I never knew my natural father, Roland Barboza. My parents broke up before I was of such an age to remember. I only knew a couple of things about him. I knew that he was an alcoholic and that he wasn’t faithful to my mom. But, even with those few sketchy details, I still wanted to know him.

When I was still young, my life took a dramatic turn on a Saturday. My brother and I had been badgering our mother because we wanted to see our father. He’d committed to come by on a Saturday morning. My mom, at the time, was living with a guy. I was too little to comprehend that. We called him Mr. Oscar, but we knew we had a father named Roland. We got up early that morning and were sitting on the porch waiting for our dad. We waited a couple hours and he didn’t come, so we told our mom we were going to play, and to tell us when he got there. Needless to say, Saturday passed and reality set in. We knew he wasn’t coming and we were devastated.

I call that day “Heartbreak and Hope on a Saturday”. That night, my brother and I sat and talked, and we realized that our dad really didn’t want to be our dad. But, we knew we needed a dad. We said, “Let’s make Mr. Oscar our dad.” Somehow, we concluded that was the greatest plan. We decided that we were not going to call him Mr. Oscar any longer, but we were going to call him “Dad”.  That Sunday morning he greeted us like he usually did. We said, “Good morning, Daddy!”  I couldn’t tell that it impacted him in any way, but from that day on we called him, “Dad”.

Later, he went to my mom and told her they needed to get their divorces finalized and to get married and make it right, because us boys were calling him, “Daddy”.  We were two little boys, not even knowing that God was using us in covenant and in blessing. From that day on, we never knew lack. He was a leader in the church and took me to visit the sick. He taught me how to tie a tie and told me I must honor women. He showed me that honor, respect, and good character were things worthy to have.