Gerardo Valencia, from a Tough Childhood to Starting His Real Estate Agency

–I've been through severe hunger, days without eating. I had tuberculosis, when people were dying from this disease. I managed to get ahead, I am a total survivor.

Gerardo Valencia was born in a very poor room in La Línea (Cádiz) where, when it rained, more water fell inside than outside, where the gaps in the door and window were covered with pieces of wood. He slept on the concave lid of a trunk, which once opened could be filled with rags to serve as a mattress. He has a scar on one ear from a rat bite.

–We used a bucket for our needs. A neighbor let us take one or two buckets of water a day. We had no cups, we drank chicory coffee from preserved food cans. The only toy I had as a child was a tennis ball I found in the street. I went out to beg for charity from the neighborhood, to find a piece of hard bread from those who wanted to help us. With my four siblings, we lived through a hell of fear, famine, and helplessness. My father always came home after drinking a lot. He would beat us terribly, and my mother, then force himself on her and make another child. We lived like in a concentration camp. There was nothing but hunger, pain, and fear. Always fear.

Gerardo Valencia was twelve years old when his mother decided to end her life by ingesting hydrochloric acid. She left behind five children, the youngest only seven months old, all products of rapes by her brother-in-law.

–When I arrived at the Home of Child Jesus or the City of Boys in Sevilla, I had no father or mother. That’s why I am grateful to Father Trenas, for taking away my hunger. The only affection I found was his dedication to me and the other 300 children he took in at his boarding school. He helped us move forward by giving us education and culture.

Manuel Trenas (Málaga 1914–Sevilla 1981) was crucial in founding the brotherhood of the Javieres in Sevilla. Unlike other elitist religious brotherhoods, such as the Luises or the Estanislaos, the Javieres focused on education and proximity to poverty. A sign at the entrance of the home read: “Today's children are tomorrow's men. If we abandon them, we have no right to complain about society being bad.”

–From the first day, I realized that Father Trenas was committed to fighting for us. He allowed us to eat and study to become good people tomorrow. With command armbands, we monitored each other. My situation was not that of a child who failed a subject, but of someone who had no one to care about his education. Thanks to my good grades, from the age of thirteen to seventeen, I studied high school at an institute in Sevilla outside the boarding school.

His gratitude for the priest led him to get the Sevilla City Council to dedicate a street to him. And now he is working to promote the canonization of someone he claims: He was a saint, he never laid a hand on us.

After leaving the City of Boys, due to differences with the Home, he returned to La Línea, where after a while he decided to head to France in search of a better future. He did not find it. After working as a construction laborer in Lyon or carrying barrels and carboys in Paris, he set out to travel to the United Kingdom.