This book is just a collection of “cuentos”, stories and anecdotes I went through in my 80 something years of life. I started writing them in 2014. This is the way I remember them. It is not written in perfect or academic English. This is the way I speak in English. When I was giving lectures, I spoke “academics”, now I just care to communicate, if possible. It was a merry diversion to pen in a manner most unacademic for a while.
Many English speakers often ask me to repeat myself up to three times before they understand what I’m saying, but I think it’s mainly because of my accent. I hope my writing is clear for you here..
When I was studying, I always had a picture of a spiral in front of me. I saw myself at a point on the bottom round of a spiral and slowly, or extremely fast, getting up the spiral and arriving at the same point but higher, perfected and refined. Each new walk toward the next point was easier.
Goals and objectives were clear for me since I was a child. I did not know what to call them when I was a child or a young student, but they were there in the spiral. Going up.
When I went to study in the United States, the English teacher told me I was an achiever. I had to look at the word in a dictionary. I was surprised. I did not know that I was that.
I wanted to help fix the world. I saw injustices, and I was looking for a way to fix that. After I obtained my Master of Arts in Journalism, I went back to Chile and became a member of the Communist party.
Later, when I returned to the States to obtain my doctorate, a professor that I admired, Dr. Mark Seng, told me again that I was an achiever. Wow.
Reading academic books in English was easier than reading newspapers. Academic English uses lots of words that were originally in Latin or Greek. Spanish and French are Latin languages. I was taught how to look for the etymology of words at the Journalism school, I learned the Greek alphabet and characters and much Greek vocabulary.
My father had bought me a small Fiat car that could not handle curves in the mountains. I wanted to exchange it for another car so I could take my parents to the beach. I saved every penny I earned as a young journalist and at the end of the first year after I got a job, I exchanged my Fiat for a Citroën Deux Chevaux. Free of debt, no loan. I give credit to my father for that. He was allergic to borrowing money. I took my parents, not only to the beach, but anywhere they wanted to go.
At that time in Chile, it was important to know people to get somewhere. If you knew the daughter of a banker, for instance, it was easier for you to get a loan. I was totally opposed to that.
My goal was not to rely on the people my father knew to obtain anything or get somewhere. I won all my scholarships by merit. I did it by myself, studying, reading, applying, I thought. Now I know that God, my heavenly Father, and people that know Him were behind, in the middle and in the front of everything I thought I did. He was just waiting for me to realize it. I thought I didn’t know what faith was. Now I know that I acted in faith and achieved my goals. When I reached them, God said, “OK, now it is your turn to see what I have done with your life. You thought it was you. No. I was carrying you. Now you will help to bring my Word to all corners of the world.”
At that time, going to small home-based prayer groups and attending Sunday School, I realized that communist cells are really based on that original system of the Christian Church. Just cells without God! Nothing works without God in your life, or in the life of all members of the party or Church.
Then the achiever became a server and a doer in the most obscure part of publishing. When a Bible in a language that never has been translated before is published and finally presented to the community that was waiting for it, nobody mentions the person that trained the translators to use a computer and the software to input the text and check it for errors and inconsistencies. Only the organization and the linguists or scholars that trained the translators are mentioned or invited to the ceremonies.
That was a very humbling experience. After all my earlier achievements, I was not in the picture anymore, and I am so grateful for that lesson.
When I recognized my desperate need for accepting that God sent His son to pay for my sins, it was glorious. Such an amazing release in my heart. My soul felt lighter.
God sees me as a new creature now. The one He originally created at the beginning. Ready to learn how to get to know Him every day better. Ready to live in His loving embrace. Ready to be tuned to the Holy Spirit guidance. Without stains.
No need to remember my sins anymore. No need to write about them. Gone!
I learned that spiritual achievements are what God is patiently waiting for, not degrees or titles or certificates. For the Lord is good forever, not only when you are living in this world, but forever, for Eternity!
Acknowlegments
- First, to my parents Dr. Pedro Arsenio Beltrán Neira and Maria Beatriz Antonieta Peeters Andrade.
- Then to my best friend forever Karelin Seitz. She opened my eyes, by example, to what it takes to be a Christian, not a follower of a religion.
- To the nuns who told me that I was too inquisitive.
- To my teachers at La Maisonnette French School in Chile. Especially, to the founder Madame Gabriela Yáñez de Figueroa, a visionary.
- To my professors at University of Chile, University of Georgia and University of Texas, plus Texas Women’s University, East Texas University, and Barry University in Miami, FL.
- To Cheryl Lany Juarez who introduced me to C. S. Lewis books.
- To Suzanne Grumelot, a World Team Missionary in France, for her friendship during all these years.
- To Kenneth Copeland Ministries for teaching me about faith.
- To Kairos Prison Ministry for teaching me about listening without giving my opinion or advice.
- To Home for Bible Translators and Scholars (HBT) in Israel and many other ministries that are too many to list here.
- To all my students. All. Those in Chile at the University of Chile in Chillan, the University of the North in Antofagasta, University of Texas in Austin, South Florida Center for Theological Studies, and NOVA Southwestern University.
- Special thanks to Dra Yolanda Camacho and Dra Sulynet Torres for trusting in me as their advisor in many ways.
- To all the people I met and befriended at Las Brisas Village Condominiums in Miami, Florida, Grand Prairie Mountain Creek Homeowners Association, at Chateau at Wildbriar Lake, Overture Highland, and Overture Fairview in Texas.
- To all my Facebook friends and X followers also too many to list here.
- To all who know who I am. If you know me, thanks.
An Ear by Mistake 