Thirty-Two Miracles
How God Healed Josue Romero and Brought Him from Honduras to The Master’s University
Of the more than 1,200 undergraduate students enrolled at The Master’s University for the fall of 2023, Josue Romero might be the most unlikely. He is from Siguatepeque, Honduras. His hometown is 3,100 miles from The Master’s University. And because it’s a foreign country, he needs a student visa just to get into the States. He also does not have the money to pay his way to TMU. Josue’s dad, Melvin, has pastored the same evangelical church for more than 20 years. While Josue has never wanted for life’s basic necessities, his family couldn’t afford a TMU education without help. But as much as the distance and the finances have made Josue a candidate for least likely student at The Master’s University, they aren’t the main reason, not by a longshot. His enrollment at TMU is so unexpected. The biggest obstacle Josue faced not just on his journey to TMU but also in life was Osteogenesis Imperfecta, also known as brittle bone disease.
Josue was born with the disease, though his parents didn’t know it at the time. They assumed their third child—and first boy—was healthy until he started crying whenever someone, including his mother and father, would hold him. He acted as if he was in pain until he was put back in his crib. That was certainly odd. Nearly all children would rather be held by their parents then placed in a crib. Yet the opposite was the case with Josue. Then as the weeks and months went by, they started to notice something even more concerning. Josue’s body would not fully straighten. When laying down, he always seemed to curl into a ball. When on the ground, Josue’s body never straightened completely. Multiple visits to the doctor’s office gave them no answers. The doctors insisted Josue was healthy, that his parents were concerned for no reason. It wasn’t until Josue developed an eye infection that his parents got answers.
“The Ophthalmologist noticed a blue coloring in his pupils” Melvin, Josue’s father, said. “After we told her about his other symptoms, she sent us for further testing, telling us that Osteogenesis Imperfecta, or brittle bone disease, was a possibility.”
Brittle bone disease is a rare genetic disorder. It affects 1 of every 20,000 people. Bodies afflicted by the disease struggle to produce collagen, a protein that strengthens bones. Those with severe cases often die in infancy. Those with mild versions can live normal, healthy lives, the only side effect being a limit on physical activity since bones break a little easier than the average person. Josue’s case was not the most severe, but it wasn’t mild. Without treatment, there was concern that his bones would continually break, and his body would struggle to grow and develop properly. Unfortunately, there were no treatment options in Honduras. The country did not have the medical resources to care for a patient with such a rare disease. That meant if Josue was going to have any hope at treatment and a normal life, they would have to go outside the only country the Romero’s had ever called home.
“Through hours of research, I learned that our only hope for treatment was the United States” Melvin said. “Several hospitals there had treatment programs for kids with brittle bone disease. I contacted each of them, asking if they could treat my son. All said that was impossible because of our international status. Only one allowed us to even fill out an application for their treatment program and that was a Shriners Children’s Hospital in Tampa Bay, Florida, but they said they probably wouldn’t accept it.”
At this point, Josue was six months old and his parents had little hope their son would live a normal, healthy life. It seemed inevitable that he would suffer and die at a young age. Without divine intervention, Josue was not going to receive the treatment he needed. But his parents were not people of little faith. Melvin was well-trained in the Scripture, having graduated from the TMAI training center in Honduras. He’d seen God save souls and transform lives in his congregation. He knew that the God who sent His Son to die on the cross was certainly powerful enough to provide the treatment Josue needed. So, the Romero’s started praying and they decided to take the next step in faith. Melvin went to the American embassy to obtain a visa for the States. Those are hard to come by in Honduras and they often take years to obtain. But God provided visas for Melvin and Josue in less than six months. One obstacle down. Now Melvin needed to somehow purchase two plane tickets from Honduras to Tampa for him and Josue. They didn’t have the $3,000 it was going to cost. A friend offered to put the tickets on his credit card. That incredible generosity took care of the second obstacle. But that still left the biggest roadblock of all. Melvin had no guarantee that Shriners hospital would even see Josue when they showed up. In fact, that seemed like a remote possibility. Still, Melvin was determined to make the trip and see if he could convince the hospital to see his son. The night before the flight, the Romeros were celebrating Josue’s first birthday when Melvin received a phone call from the friend in Tampa who had hand-delivered Josue’s application to the hospital. Shriners had accepted Josue’s application and they would be ready to see him when he arrived. Three obstacles. Three miracles. Still, the future was daunting. They hadn’t even seen the doctors yet. They had no idea if Josue’s condition was even treatable.
