The program didn’t start with much of a vision. It was just a desire to bless a young high school student named Catarina Chel de Pozo, called Zoila, who wanted to become a nurse.

MVI missionary Dr. Juan Pablo Noreiga had moved to Zoila’s hometown of Nebaj, Guatemala, to help the community by providing quality, affordable health care and sharing his deep faith in Jesus. Missionary Ventures had already been helping in Nebaj for several years through a small clinic, and Juan Pablo dreamed of turning it into a hospital. As he first began seeing patients, Zoila would assist him with translation from the local Ixil language and would help clean the clinic.

“She was willing to do all that without charging anything,” says Juan Pablo. “As soon as I could, I started paying her a little.” But he also wanted to do more to bless her and help her on her path to becoming a nurse. He hoped to be able to send her to nursing school, but all the programs were very expensive and far away.

“Why can’t you train her?” asked Juan Pablo’s fiancé, now wife, Carolina. He researched the requirements and began with a request to the Department of Health. Their first response was no, but Juan Pablo and Carolina continued to pray and petition them. They eventually granted approval, not just for Juan Pablo to train Zoila, but for an entire auxiliary nursing school.

At first, I was thinking I would just do the school for one year to train Zoila, and then close it,” says Juan Pablo. But God had other plans. There were others interested in becoming auxiliary nurses. Many others!

“I didn’t see all that God was intending to do,” says Juan Pablo. “The Lord wanted to bless this community with health providers who understand the culture and language and who are willing to go to the most rural places. So, without us even planning, we were able to provide health care workers who were unavailable at that time. It has also provided a good income because it’s a decent salary that can support a small family.”

Zoila graduated as an auxiliary nurse and then became a registered nurse. She is now one of the chief nurses at the national hospital in Nebaj. She is married with two daughters and her husband is a staff doctor at Juan Pablo’s hospital. Her dream came true and God did exceedingly abundantly more.