Ana with husband, Javier, celebrate Thanksgiving with CBF field personnel, Butch and Nell Green.
From the first years of life I liked to be useful to others. When I was14 years old, I worked as volunteer in a Pediatrics hospital in my city. There I learned that the doctors can cure the body while God cures the soul. Since then my main goal was to be one of them, a doctor. Throughout my life while I made my goals, my God was directing my ways. He always showed me a new route. He was opening for me a new door and I always wondered, "what does it mean these things in my life?" What does it mean every step that I take and every obstacle that is overcome? It was so that I could understand God’s will and his aims for me.
I went to Cuba in order to study my profession. There I learned about the diversity of culture, ideology and social system, diversity that is found in each country and each person in other places of the world. There are a lot forms totally different from mine to see life, to think and believe in God; but simultaneously there is the same desire and the innate necessity of people in search of their sense of life. People are looking for God.
When I returned to my lovely country I practiced my profession in a big government hospital made only for people with economic problems. I felt fulfilled giving part of me to help others, through my profession. Medicine teaches me how perfect the human body is and the great power of God when he acts through our knowledge. This has made me admire “the divine architect”.
Five years later I had a medical conference in New Jersey that changed the course of my life again. There I met my husband and again a new culture, a new country and a new form of life was in my path. New goals had to be established, a new language to learn. I had to start from zero and once again I asked myself, “What does God want from me?” Perhaps, I do not have the answer yet, but I know this is part of the long path that God has set for me. At this moment I am working for a program of the school district. There I have the opportunity to serve Hispanic families with children under five years old, children with problems as learning delay, speaking delay, autism or families that live in the total poverty. I also am going to have the opportunity to be a volunteer in a free clinic where they help people of diverse cultures and ethnicities. And every time I return to my lovely country for vacations I have the opportunity to serve as a medical doctor in a hospital in my natal city.
This life has taught me that we are born men and women with certain colors of our skins, and with different cultures in our minds; but culture is something that we acquire and pass down through generations. Each culture is a set of rules, values and beliefs. These concepts sometimes become invisible to our eyes; we believe that they universal, but they are not. ! Outside our eyes there is a broad range of cultures, nationalities and beliefs. When a person has the opportunity to live in several countries, this person no longer belongs to one country. Borders become invisible and anywhere simply becomes one's land. This person becomes a citizen of the world, whom God has called for serve where ever the person is. That is also my call. Hi my name is Ana and I am another woman more for “The Global Women Conference.”