A Letter to God by G.L. Fuentes
Quick answer: A Letter to God by G.L. Fuentes, Class 10 First Flight: full summary with the ending, Lencho and the postmaster, the irony explained, themes of faith, and exam answers.
A farmer who has waited all season for rain watches the first drops fall on his ripe corn and calls them coins, and within an hour hail has stripped the field bare. A Letter to God, by the Mexican writer Gregorio Lopez y Fuentes, opens the Class 10 First Flight textbook.
The story in brief
Lencho's house sits on a low hill above a valley, and his family's year depends on the ripening corn. Rain comes, first as fat drops he greets with pleasure, then as hail. For an hour the stones fall; when they stop, the field is white as salt and not a leaf remains. Lencho, who works like an ox but can write, decides only God can help. He writes asking God for a hundred pesos and posts the letter.
The postmaster, fat and amiable, laughs, then grows serious at such faith and decides to answer. He gives part of his salary, collects from staff and friends, and manages seventy pesos, sent in an envelope signed God. Lencho collects it on Sunday, shows no surprise at the money, but frowns when he counts it. He writes again: send the rest, but not through the mail, because the post office employees are crooks.
The characters
Themes and meaning
Exams expect faith in God, human kindness, and irony as structure. The sharper reading is that Lencho's faith is not the target; his suspicion of people is. He trusts God absolutely and men not at all, and the two collide in the last line. The postmaster's goodness survives unknown.
The craft
The turn is Lencho's frown at the count, which the reader expects to be surprise and is anger. Fuentes prepares it by making Lencho literate, since a man who can write can complain, and by the coin image for rain that makes the shortfall a debt. Structure marks in Writory's five-part rubric go to stories where one closing line pays for everything before it.
For the exam
Summary in 100 words: Lencho, a farmer whose family depends on the year's corn, welcomes the rain, but a violent hailstorm destroys the crop. Certain that God alone can help, he writes a letter asking God for a hundred pesos and posts it. The postmaster laughs, then, touched by such faith, gathers seventy pesos from his salary, his staff and friends and sends it in an envelope signed God. Lencho is not surprised to receive money but is angry at the amount. He writes again asking God for the rest, warning him not to use the post office because its employees are a bunch of crooks.
What writers can take from this
- State the exact figures: a hundred pesos asked, seventy sent; the shortfall is the engine of the ending.
- Define irony and then apply it to the last letter in one sentence.
- Contrast Lencho's trust in God with his distrust of people; that contrast is the theme.
- Writers: plant an image early, the coins of rain, that can be cashed out at the ending.
- End on a character's action or words, not on commentary.
Try it yourself
Write a story in which a character prays for help and receives it from a human being who stays anonymous, and end at the exact moment the character misreads the gift.
Questions
What is the irony at the end of A Letter to God?
Lencho accuses the post office employees of stealing thirty pesos, when in fact they and the postmaster gave the seventy pesos from their own pockets. The people he calls crooks are his real benefactors.
Why did Lencho write a letter to God?
A hailstorm destroyed his entire corn crop, leaving his family without food or seed for the year. He believed no one but God could help and asked for a hundred pesos.
How much money did Lencho receive and how did he react?
He received seventy pesos instead of the hundred he asked for. He was not surprised that God had answered but grew angry at the shortfall and wrote again demanding the rest.
By the Writory editorial team, reviewed by working writers. Updated September 2026.
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