About 35 years ago I went to a retreat/revival meeting up in the mountains, I received our Lord Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior and two days later as the retreat was winding down the Pastor approached and told me that someday I was going to be a missionary and I thought,” he says that to everyone”

I continued with my life, got married, had three kids, continued to go to church, and started an intensive bible study called Bible Study Fellowship.(BSF) This study lasts almost a year and only covers one book at a time word by word with numerous questions and fellowship. Covering different books throughout the years some members have been doing this study for 15-20 years. Throughout all those years I always remembered that pastor praying over me and kept on thinking about how that would happen.

Over eight years ago, I arrived in Ensenada without knowing a soul through my Pastor, Mitch Ribera, at New Harvest Church. Pastor Mitch put me in touch with Brent and Allyson Searway of Agua Viva Ministries. I lived in their guest apartment for a month, and they introduced me to their missionary life.

I immediately fell in love with the compassion they had for their ministry, Brent was diagnosed with a brain tumor so I spent the last months of his life helping him fix their house for his wife. He knew he had a limited time left and wanted to leave his wife with a home in tip-top shape. Every day I spent with him he told me about being a missionary and told me I had the skills needed, mainly I can build things and can talk to people at their level. I started to volunteer for several Christian groups, YWAM to build homes, Hands of Mercy to build homes, YUGO to build homes, Agua Viva Ministries to build homes, rebuild churches, interpret for doctors that come down to do medical clinics in remote areas.

About five years I answered a call on Facebook about a ranch In Ensenada Baja California that does horse therapy, I met the director Susan Marie Fasino, she is a registered physical therapist and came down over 20 years ago on a mission trip, she fell in love with the area, sold everything she had and started “His Wings ministries”, to minister to children with a variety of disabilities. From the minute I got there I knew that was my calling, I was raised on a ranch, my father broke-trained horses and our parents showed me to be humble and no matter how poor you are, you would help those in need.

Susan often encouraged me to become a missionary. I put it off, but I remembered that pastor praying over me over 35 years ago. God had lined up everything in my life for this special calling and I surrendered to His calling. We help 70-80 children with different disabilities, ranging from severe physical and psychological disabilities, to speech, vision, and autism which seem to be a pandemic.

Susan has different groups of doctors come down from the U.S. Mostly coming from Loma Linda University to diagnose the children for what kind of therapy they will receive whether it will be physical, dental, vision, or speech therapy.

Susan also has direct contact with the specialists in all the Shriners Hospitals, once the child is diagnosed and qualifies for life-changing surgeries, Susan arranges for a Humanitarian Visa to take the child and mom to the designated Shriners hospital for life-changing surgeries all at no cost to the families. Some families have to drive three hours for their life-changing therapy. I have seen many children who could not walk, walk, children could not talk, talk, and results from life-changing surgeries. I do receive a lot more than I give to know that God is moving amongst these families and it is a privilege and amazing to witness, therefore I am forever grateful.