Written by Titus (Lara's brother)

Lara was born with a congenital heart disease. Her heart was twice the normal size than it should have been and she had open heart surgery at the age of 7 years!

It was a total miracle that she ever survived this operation and was told that her life expectency would be short and doctors said that if all went real well she would live until her early teens if even that long.

She always had a respect for the Lord and was interested in hearing about Jesus. At one point at the age of 16 she happened upon a tele-evangelist program on healing which spoke to her. On this program the evangelist was encouraging anyone with any illness to place their lives in the Lord's hands that He could heal them completely. Having heard this, she then prayed for the Lord to totally heal her and took a stand to thow away her pills which she had been taking pretty much her entire life! She told the Lord that if He would heal her that she would then serve Him. (The only catch being that she had no idea how she might do this!)

Sure enough, the Lord did heal her! From that time on, Lara stopped having heart murmers that she had been accustomed to having on a regular basis. Not long thereafter, while at a concert in our home town of Lubbock, Texas, with Elena and their friend they were approached by a couple of the brethren who began to witness to them. Elena having been a proclamed athiest, received Jesus that night and Lara found her service for the Lord! At that time, Lara was 17 years old.

Elena and Lara began visiting this strange group of Gospel gypsies every day. I was so curious to find out what they had been so interested in together as they had not gotten along all that well before, but were now the best of friends!

So I asked to go along one day. That day I received the Holy Ghost (I had been saved already for some years thanks to a roving evangelist that came to our town). I was only 13 at the time. We all became catacombers for the next year until Lara was of age at 18 and left to join full time. It was shortly thereafter that our mother signed legal documents for Elena then 17 and myself, 14, to join the Family full time in Selah Texas.

Lara served the Lord in Texas, Italy, Spain and then returned to the States with her mate Gath. They had left the Family for a while, but she kept tithing.

At this point, her health became increasingly worse having given birth to two children (another total mind-blower for the doctors).

At her home, on the couch where she laid down for a little rest, Lara passed on to her reward in 1982. She is with us still helping us all along! One year after she passed away almost to the day, our daughter Lara was born who was passed to Gioia (my wife) in a dream from her Aunt Lara!

We miss having her here on earth but are so excited that we have a special someone that is fighting for us on the other side! --Titus (in Taiwan)