Spotlight on Latinas in Action

Interfaith Health Service: Spotlight on Latinas in Action

This month marks the beginning of a semi-regular feature that will be posted on Interfaith’s website, interfaithhealth.org. Gema and I plan to try and interview a Latinas in Action participant each month. One of our childcare directors, instructors, youth club (Amigos in Action) participants or one of our regular Zumba and educational participants will be featured. We will not publish every interview in the congregational newsletters, but wanted to let folks know where to find additional interviews in the future.
To start things off, I asked Vanessa, one of our Amigos in Action youth group members to be our first featured guest. Vanessa and her mother and 2 brothers have been attending Latinas in Action faithfully since our program began. It is always a treat to see Vanessa and her family and hear about their week. I have had the privilege of working fairly closely with Vanessa, in particular, over the years. She may not remember this, but when we first met, she was shy and quiet but always ready with a beautiful smile. These days, Vanessa is one of our regular participants and she has grown in confidence and maturity. She would not be described as shy by any of her peers. She is extremely intelligent, quick-witted, caring and gracious, and a loving older sister.

Here are some highlights of my IHS conversation with Vanessa:
Age: 12
School: Norris
Something about me not everyone knows about me:
“I have a dog. I’ve had Bella since she was a puppy. She is a year and a half old but she is NOT named after the lead character in those books everyone at school is reading.” (Twilight series)
I like:
“Sleeping, eating, talking to my friends, soccer, saxophone, vanilla ice cream, my favorite school subject is math.”
In the future, I want to:
“Be a pastry chef or an artist.”

God has blessed me:
“With my family and my life.”

A favorite memory of the past year:
“The day before Thanksgiving last year, my mom and I got up really early, around 6 in the morning. We went to No Frills in South Omaha and bought all the spices and ingredients for making a the turkey my dad got from his work. It was fun because it was just me and my mom cooking. We were surprised at how well the turkey turned out. We went over to my grandmother’s house to celebrate the day and let’s just put it this way—there were no leftovers from our turkey! Everyone else liked it as much as we did!”

Please look for additional features on the website. And please continue to lift up our ministry and our wonderful participants like Vanessa in your prayers.

Virginia McGill, Interfaith Health Service