Ivette grew up in Half Moon Bay, graduating from Half Moon Bay High School. Her grandparents came to Half Moon Bay from Mexico, working the growing season at The Nurseryman’s Exchange, then returning to Mexico the other part of the year. Her parents met and married as teenagers and dreamed of going back to Mexico to raise their three children but it was not to be.
Ivette moved with her family to Mexico right after kindergarten, but her younger sister, an infant at the time, became very ill and Ivette’s mother knew the only hope was to get the baby back to the United States. Ivette remembers her grandparents picking them up at the hospital and taking thme straight to the hospital emergency room. Ivette’s sister made a full recovery and is about to have her second baby, but the family never returned to Mexico.
Growing up, Ivette attended a different church. She accepted Jesus in her heart at sixteen but it wasn’t until she married her husband Jorge, in her 20s, that she came to know God and church as real, something to put first before everything else.
Ivette started attending MCC with her mom while continuing to attend her other Spanish-speaking church. Ivette spent a full year attending both churches before deciding to make MCC her home church. It was an agonizing decision, but she prayed about it, and more specifically, she asked God to show her how he wanted to use her. And her husband and children helped encourage her to choose MCC.
Ivette says she could feel something in her changing when she first starting coming to MCC, but she wasn’t quite sure what it was. She kept coming back, and heard the call for people to join a steering committee to select the youth pastor. After hearing that announcement several times, she realized God was talking to her and that she must offer to serve on the committee. Ivette says MCC is like Disneyland – there are so many areas where people can serve that it is hard to choose.
Ivette says MCC feels like home for her and her family. She admits she had a different idea of what MCC was like, then she came to a few services and realized she had misjudged the situation. God called Ivette to serve again just a few months ago when they started looking for an outreach director. Ivette’s experience in the multi-cultural coastside community, her heritage, and her work experience as a health educator providing support and life skills to children and families with developmental disabilities uniquely qualifies Ivette to be in this important position at MCC at this important time.
Though there are many responsibilities in her home and family that pull for her attention, Ivette did not want to pass up the opportunity to serve where God is calling. And as Ivette completes her biblical studies through Liberty University’s online program in Lynchburg, Virginia she knows God answered her prayers to take her and use her by putting her in the right place at the right time.
By Laura McHugh, Volunteer Storyteller
