the Gospel. I had not spoken to him for a long time, but in this moment of distress I wanted to tell him what had happened, to ask for his prayers. So when I told him that my mother had been kidnapped, he advised me to turn to the intercession of Dona Lucilia, assuring me that she would bring her back. This took place on the evening of Tuesday June 4. From that moment, I began to pray insistently to her for my mom.
“The day after this conversation – Wednesday morning, June 5 – I prayed a rosary of ejaculatory prayers, begging Dona Lucilia to give me proof that my mother was alive. In the afternoon, at around 4 o’clock, the kidnappers sent us a voice message from my mom! It was definitely a ‘miracle’. For at least we knew that she was alive, and this served as motivation for the police to continue the search.”
A second rescue attempt
The sign that Pamela had asked Dona Lucilia for had been given, and she was quick to pass it on to the police officers, so that they too could enlist the help of this kind lady:
“I told them that Dona Lucilia had worked a ‘miracle’ for us. They were very interested, asked for her name and even wrote to me on WhatsApp asking for more information. I then sent them a YouTube link where some of her ‘miracles’ were reported.
“By the next day, Thursday June 6, they had already decided to look for the criminals. So I asked them to pray to Dona Lucilia because, if thanks to her I had received the sign that my mother was still alive, thanks to her we would also discover her whereabouts. And that is what they did.”
The search continued, with some encouraging results, but a new disappointment was in store for the kidnapped woman’s family:
“At seven in the evening the police told us that they had found two of the criminals involved in the case, and that supposedly one of them was going to show us where my mother was. He took the police to the place where she was being held, but mom was no longer there… It was a horrible moment, but something inside me told me that we were close to finding her, that I should not give up. So I continued to pray to Dona Lucilia.”
Finally, deliverance
Families and friends were united in prayer, asking God, through the intersession of Dona Lucilia for Mariela’s liberation from captivity
Pamela not only continued to pray, but also mobilized a prayer campaign, sharing her story with all her acquaintances and asking everyone to join in her supplications in order to obtain her mother’s release through the intercession of Dona Lucilia. And the result was not much longer in coming:
“In the early hours of Friday, June 7, the criminal who was holding my mother captive contacted me.”
The situation was very delicate, as the police had two of the kidnappers in custody, but had not yet discovered the rest of the gang or Mariela’s whereabouts, and it was feared that they would attempt to take her life in retaliation. There were a few more demands from the criminals and finally, at around 8:45pm, they said they would release her. In fact, she arrived home in less than half an hour.
The kidnappers left Mariela in a deserted, dark place. She had no idea where she was. Some police agents had even passed the spot, but they completely ignored her because they were unaware of what had happened. Finally, a man on a motorbike stopped and Mariela asked him for information. He very kindly offered to take her to the main street and even helped her get a taxi. For the family, this gesture could only have been the result of supernatural help.
Dona Lucilia makes her presence felt in the most varied circumstances, showing herself a mother for all seasons and in any difficulty
Pamela concludes her account as follows:
“Since Sunday June 2, we had prayed the Rosary and the novena to Our Lady of Fatima every night as a family, with the petition of my mother’s return. I had been praying the Rosary individually since she disappeared, and I still do today, but now together with my mom. I told her all about Dona Lucilia and she also has recourse to her intercession. I promised Dona Lucilia that I would pray a rosary of ejaculatory prayers to her every day, together with my parents and sister, until the end of my life.”
Thanks to Dona Lucilia’s help, Pamela had her family back together and, what is more – a gift of inestimable value – it was now founded firmly on faith and prayer. Such a family is prepared to face every kind of trial and difficulty.
Solving a financial problem
As we saw above, Pamela shared her afflictions and hopes with her acquaintances, asking for everyone’s prayers for her mother’s speedy release. This certainly did not happen by chance, but by divine inspiration, leading her to spread “the good odour of Christ” (2 Cor 2:15) by means of Dona Lucilia, so that she would intercede not only for the benefit of Pamela’s family, but also for the good of all the others who came to know about Mariela’s plight.
