Lourdes was born in Havana, Cuba. To escape Castro’s regime, when Lourdes was 10 years old, her family escaped Cuba. They left through Central America, and moved through Honduras, Guatemala and Mexico on a six month journey that ended in the United States. They settled in Westchester County. Lourdes became a citizen in her junior year of high school.
Raised a Catholic, Lourdes attended Catholic schools through college. It was in Westchester County that Lourdes met and married Michael, her husband who is an arborist. They have two children; Amanda and Adam and grandson Max.
Lourdes will always be thankful to her friend Chris Wells for introducing her and her children to HRC in 1991. After a few visits, she immediately knew she wanted to be a part of the church. She immediately began the new member’s process. She loved HRC but was not very connected and felt like she was missing “something”. That “something” was the presence of Jesus Christ in her heart.
In 1997, Kevin Phillip, then our Youth Director, randomly approached Lourdes and suggested she go on the Mountain TOP Mission with the Youth Fellowship. Even though she was befuddled by this, she accepted. This changed her life. She had never been involved in mission work, and really wasn’t sure about a two week trip with a “bunch of crazy teenagers”. Within hours of the trip, Lourdes began to really enjoy spending time the kids.
Mountain TOP was a significant life change for her. She experienced the joy and reward of doing God's work and became a Christian and accepted a life with Christ on a Thursday night in the Cumberland Mountains of Tennessee. On her return to New York, she knew she wanted to continue the joy she experienced working with teems and became a volunteer youth leader at HRC. She was hired in 2001 and is currently the Minister for Youth Missions and Worship at Hopewell.
Her greatest desire is to guide young people to experience the same joy in a life with Christ as she discovered in 1997.