The Odds Were Slim to None, But God...

December 2008. Estevan Medina needed urgent help. “I remember walking into the hospital, and they could tell I was drunk. They gave me a breathalyzer, and the breathalyzer was a 0.67. And the doctor was like, ‘I don't know how you are having a coherent conversation with me right now. You should be in a coma or dead’.” It was pneumonia that landed Estevan in the hospital, but doctors soon found more. His liver was failing giving him only a 5% chance of living a few more weeks. He recalls, “My mind was just going a hundred miles an hour, you know, in disbelief and just struggling with it. Where did my life go? I didn't even get to live life.”  

Though just 28, Estevan had spent nearly half his life behind bars, starting when he was 12. For him, prison felt safer than home. Estevan says about prison, “I wasn't gonna have to worry about my next meal. I wasn't gonna worry where I was gonna lay my head at night. I felt secure.” Raised by drug-addicted parents, Estevan found acceptance by joining a gang, entering a cycle of crime and incarceration. In 2003, at 23-years-old Estevan married Lisa while serving time for a parole violation. After his release, Lisa pushed for change. She says, “I wanted him to get out of the gangs and I wanted him to work, and we wanted to build a family.”  Yet, Estevan recalls, “I feel like, when I got out, I didn't have a purpose. So, I started drinking. What it did was create more problems. My home now was chaotic.”

As his drinking spiraled out-of-control, Estevan realized he’d become like the man he hated… his dad. Estevan recalls, “Even though it wasn't with hard drugs, it, I was just like him with alcohol. And I came home one day, and me and my wife were fighting and I went to pick up my son and he gave me a look and he pulled away from me. And that look, and the way he pulled away reminded me of me when I was a kid, and it broke my heart.”  Wracked with guilt, Estevan left and would spend the next two years homeless …… drowning himself in alcohol. He recalls, “I would get a gallon of vodka and sit there and drink that; I’d kill that within a 24-hour period.  Then in December 2008, after landing in the hospital with pneumonia, he learned his liver was failing and he was dying. Lisa, despite her bitterness, went to see him. She says, “I really wanted to tell him how disappointed I was in him, and I actually felt compassion and the love that I still had for him when I saw him in the hospital.”

Unsure what to do, Lisa turned to her Christian mother for hope and guidance. Lisa recalls the talk, “She told me, only God can help. And I said, well, I want him to come into my life. I'm ready to give my life to him 'cause I need his help. I felt at peace, and I felt free from my own sin. I felt God's spirit come over me at that moment.”  That same evening, Estevan, alone in his hospital room, started blaming others for his condition. He says, “Then I get to God and I'm like, ‘God, if you're real, why? Why are you letting me? Why are you letting this happen to me?’ And I heard a voice, and it said, ‘I didn't do this to you. Your sin did this to you’. And I realized that nobody put me there but myself. I was like, ‘God, help me because I don't want to be like this no more’. Took the scared feeling away, it took the fear, it just took it.” The next morning Lisa returned, and now both saved, the two reconciled. Now they determined to trust God, despite the doctors’ grim outlook. Estevan says, “They didn't give us no hope. No, they didn't, they didn't want to try anything. They looked at my appearance, they looked at my background, and the doctors pretty much said, ‘we don't help people like you. You did this to yourself. These are the consequences.”

Amazingly, Estevan hung on nine more months, even as his body continued to deteriorate.  Still, he and Lisa believed God for a healing. She believed, “In the darkest times, you praise God because that is when God moves the greatest. I would continue to, to say, my husband is not gonna die. He's gonna live. And they would look at me like I was crazy, but I kept going. I kept going by faith and not by sight.”  His one chance was a liver transplant. Standing before the transplant review board, Estevan needed to convince them to put him on the organ recipient list. Estevan recalls the meeting, “I prayed and surrendered it to God. There was no positive accomplishments from my past that I could use or say. The only thing that I was able to tell 'em is that I've surrendered my life to Jesus Christ. I want to raise my kids, and I want to help others.” Now frail and ashen, Estevan waited as weeks passed without word. Then on July 6th the letter came. He recalls, “We open it, and it says, congratulations, you've been able to be put on the transplant list. So, me and my wife are, you know, hallelujah. I praise God. And the doctors come in and they're like, ‘don't get your hopes up. Most people wait up to five years, like, you're gonna probably die waiting’.” 

Three days later, they had a perfect match. Lisa recalls, “We were definitely shouting and just praising God for this miracle that he was doing and that the promise had come.” Following the 15-hour surgery, Estevan started recovering immediately. Six months later his new liver was working perfectly. Both Estevan and Lisa knew without a doubt their miracle came through prayer and faith in God. Estevan says, “He brought everything back. Like, you know, my family, the love, my life. He's just amazing.” Lisa is happy too, “I just felt like so thankful again to God and just like so excited that, now we could live life again. My husband could go on with his life and just that God is just good and faithful to his promises.” Today, Estevan shares his story of redemption and healing with youth, gang members, and inmates, proving that through Jesus, there’s always hope. He believes, “It's possible to change no matter what we've been through, no matter what lifestyle we've had. No matter what situation you're in life, there's hope, no matter how bad it seems, there's hope and through Jesus Christ.”