“At our first appointment, the doctors at Shriners tell us that with treatment, Josue can live a healthy, normal life” Melvin said. “Obviously that’s wonderful news, but in order to care for Josue properly, we’d need to come back to Shriners in Tampa several times a every year until he turned 18. That was an incredibly daunting thought. It’d taken a miracle to get visas the first time and I had no idea how we were going to afford all those trips to the United States each year for the foreseeable future. But I knew God had provided so far. My job was to trust him, take the next step, and believe that he cares for my son. If I do that, he will receive glory no matter what happens.
What followed was a string of providences that are too long to include in one story. Over the next 17 years, Josue and Melvin would come to Tampa 22 times. For each trip, the Lord provided the visas they needed and the plane tickets. At least half of those times, the airline gave the Romeros free flights to and from Honduras so that Josue could get the treatment he needed.
“This is God’s story, not Josue’s” Melvin often points out. “He performed 32 miracles on behalf of my son. It’s extraordinary to look back and see how God worked the impossible as we trusted in him and simply took the next step.”
Near the end of Josue’s treatment, God performed the greatest of all miracles. When Josue was 14 years old, the Lord brought him from spiritual death to life, saving him from his sins, rescuing him from the domain of darkness and transferring him to the kingdom of his beloved son (Col 1:13).
“In God’s kindness, he uncovered some secret sin in my life” Josue said. “I realized I was living a double-life, pretending to be a Christian at church and school while only thinking about myself at other times. After a series of messages during a conference, I realized I was not living for Christ. I was living for myself, and I wanted to repent and follow my Savior.”
God had now healed Josue both physically and spiritually. His life belonged to Christ. Josue wanted to serve his King, but he didn’t know how. Clarity in that area started to come a couple years later, when as a junior in high school, Josue met a remarkable group of college students from America.
“In the summer of 2021, the first GO team from The Master’s University came to Honduras” Josue said. “They worked with the TMAI center that our church had connections with. I met those students and was amazed at their passion for Christ, their eagerness to serve him.”
Near the end of the GO Team’s stay in Honduras, a TMU student suggested that Josue considered attending the university. It was the first time the idea of an education at TMU had ever crossed Josue’s mind. Because of the proximity of the TMAI training center, he’d known about The Master’s University for a long time, but he’d never seriously considered it because of the distance and finances. He didn’t think it was possible to afford it. The student encouraged him to at least apply and to make sure he applied for financial aid. Josue committed to doing that, but even as he did, he still didn’t think an education at TMU was possible. But after graduating from high school and working for a year, Josue followed through on his promise, applying to TMU and requesting financial aid. What came back was far more than he could ask or think. The Master’s Global scholarship, funded through the John MacArthur Charitable Trust, provided significant financial aid, making it possible for Josue to attend the school of his dreams.
“Even when I was packing this summer, I honestly still didn’t think it was real” Josue said. “It wasn’t until I actually arrived on campus that I realized I was actually going to be a student here.”
Josue is majoring in entrepreneurial studies, developing friendships, thinking deeply about the biblical truth he’s hearing in the class and during chapel. If the Lord allows Josue to graduate from TMU, he wants to return to Honduras and perhaps work with the TMAI center there. He wants to use what he learns at TMU to serve the church in Honduras.
“Everything I’ve been given is grace” Josue said. “None of it is deserved. That’s the lesson of my life. God healed my body. He saved me. And now I pray he uses me for his glory. I’m so thankful to be here at TMU, the perfect place to learn how to honor him for the rest of my life.”
