GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) — When Karen Rigueiro looks at old 5-by-7 photo prints from more than 20 years ago, it’s hard to hold back tears.
“We will never forget that day,” she recalled, speaking with 24 Hour News 8.
It was 1996. Rigueiro and her family were doing missionary work in Barcelona, Spain, when her son, then-8-year-old Josue, suddenly became very sick. Doctors at a Spanish hospital discovered he had a brain tumor but were unable to perform surgery. They told Rigueiro and her husband Pablo Rigueiro that Josue’s outlook was grim.
“I remember my husband telling me when this all started- I told him, ‘I don’t want Josue to die.’ And he responded, ‘He isn’t our son. God has just given him to us for a time,'” Karen Rigueiro said.
But it turned out that time wasn’t up just yet. A private plane owned by the DeVos family happened to be in nearby Madrid and the family had heard about Josue through their church in Grand Rapids.
Karen Rigueiro remembers her father receiving a call from a member of the DeVos family.
“(He) told him, ‘If your daughter can be ready within 24 hours, we will fly your grandson home, and your daughter, so that he can get the care that he needs,'” she said.
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