Fulfilling dreams through God's grace and hard work: The story of an ex-pedicab driver

MANILA, Philippines -  For spouses Arnel and Judith Zenarosa, living life was a matter of survival, but with a lot of hard work and the graces of God Almighty, they were able to hurdle most financial, emotional and physical challenges that to some, would be almost equal to what biblical character Job suffered.

And thanks to one company that they were initially aloof to join, they are now in some sort of pedestal of success but still, they won’t fail to thank God and their resolve to succeed for the sake of the family.

It was in the early 1980s that Arnel started to doubt his faith even though he was very religious. He was part of a broken family, lost their properties, and all 7 kids in the brood went separate ways. He worked by day and studied at night yet was unable to finish his studies because he was sickly.

“It was really hard going through life’s struggles at that time, which started during childhood and teenage life, and continued even when I had my own family already. The struggle was long and hard and we had no clear vision of hope. Luckily, I met my wife who helped me go back to my faith,” states Arnel Zenarosa, a father of three kids and husband to government employee Judith.

Still, despite the renewed faith, life’s financial and health hardships continued. Though he had work as a bookkeeper, Arnel worked as a pedicab driver on the side—without his wife’s knowledge—to make ends meet because of low pay. Eventually, he resigned and got involved in sales work while wife Judith continued with her work at the Securities and Exchange Commission. Even their kids were not spared, whose schooling suffered because of poor health and also Judith, who suffered acquired asthma. Prior to year 2000, there was no year that a family member didn’t get to see the walls of a hospital because of poor health.

And why not? Judith narrated that perhaps their poor health was a result of not being able to put healthy food on the table. “They were undernourished kids since we barely have money to buy healthy food. We resorted to keep buying ‘meatloaf,’ which is a constant ‘baon’ for the kids since that was the only one we can afford. It came to a point that they feel embarrassed to open their lunch box in school for fear of ridicule from classmates because every day, they eat ‘meatloaf.’”

Add to this their financial woes, mostly from credit cards. One night, Judith cried in the middle of a bout with asthma and lamented her fear of taking calls from lawyers of credit card firms who kept bugging them to pay their debt, which already reached more than P200,000, excluding that with other creditors. She told him, “Don’t you know you have a good life? You have a strong faith in God, you keep on passing on to Him your problems but don’t you know they go back to me?”

But then, they still kept on dreaming for a bright future, with the help of God. This is where Gano Excel International came into the picture, first through Arnel and later on through Judith.

“The guardian of my son’s classmate kept on nagging me for a month to attend this seminar on networking. I had a bad experience with a similar one before so my attendance to the seminar was kind of forced. But when I went home after the seminar, I really couldn’t sleep and the information on the manual I received bothered me, yet from there I made a personal discovery,” Arnel said.

In the end, that discovery turned out to be as clear as day, which led him—and eventually his wife Judith—to join Gano Excel now Gano iTouch Phils., a networking company where according to Arnel, the benefits are actually realized and not mere lip service just like in other networking companies. “Being involved in Gano really changed our personality and made us maintain a positive attitude,” Arnel continued.

And clearly, they had no regrets joining Gano iTouch. In joining Gano iTouch, they both looked younger by 10 years, no more frequent visits to the hospital, Judith got cured from asthma by taking Gano health products, a new son, 2 of their kids are now proud college graduates while the 3rd one is in 2nd year college and the youngest is in Grade 2, they went on free trips around Asia, including a marvellous Star Cruise, a new car last year, retirement benefits and inheritance for their children, on top of being a Crown Diamond Director for Arnel.

One advice the couple gave was never to give up despite the challenges and just keep moving forward. “Who you are today was created by your decision yesterday, and your decision today would be the creator of your image, what you would be and who would you be tomorrow,” said Arnel and Judith.