My name is Juan Eusebio Solís. I live in Valverde de Mérida, a small village with a population of around a thousand, near Mérida, in the province of Badajoz. I work in agriculture, managing a small farm, and I am also a sales technician for a fertiliser company.
I have been a supernumerary of Opus Dei for three years. I’ve known about Opus Dei since my youth, from the age of eighteen. I am now sixty, and the teaching and formation that everyone who comes into contact with the Work receives is fundamental and immensely enriching. It leaves a lasting impression on the soul and shapes your life in a different way — not merely on the surface level.
Hosting Sahrawi children
My involvement with Sahrawi children began about seven years ago. We welcomed our first child through a programme called "Holidays in Peace." They stay here for a couple of months during the summer, July and August. That’s how we met the first child, for one year. Then came the second child, Chefy, who was here for only a year, as the pandemic followed shortly after.
Once we became familiar with the programmes supporting Sahrawi children, our idea was to bring one over to study. In September — actually, October — Chefy arrived to complete the entire school year here in Spain. He attends secondary school in Mérida, currently in his first year, and the plan is for him to continue all his studies here in Spain.
Family is the centre of my life
Family is now the core of my life, the centre around which everything revolves. It’s where I grow and the reason I do everything in life. Within the family, I also include my relationship with God and with myself.
My wife and I were very happy — blissfully happy — and we continue to be happy now with the children. But the period in which we didn’t have children, and were trying to have them and realising they weren’t coming, eventually led to acceptance: well, God has willed that we don’t have children. Yet we were still happy, we loved each other, and we formed a perfectly structured family.
We were perfectly content with the peace and quiet at home. Now there’s noise, there are challenges, but we are completely fulfilled with the children. We see helping these children as a path to sanctification, and in truth, they help us to sanctify ourselves as well.
Jesus is there in my agricultural work
My work largely involves agricultural tasks, through which I can always keep the Lord present. Many of his parables are drawn from agricultural life. When sowing, I think of the sowing of the Kingdom of God; when harvesting, I reflect on the reaping. Working in the fields, you can always remain mindful of Jesus at every moment.