A piece of the puzzle - Having said that, I had prayed to God now that my mission was completed to be granted back my life as it was before all of these happened. I prayed and asked for more blessing to be able to make a living off of my paintings and writings to provide for myself and my family and live a comfortable life for the short remaining of my time on the Earth. Not many men love their wives unconditionally, as I did for nearly 30 great years! That’s why it hurts so much. I wanted our marriage to be a proof to other broken marriages that the holy unions exist if you give it all – unconditional love, loyalty, and devotions!

My friends, it is now also, worthy of mentioning that many years ago, one night, I had a dream that I was in the Pope John Paul II private airplane – Alitalia – with my father's cousin's wife* and her three children. I vividly remember the plane’s interior and layout was totally different than passenger jets I had traveled on. It was a business jet with a long couch on one side and a couple of large swivel seats on the other side with ample room in between and headroom to stand up.

The Pope walked in from his quarter in the back of the plane, fully dressed in his formal attire and his staff in his right hand. I rose and greeted him. My aunt, her daughter, and younger sons were sitting on the couch, looking at the Pope’s arrival. The Pope stopped before me, and after a brief greeting, he held up a lit red “BIC” lighter, ** while sighting a prayer in Latin. He then handed me the lighter as it was still lit and blessed me with the signing of the cross. The Pope put his hand on my shoulder and prayed for me. I kissed the Pope’s ring as he fatherly stroke my head, turned around, and went back to his quarter.

Dumb-founded and in a daze, all I can remember is that my aunt kept asking me to give her the lighter. But I refused and reminded her that there must be a reason that he gave it to me. Of course, now it makes a bit more sense to me with all of the recent revelations. Then I woke up! I told my wife of my dream the next day to her delight. I wrote down the dream as I had with many of my unusual dreams.

It should be noted that a few years before the revelation, I began to find red lighters. The first one I found was at the PGA National while biking on 3/22/09, at 6:30 PM, and then another one on the side of the road on 4/11/09. And the 3rd one on 7/27/09. And the 4th one on the beach but I don't have that date. I’m sure the reason why I wrote down the accurate dates and times and safely kept them in a plastic bag all these years, perhaps because of the dream and the red lighter. The irony is that almost all of them lit when I flicked them.

But the 5th one I found on the same beach at first, it looked like a black lighter. But when I picked it up, I realized it was red but wrapped with black electrical tape securing a piece of a thin black electrical wire to one side. I was puzzled as it didn't make any sense for anyone to do that.

Then suddenly, I remembered that one early morning, a few months earlier, when I went for a walk, and before I found this lighter, I came upon a very small and unusual makeshift refugee raft that had beached in the same area on Singer Island. It appeared that the occupants were successful in reaching Florida in the early morning, and they were long gone. All the beaches of south Florida are regularly monitored by the Coast Guard for the refugees landing with hardly any being successful. But this one had such a low profile that most likely was gone unnoticed.

I recall it was still very early morning, and the beach was void of people. I stopped for a long time and carefully examined the raft as I was taken back for its very odd constructions. It was so small and so primitively constructed using different discarded materials that I was amazed it had made it presumably all the way from Cuba.

The materials used were creatively assembled. They consisted of the front half of the hall of a small aluminum boat that was filled with styrofoam for buoyancy, that was attached to a small flat wooden deck made of 2x4 wooden planks. A short wooden mast, no more than a couple of meters high, was inserted into the hole in the middle of the deck. There were six encapsulated stuffed styrofoam in potato size sacks tied on both sides of this wooden deck to keep it afloat and barely above the water. A few truck’s metal pipes pieces were welded together with flat sheet metal at one end and a handle at the other for the rudder, and it was bolted down near the back to the wooden deck.

There was a tattered dark brown piece of fabric, perhaps used as the sail and a few empty plastic water containers and a few small empty metal food cans, and a bigger can with a makeshift wooden handle that was used for heating water or food as its outside was covered with black soot.

Intrigued, I was trying to put it all together to figure out how many persons were on this small raft and why there was evidence of controlled fire near the wooden mast. I assumed the flames were to keep warm or to boil water or cook food. And what would life have been on this barley above the watercraft? I’m guessing that maybe no more than two persons could have sailed on this raft. And most likely they had made it to America. (I had taken many pictures of the boat and will post some here once I locate them. It was also reported on the local news).

I concluded, and it all made sense that this lighter came from that “freedom boat.” And the wire was used to secure it to the raft’s mast, so it wouldn't get lost to the waves. I think I remember the other part one that black wire being attached to the wooden mast. And a more significant find was a pair of old pliers that I took, and I believe I still have.

03/6/13
At this point, with the load somewhat off of my shoulder, but still anguished, I feel, and I am very confident that God will lead me to my salvation! As I’m and always believed in Him and have been very blessed and will continue to be blessed and nothing will ever shake my belief and trust in Him!

Please
GIVE
Generously
Because you care!

___________________________

* The one who had made it big in trucking and transportation, generously put up $50,000 of his own hard-earned money to guarantee my financial support as one of the conditions for me coming to America in case I became a burden to America. I'm happy and proud to say I never became a burden. On the contrary, I was an employer for many years employing over 50 people in my companies.

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