Profile: Erick Veliz
Erick Veliz says that we can talk about love all day, but it has to be actions that drive us.
"In the Bible it talks about Jesus helping the poor and seeing people in need, and I felt that was my calling, too."
 Many experiences in his life have helped Erick Veliz, 23, hear God’s call to help the poor, the least and the lost.
Growing up in La Paz, Bolivia, he never considered himself poor because there was always food on the table. When he was 10, after years of struggle, his parents raised enough money to move to the United States.
“When I came here, everyone told me I was poor,” he says. “To me, poor was some kid who was blind in Bolivia who couldn’t earn a living because he was blind and abandoned by his parents. That was real poverty, not someone who doesn’t have a television.”
“Jesus says it over and over again. We can't just stand by, we have to be leaders.” Erick’s parents split up soon after they came to the United States and his mother was left to raise two children on her own. She didn’t speak English, and her first job was as a babysitter earning very low wages.
Today, his mother owns a house and was able to send her children to college. Erick says his mother is his inspiration.
 An accident during his freshman year at Tennessee Tech was a wake-up call. Realizing his life could end suddenly made him assess his life and find a purpose.
It was at that point he turned to God. “It was really a birth of a relationship between me and him,” he says. He began to look for a place to belong.
The United Methodist Church’s commitment to social justice inspired him to join.
While in college, Erick took time out to live and work along side tomato farmers in Immokalee, Fla., to see firsthand what their lives were like. He founded the Student Rights Club and has been to Washington many times to advocate for human rights.
In 2005, he was chosen as one of the United Methodist Board of Church and Society’s ethnic young adult summer interns.
 Today, Erick works for the Tennessee Fair Housing Council. In his spare time, he is helping establish English as a Second Language classes at his local church, First Hispanic United Methodist Church; working for Amnesty International USA; and looking for any opportunity to advance his three top priorities: working for the rights of indigenous people, promoting equal rights for women, and stopping torture.
Erick says there is a lot devoted Christians can do to make a difference in the world. “Jesus says it over and over again. We can’t just stand by, we have to be leaders.”
The following people contributed to this Profile:
Audio story by Mike Hickcox; print story by Kathy Gilbert; videography by Ronny Perry, United Methodist Communications.
UMC.org Profiles are produced by Pam Price, 615-742-5405.
erick's spiritual gifts
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Shepherding
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Compassion
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Servanthood
Learn more about your spiritual gifts
erick's recommended resources
The Call to Conversion by Jim Wallis
The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis
The Blindfold's Eyes by Sister Dianna Ortiz & Patricia Davis
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