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This is a true story of a young woman who went through the most gruesome fire. When you read her story, you’ll realize that your trials are absolutely nothing compared to what this young girl went through.

It was September 25, 2000. Maricel Apatan was an 11-year old girl in Zamboanga. On that day, this little girl went with her uncle to draw water.

Along the way, four men met them. They were carrying long knives. They told her uncle to face down on the ground, and they hacked him on the neck and killed him.

Maricel was in total shock, especially that the men were their neighbors. She tried to escape, but the men ran after her.

She cried, “Kuya, ‘wag po, ‘wag n’yo akong tagain! Maawa po kayo sa akin!” (“Don’t kill me! Have mercy on me!”)

But they weren’t listening. With a long knife, a man slashed her on the neck too.

Maricel fell to the ground and lost consciousness.

When she woke up, she saw a lot of blood. She also saw the feet of the men around her, but she pretended to be dead.

When they walked away, Maricel ran back home.

But along the way, she saw that both her hands were falling off because the men hacked them too. She cried but she kept running.

Sometimes, she would faint and fall to the ground. But she’d regain consciousness and run again.

When she was near her home, Maricel called her mother.

Upon seeing her daughter, her mother screamed in terror. She wrapped her bloodied child in a blanket and carried her to the hospital.

Here was the problem: From her house to the highway, it was a 12-kilometer walk. It took them 4 hours just to reach the highway.

When they arrived in the hospital, the doctors thought Maricel was going to die. But for 5 hours, they operated on her. It took 25 stitches to stitch together the long knife wound in her neck and back.

Maricel barely survived. And she lost both of her hands.

Ironically, the next day was Maricel’s birthday. She was 12 years old.

But tragedy didn’t end there. When they went home, they saw their home was gone. It was ransacked and burned down by the goons.

Being very poor, Maricel’s family also didn’t have P50,000 for their hospital bills.

But God sent many angels along the way to help them.

Archbishop Antonio Ledesma, a distant relative, paid for hospital bills and helped them bring the criminals to court. They were sentenced to prison.

Today, she’s staying with the nuns at Regina Rosarii with Sr. Eppie Brasil, O.P.

But this is the incredible miracle. Instead of staying down, Maricel kept running.

Instead of cursing God why she had no hands, she now uses her wrists in incredible ways that will boggle your mind.

Maricel was cited as the most industrious, best in computer, and most courteous in the School for Crippled Children.

In 2008, she graduated from a course in Hotel and Restaurant Management. She even received a Gold medal for Arts and Crafts.

In 2011, she finished her education to be a chef. Yes, a Chef without hands.

Nothing can stop this young lady from reaching her dreams.

Mrs. Broomfield's dishwasher quit working, so she called a repairman. He couldn't accommodate her with an evening appointment, and since she had to go to work the next day, she told him: "I'll leave the key under the mat. Fix the dishwasher, leave the bill on the counter, and I'll mail you the check. By the way, don't worry about my Rottweiler. He won't bother you. But, whatever you do, do not under any circumstances talk to my parrot!"

When the repairman arrived at Mrs. Broomfield's apartment the next day, he discovered the biggest and meanest looking Rottweiler he had ever seen.

My father gave me the greatest gift anyone could give another person, he believed in me.
Jim Valvano

I've had a hard life, but my hardships are nothing against the hardships that my father went through in order to get me to where I started.
Bartrand Hubbard

He didn't tell me how to live; he lived, and let me watch him do it.
Clarence Budington Kelland

My father used to play with my brother and me in the yard. Mother would come out and say,
"You're tearing up the grass." "We're not raising grass," Dad would reply. "We're raising
boys." Harmon Killebrew

Fatherhood is pretending the present you love most is soap-on-a-rope.
Bill Cosby

It is not flesh and blood but the heart which makes us fathers and sons.
Johann Schiller

A father carries pictures where his money used to be.
Unknown

Blessed indeed is the man who hears many gentle voices call him father!
Lydia M. Child, Philothea: A Romance, 1836

When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished at how much he had learned in seven years.
Mark Twain, "Old Times on the Mississippi" Atlantic Monthly, 1874

Old as she was, she still missed her daddy sometimes.
Gloria Naylor

Never raise your hand to your kids. It leaves your groin unprotected.
Red Buttons

I don't care how poor a man is; if he has family, he's rich.
M*A*S*H, Colonel Potter

He didn't tell me how to live; he lived, and let me watch him do it.
Clarence Budington Kelland

A man knows when he is growing old because he begins to look like his father.
Gabriel Garcia Marquez


Don't make a baby if you can't be a father.
National Urban League Slogan


The father who does not teach his son his duties is equally guilty with the son who neglects them.
Confucius

He who is taught to live upon little owes more to his father's wisdom than he who has a great deal left him does to his father's care.
William Penn

By the time a man realizes that maybe his father was right, he usually has a son who thinks he's wrong.
Charles Wadworth

Small boys become big men through the influence of big men who care about small boys.
AuthorUnknown

It is a wise father that knows his own child.
William Shakespeare

The father who does not teach his son his duties is equally guilty with the son who neglects them.
Confucius

Fathers, like mothers, are not born. Men grow into fathers and fathering is a very important stage in their development.
David Gottesman

I cannot think of any need in childhood as strong as the need for a father's protection.
Sigmund Freud

When a father gives to his son, both laugh; when a son gives to his father, both cry.
Jewish Proverb

You fathers will understand. You have a little girl. She looks up to you. You're her oracle. You're her hero. And then the day comes when she gets her first permanent wave and goes to her first real party, and from that day on, you're in a constant state of panic.
Stanley T. Banks in the movie 'Father of the Bride'

There must always be a struggle between a father and son, while one aims at power and the other at independence.
Samuel Johnson

My son, a perfect little boy of five years and three months, had ended his earthly life. You can never sympathize with me; you can never know how much of me such a young child can take away. A few weeks ago I accounted myself a very rich man, and now the poorest of all.
Ralph Waldo Emerson, on the death of his son

A man never stands as tall as when he kneels to help a child.
Knights of Pythagoras

"When a child is born, a father is born. A mother is born, too of course, but at least for her it's a gradual process. Body and soul, she has nine months to get used to what's happening. She becomes what's happening. But for even the best-prepared father, it happens all at once. On the other side of a plate-glass window, a nurse is holding up something roughly the size of a loaf of bread for him to see for the first time.
Frederick Buechner, 'Whistling in the Dark'

I watched a small man with thick calluses on both hands work fifteen and sixteen hours a day. I saw him once literally bleed from the bottoms of his feet, a man who came here uneducated, alone, unable to speak the language, who taught me all I needed to know about faith and hard work by the simple eloquence of his example.
Mario Cuomo

My father was frightened of his mother. I was frightened of my father and I am damned well going to see to it that my children are frightened of me.
King George V

4 years: My Daddy can do anything!
7 years: My Dad knows a lot…a whole lot.
8 years: My father does not know quite everything.
12 years: Oh well, naturally Father does not know that either.
14 years: Oh, Father? He is hopelessly old-fashioned.
21 years: Oh, that man-he is out of date!
25 years: He knows a little bit about it, but not much.
30 years: I must find out what Dad thinks about it.
35 years: Before we decide, we will get Dad's idea first.
50 years: What would Dad have thought about that?
60 years: My Dad knew literally everything!
65 years: I wish I could talk it over with Dad once more.
-Author Unknown-