"Help bring a loving couple together: Ernest's dream to help his wife in Cuba heal and for her to join him in Dallas."

My wife suffered a broken leg when an automobile struck her last year.  The accident occurred as she rode her bicycle on the road, (the Carretera) near her home. Her thigh bone was severed in the accident.She’s undergone several setbacks after her initial surgery including months of rehabilitation and post operation infections. Today her thigh bone is still un-infused after a year of supposed “mending”. She is now scheduled to go through another surgery, a relatively complicated, eight hour operation in early November 2013. The doctors will remove the ineffective metallic internal leg implants, graft tissues to re seal the bone and insert external metallic pins to aid in the bone’s fusion.

My wife is Cuban.  Her name is Iyolexis Morales Quiala. Iyolexis, we call her “Yoli”, is of strong faith, unrelenting resilience, andever present courage. She lives in Siboney, a small village in the central province of Camaguey, Cuba.We were married in Camaguey, April 21, 2009 before her family, friends and neighbors. We met quite accidentally, on April 29, 2003, as I was traveling by road delivering humanitarian aid to several churches in Eastern Cuba. I am her husband, a US citizen awaiting the decision of the US Department of Immigration to allow her to live here in the USA with me and begin the path-to-citizenship.  For the past ten years since we met, I visited her once or twice each year.  In 2012, near the time of Yoli’s accident I became temporarily unemployed which has prevented me from visiting her when she needs me the most. While languishing in the hospital, she became convinced to sell the goats she had painstaking raised on her small farm for subsistence, in order to support her mother and siblings, The emotional roller coaster ride we are undergoing is little compared to the pain and hardships she faced then and manages to endure today.. We made the tough decision for me to stay put in the U.S., to wait, and join her later.She courageously and unselfishly asked that I stay home during her early recovery period assuring me that her family- her mother who remains by her side, her cousins (one an orthopedic doctor and the other a nurse)- cared for her.

We are sorely challenged by long distance love-not only in miles but in financial resources. Moreover, there exists a huge gulf of barriers between the U.S.and Cuba;obstacles which have been rigidly in place for fifty years. Still we abide, and endure. Our love for one another, our commitment to each other and our resolve to nurture our love persistently trumps any external barrier or obstacle we face, and has strengthened our bonds infinitely, beyond measure. We are stronger and more devoted to one another than yesterday.

I need your help.

I seek to raise $6,000. That level of funding would allow Yoli and me to be together this November; a week before the scheduled surgery,during the surgery itself and afterwards for a couple of weeks to assist in her initial recover/rehabilitation stages. A total of $8,000 raised would provide for all the immediate needs listed above, and provide for her transportation to the USA upon the successful conclusion of the immigration application process for permanent residence.

For those who wish to know more of our relationship,please read more then in the addendum and view the video.

Very truly yours,

Ernest