Author: Ana Barajas

Ana Barajas is a writer for Hieroes Organization since 2014. She is a conservative, yet open-minded Christian seeking to empower others via the Word of God. Ana believes in abstinence until marriage and believes Christ has concealed the perfect match for those who dare live out God's will. Ana also engages in relationships with teen moms to aid in the rewiring of their brain in hopes to establish healthy attachments between them and their babies. This prevents the cyclical child neglect and abuse. There is so much more to this young lady. If you wish to learn more about Ana, please contact her. She loves meeting new people!

Mind Set on Christ and Victory Over Mental Health

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I have made it part of my journey to fight for my mind. Especially being someone who’s lived with PTSD since the age of 5 years old: from vivid demonic dreams, to fighting to decipher if my thoughts are reality or just part of a symptom (but a post on specifications for another day).   This year has been challenging for the obvious reason, but this year I have also experienced the most victorious mental health moments of my life. I want to share that I have been experiencing so much joy in the mist of chaos. When the pandemic hit I found myself in a hopeful and blissful state […]

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Children of Christ, Hope, Men and Women, Our Humanness

Interview with an Indian-American Christian Woman: Part 2

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My conversation with Anu Skariah became very honest very quickly… I asked Anu, “How does religion influence your culture and marriage?” Anu: “Christ is at the foundation of my marriage; however, I wasn’t raised that way. There were some traditional things that my husband and I bypassed because we saw that they were rooted in the Hindu religion. Although we did have a traditional Orthodox Christian wedding, some of the elements of the wedding had a Hindu tracing. When our children were born there were things that our families expected us to do, but that we declined because we saw that they were rooted in the Hindu religion. One such practice is that the […]

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Children of Christ, Community

Interview with an Indian-American Christian Woman: Part 3

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This was my favorite part of my conversation with Anu Skariah  because of her vulnerability… On a more serious note, Anu was honest in sharing about her experience with prejudice and discrimination. Anu: “I have experienced prejudice. My first experience, that I can remember was in the 5th grade. As a class, we went to read to the kindergarteners and first graders. I remember a Caucasian girl looking frantic to join a reading group. When I invited her to mine, she looked around and said, ‘No, I want someone that’s white.’ Her name was Brittany and recalling that event still makes me sad. Later, in high school and middle school I was called names and made […]

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Interview with an Indian-American Christian Woman: Part 1

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I had an amazing virtual conversation with Anu Skariah, a deaconess from my church. Anu is an Indian-American, Christian, middle class woman. I was very curious to learn about her culture as a whole and about her views of marriage and faith in relation to her culture. Me: “What are the most important values and beliefs of your culture?” Anu: “The most important values and beliefs in my culture depend greatly on which state in the country you were raised. However, a high value on education and preserving the Indian culture are two things that are important to the people of India.”  Here I understood that the people of India are proud and […]

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Dominant Influences of My Cultural Shaping Part 4: External Influences

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I didn’t have a complete picture of my racial identity until I became a Christian, I was twenty-one years old. I don’t remember anyone taking me by the hand and mentoring me until the age of twenty-three, when I met my pastor Ismael Vargas. He modelled for me how he takes his Puerto-Rican American culture and roots it in Christ. I once shared with him I didn’t feel adequate because I’m Hispanic and a woman. His response blew my mind. He said, “Yes, you are Hispanic and a woman, but you are a Hispanic woman of God. You belong to God and any door is closed or opened by God. […]

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Children of Christ, Community, Men and Women, Prejudice~Injustice~Racism~Segregation

Dominant Influences of My Cultural Shaping Part 5: Light at the End of the Tunnel

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The cultural values I currently hold from my Mexican ethnicity include family closeness and responsibility, attending church regularly, attending all family functions, cooking, food, and celebration, as well as dressing up, and lastly being a hard and persevering worker. On the other hand, the values that I carry from my American culture include being punctual to events, as mentioned above freedom of expression, education, and growing as an individual. My basic human nature is to be loving, kind, a fighter, having a child-like spirit, and holding up healthy boundaries; these in conjunction with service, community, and faith I can attribute to the intersectionality of both cultures. I have had conversations […]

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Children of Christ, Prejudice~Injustice~Racism~Segregation

Dominant Influences of My Cultural Shaping Part 3: My Racial Identity Formation

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My process in racial identity development was not fully clear as I grew up, there might have been some aspects that were unknown, such as, I was not consciously aware of my Spaniard heritage. I blended the Mexican and Spaniard cultures into one. I grew up loving flamenco and it is still a favorite dance and music genre, but I used to think it was just Mexican. I however, was very aware that I was different since the age of five years old because my mom’s boyfriend would make distinctions between us and others (This is the way in which most of us learn that we have a racial/ethnic identity. […]

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Children of Christ, Community, Prejudice~Injustice~Racism~Segregation

Dominant Influences of My Cultural Shaping Part 2: The Horrid Pain Behind the Truth

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The horrendous and abusive language I’d hear from my mom’s boyfriend led me to believe that Hispanic people are weak, needy, and unloyal people. He’d also say horrible things about white people and blacks, so naturally I developed a twisted belief system that white people with blond hair and blues eyes are to be feared and African Americans are abusive. My mother’s boyfriend never explicitly said I could not play with black kids, but I intrinsically knew I should not. The only neighborhood children I’d play with were the Polish kids or the white kids with darker features, mainly the Italian kids. These belief systems were reinforced in elementary school […]

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Articles on HOPE, Children of Christ, Our Humanness

Dominant Influences of My Cultural Shaping Part 1

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My ethnic and cultural background comes from my Mexican, Spanish, and American cultures. My Mexican and Spanish ethnicities gave me the ability to call myself Aztec/European princess since I am a descendant of both the Aztecs and those who conquered them, the Spaniards; both my Mexican and Spanish cultures gave me the gift of my romantic Spanish language. Its somewhat odd to me that I often find myself checking the “white” box when the “Hispanic” option is not present; odd because I do not consider myself white, nor do I look white. Yet, I often hear the expressions “white Hispanic” or “non-Hispanic whites” and both have a completely different connotation. I […]

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Articles on HOPE, Children of Christ, Our Humanness, Prejudice~Injustice~Racism~Segregation

Messy Like a Child in the Father’s Presence

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It is soooo much easier to be messy than to be on point. That’s why I’m learning to rest in God’s grace and love in the mist of my short comings, fears, doubts, faithlessness, and weaknesses. Me talking to myself, “It’s ok. It’s ok babe.” I was feeling weird one morning. I didn’t know why. I wasn’t feeling sad nor negative, nor discontentment, nor tired. Just weird. But I was desiring love from the Father. I got on my knees and rested my head against the edge of my bed. As I listened to the song “I Surrender,” YHWH encountered me. His loving arms came and hugged me. His face […]

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Articles on HOPE, Children of Christ
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