One beneficiary of this “mobilization” was Maria de Lourdes Ubilla Bustamante, also a resident of Guayaquil, who started out by asking Dona Lucilia to help Mariela and ended up being personally helped to solve a financial problem, as she herself recounts:
“I heard of Dona Lucilia through my daughter, because the mother of one of her best friends had been kidnapped and she was asking acquaintances and friends to pray and promise something to Dona Lucilia so that her mother would return safe and sound. I remember that when I found out, I started researching her and saw that she had worked many ‘miracles’.
“Together with my daughter, we prayed a lot for the kidnapped woman and, a few days later, we received the news of her release. Since then, we have not stopped praying to Dona Lucilia, and lo and behold, she granted me a favour too.”
Since 2022, Maria de Lourdes had been trying to obtain a large sum of money owed to her from the Ecuadorian Social Security Institute (IESS). In addition to the slowness typical of decisions made by this type of public body, the payment was constantly delayed. Finally, she decided to turn to Dona Lucilia.
“On June 12,” she recounts, “having a real need for this money, I asked Dona Lucilia, with great faith, to intervene. Shortly afterwards, I went up to my room and realized that I had received a notification by phone from IESS, stating that the problem had been resolved. I checked my bank account and – what a surprise! – they had deposited all the money owed at once. I am very grateful for the favour I received from Dona Lucilia. I am telling many people about it!”
Difficulty in getting help for their infant
Another family, in a completely different situation, received a very special grace from Dona Lucilia and would like to share it with our readers. We are speaking of Juliana Araújo Ferreira Rosa and her husband Leonardo Picinatto Rosa, who have already recounted in this magazine how their third daughter, Ana Maria, was cured of a cyst through the intercession of Dona Lucilia.1
Recently, the couple received another grace through the intercession of this kind protectress, to solve a small problem suffered by their youngest daughter, Mariana Lucilia.
Juliana tells us: “When Mariana Lucilia was born, I noticed that she had a very short lingual frenulum, which means that the sublingual tie was very close to the tip of her tongue, so she could not even stick her tongue out. This obviously hindered the child’s feeding process somewhat.”
For this reason, in the first week of her life little Mariana was gaining little weight, as she could not feed easily. Concerned about the situation, the couple took the child to the paediatrician, to see if there was some solution for this problem:
“The doctor said that she would have to have a small operation, something very simple which involved cutting the tongue tie. Once this was done, the baby would adapt and be able to feed properly.”
Their appointment with the doctor took place on a Monday. Eager to remedy the problem without delay, Juliana and Leonardo immediately went to several paediatric dentists to book the procedure, but none of them had an opening available that day or the next; they could only fit them in at the end of the week.
Finding themselves humanly powerless to help their daughter, they both decided to ask Dona Lucilia to intercede for her.
Case solved, without surgery!
Juliana’s story continues:
“Early that morning, at around three o’clock, Mariana woke up hungry and, while I was attending to her, I remembered to pray the Chaplet of Divine Mercy asking, through the intercession of Dona Lucilia, for her problem to be solved.
“In the morning, while I was preparing some vitamins for her to take, Mariana started crying because she wanted to feed. I then perceived that her tongue tie had detached itself… It was amazing! I immediately thanked Dona Lucilia, because she had come up with a solution sooner than we expected. We just wanted to find a doctor who would do the procedure straight away, and she interceded so that the tie was detached without surgery…”
After turning to Dona Lucilia to schedule their daughter’s surgical procedure, the couple received the favour of the baby no longer needing it
Having sent a photograph of Mariana Lucilia’s tongue to her paediatrician to explain what had happened, the doctor replied in amazement that he had never seen anything like it… From that day on, the child began to eat much better and, at her routine appointment with the specialist the following week, it was found that she had gained more than twice as much weight as the week before, proof that the problem had been completely resolved.
Juliana tells us: “The doctor assessed Mariana and said: ‘I cannot believe it, but the tie has detached by itself! It looks like someone did the surgery, leaving her tongue normal.’”
The paediatrician’s reaction, from a scientific point of view, is clearly understandable. That is why he wrote a report stating that in all his years in the profession he had never seen a problem of this kind resolved without surgery and, furthermore, without leaving any mark.
For Juliana and Leonardo, the solution to the case has a name: “Another grace that we attribute to Dona Lucilia’s intercession! And with this we can confirm that she truly takes care of everything!” ◊
Notes
1 See the article An Attentive and Generous Mother, published in this same section in Heralds of the Gospel magazine, issue 190, of August 2023.
