By AdventistNews@gc.adventist.org (Axel Domingues as told to Andrew McChesney, Adventist Mission)

My sister committed suicide when she was 14.
Overcome with grief, my mother decided to have another child, a girl. To her disappointment, she gave birth to me — a boy.
Mother raised me in the southern Portuguese town of Faro with a brother who was nine years older. Father lived in the Middle East, working in construction.
Mother was perpetually sad. That sadness deepened when Father got a divorce and my brother left home. Then she was hospitalized with cancer and I, only 11, was sent to live…

Source:: sda website