In 2021, I was working on making some big changes in my life. I had (and still have) dreams of growing my photography business, and was planning on moving back full time to Calgary, after spending a good part of the year commuting every other weekend.

Early one morning in September of that I was texting my dear friend April, who had gone down to Mexico with her family to learn Spanish on a mission base. Before this conversation, I didn’t have any desire to learn Spanish, nor move to Mexico to do so. But in that 6:00am conversation, I felt God whisper into my spirit “why not?”. I already had plans and this was so out of left field, but it just felt so right, and I had the means to do it. I ran it by my pastor, who expressed enthusiasm for the idea, and a month and a half later I found myself on a mission base on the outskirts of a tiny coastal village in Oaxaca, Mexico.

All my life I have thought that I was never any good at learning other languages, and just trumped it up to a lack of linguistic aptitude, unlike my brothers who are both fully bilingual in French and English. Learning Spanish at the Roca Blanca Mission Base completely changed this perception I had of myself. It was challenging, and still is, in some ways, but I found myself capable of doing it.

Five levels of their Spanish courses and a semester of teaching English to elementary students later, I thought my season here was done, and I was ready to come back home. In the middle of my last level I had been helping produce a series of pre-marriage coaching videos for the base’s marriage ministry, and during that time, the base administrators – featured in some of the videos – asked me if I wanted to stay and serve in their multimedia department. After spending some time seeking God on this, I said yes, and committed the next two years to serving.

And that’s where we’re at! I will be here until the end of the school year of 2025, and while I have dreams and visions for the future after my time here, I have also learned to hold onto plans very loosely, and trust that the Lord’s counsel will ultimately stand.

I would love for you to join me on this journey, which you can do by following my pages on Facebook and Instagram, and/or by subscribing to my monthly(ish) newsletter!

Que gracia y paz estén contigo // May grace and peace be with you!

Jackie