![\"Magdalena\"](\"http:\/\/www.covchurch.org\/uploads\/Vh\/jS\/VhjSQ0-BEybpV0uUNh_uLQ\/CHET-1.jpg\")
Both hope their lives, which have been impacted by the school, will inspire others.<\/p>\nBy Stan Friedman<\/p>\n
BELL GARDENS, CA (December 8, 2009) \u2013 Magdalena Sanchez came to Los Angeles in 1975 as an 18-year-old fleeing violence in her native El Salvador. She knew no English. She started attending First Covenant Church in Los Angeles with her mother because the congregation was ministering to the influx\u00a0of Hispanics in the area.
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\nEight years ago, Benito Amaya, then 21, walked away from the gang he had started.<\/p>\n
On Saturday, Sanchez stood on stage in her red doctoral robe helping hand out diplomas and certificates to students during the Centro Hispano de Estudios Teol\u00f3gicos (CHET) graduation ceremonies. Later she attended the school\u2019s 20th anniversary celebration and was seated several tables away from Amaya, a first-year CHET student who is preparing to become a pastor.<\/p>\n
Both hope their lives, which have been impacted by the school, will inspire others.<\/p>\n
Sanchez wore the robe for the first time Saturday, a moment that was special to her and inspiring to the students. She had earned her PhD in education at the University of Southern California, but did not march in her own graduation ceremony. She didn\u2019t even own a robe.<\/p>\n
Then CHET President Ed Delgado asked Sanchez, who is a member of CHET\u2019s Board of Directors and teaches part-time at the school, to help distribute the diplomas. So she hurriedly rented the robe.<\/p>\n
Sanchez had not walked in her own graduation ceremony because she didn\u2019t feel a part of the larger class, but Saturday\u2019s event was a rich reminder that she is part of community, she says.<\/p>\n
Sanchez adds, \u201cIt was very special for the students to have a Hispanic woman with a PhD, especially a Hispanic immigrant. It shows them what\u2019s possible.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sanchez has been involved with CHET in various ways since arriving in the United States. She was attending First Covenant when the church closed and used money from the sale of their building to fund the startup of a Hispanic Covenant church in Bell Gardens as well as provide seed money for the school.<\/p>\n
The people at each of the institutions have offered encouragement during her journey from her days sewing in the city\u2019s garment district to attaining her doctorate. She is grateful that the school has been there to help her and especially train Hispanic women for ministry.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe denomination has to encourage gender equality and they do,\u201d she says, emphatically. \u201cThat is why I love the Covenant.\u201d<\/p>\n
Today, in addition to her classes at CHET, Sanchez teaches at Porterville College in Porterville, California, and works with a program sponsored by the University of California \u2013 Los Angeles that encourage Hispanics to pursue careers in the sciences and medicine.<\/p>\n
![\"Amaya\"](\"http:\/\/www.covchurch.org\/uploads\/D9\/fx\/D9fxi_c-1ehnv2_aKJcxLA\/CHET-2.jpg\")
Amaya started the gang when he was age 14 and selling drugs while virtually living on the streets. He and his friends formed the gang to protect themselves from other gangs that were angered by the infringement on their drug territory.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was influenced by power and money,\u201d he recalls. But by the time he turned 21, the violence was overwhelming Amaya. He remembered that he had gone to a gang intervention program five years prior and the speaker saying, \u201cWhat good is it for a man to gain the world and lose his soul.\u201d<\/p>\n
Amaya made his way to a church and pleaded for God to help him. \u201cI said, \u2018God, if you\u2019re real, I need you to make yourself real to me,\u2019 \u201d he says. \u201cI felt like something came out of me. I started sweating and shaking.\u201d And then he felt overwhelmed by God.<\/p>\n
Amaya, now 29 and happily married, started attending church and has been trying to study as much as possible and as often as possible since that day, he says. His pastor suggested he consider attending CHET.<\/p>\n
Delgado says Amaya is \u201ca top student.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe theological studies bring a different perspective to my world,\u201d says Amaya. The benefits have been more than educational.\u00a0 \u201cCHET has filled my life with a special family.\u201d<\/p>\n
Amaya, who is a maintenance worker at a local hospital, plans to continue his education after CHET.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m praying that I can continue to Fuller Seminary,\u201d says Amaya with passion. \u201cI believe in my heart that God is calling me to be a pastor.\u201d<\/p>\n
He adds, \u201cI know that the Master will open doors for me.\u201d Those doors, he hopes, include the ones at a juvenile detention center where officials would not let him speak to teenagers due to his past.<\/p>\n
In the meantime, Amaya says, CHET is helping him to reach for his future.<\/p>\n