ABOUT
Hi, I’m Cheryl.
Over the years, my life has been shaped by community, nursing, cross-cultural service and a deep desire to walk alongside people through both ordinary life and its most vulnerable moments. I have served on medical mission teams, partnered with local churches and community organizations, and accompanied people through experiences of growth, healing and change.
At the heart of it all is a simple desire to love the people placed in front of me well.
My faith in Jesus is central to who I am and how I understand that calling, but I believe every person, regardless of their background or beliefs, is worthy of dignity, compassion, and hope. Whether I am caring for someone as a nurse, praying with a family, or sharing conversation over a meal, I want people to feel seen, valued, and genuinely cared for.
Not all of us can do great things, but we can do small things with great love.
- MOTHER THERESA -
How Guatemala Became Part of My Story
At 18 years old I spent a month in Puerto Barrios serving through Mercy Ships International. It was my first experience in Guatemala and the beginning of a connection that would resurface in meaningful ways throughout my life.
Years later, nursing opened the door for me to return through Sharing the Journey International. In 2013, 2015, and again in 2025, I joined their oral and maxillofacial surgical teams to care for patients in Guatemala. As a nurse, I served in the operating room as well as in preoperative and postoperative care.
These trips gave me the privilege of walking alongside patients and their families during vulnerable and deeply personal moments. They also connected me with Guatemalan communities, local leaders, and organizations already serving their people with wisdom, faithfulness, and love.
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More than another trip
Through Sharing the Journey, I began working with Avis: Living to Serve, a Guatemalan organization that operates and manages a local medical clinic while serving the surrounding community in many other ways. The clinic brought together so much of what God had already placed within me: nursing, cross-cultural service, compassionate care, prayer, and relationship.
When I traveled home after my most recent surgical trip, I knew something had changed. What I thought might be my last visit to Guatemala for the foreseeable future became the trip that changed the trajectory of my life. God had placed a love for the people of Guatemala in my heart and was inviting me to do more than return for another short trip.
He was asking me to plant my life there.
The medical clinic is one of the significant reasons I feel drawn to relocate. As I begin this new season, I plan to continue partnering with Avis as a volunteer through the clinic and other service opportunities. I am not moving to Guatemala with a program of my own or with the belief that I have all the answers. I am going to listen, learn, build relationships, and serve alongside the people and organizations already faithfully caring for their communities.
Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down their life for their friends - JN15:13
A Life Faithfully Planted
During these first years, my focus will center on three areas: serving through medical care and community outreach; investing in prayer, worship, discipleship, and healing ministry; and growing in Spanish so I can build deeper relationships and better serve those around me.
I believe lasting ministry grows through genuine relationships and everyday faithfulness, not only through extraordinary moments. My desire is to be fully present in this place, among this community, and throughout this season, living with love, humility, and intention.
Above all, I want my life to show that darkness and oppression do not have the final word. In Christ, there is hope, dignity, healing, and freedom.
Why This Guatemalan Life
I created This Guatemalan Life to share the journey from preparing to leave the United States to building a life in Guatemala and discovering the beauty of following Jesus one step at a time.
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More than the story of a move, it is an invitation to witness what God can do through one ordinary life that continues to say yes.
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I don’t know exactly what these next years will hold, but I’m entering them with open hands and a willing heart.
As I learn, serve, build relationships, and make a home in Guatemala, I’m honored to have you come along.