Bertha is from Juarez. She has lived in Anapra for 22 years. When she moved to Anapra her youngest child had just been born. She had a husband. What brought her to Anapra was the need for her own space and a place that she could make her own decisions. She had lived at her mother-in-law’s place and there her mother-in-law had the first and last word for everything. Bertha wanted to raise her kids her way, to make her own decisions and feel free to do something in life, though she didn’t know at the time what that was. 

Her husband didn’t care for all of this. For him it was his mom’s word only. So one day Bertha moved to Anapra on her own with her kids. Later her husband moved, too. Her relatives thought she was crazy for moving to a place where there was no electricity or running water to live in a wood pallet house. 

Far from school for her kids, they would ask her every day, “Can we move back to Grandma’s?” Her response was, “Yes, tomorrow.” And each days he would respond the same, “Yes, tomorrow…. Yes, tomorrow” and so on. She often thought ‘I am crazy but that is fine with me.’ 

The first thing Bertha took up once she came to Anapra was church. Since then she has been a catechist teacher working with children. After a couple of years living in Anapra she went through a divorce, so she also raised her kids on her own. She became a single mom with five kids. Adding to this, her house burnt down one day and within a matter of minutes she had lost everything. All she had was the clothes she and her kids were wearing. Within minutes people she didn’t know from around the area came over and brought her clothes, blankets, food, and furniture and so on. 

The next day Brother Jim, an American man who lived in Anapra, and Estela came over with pallets, sheetrock, 2×4 bars, nails and everything she would need to build a new house. After a time Ross Beaudoin came to Anapra to visit Brother Jim and asked if there were any needs in Anapra. Estela told him there was a need for education assistance. Bertha’s boys were sponsored to go to school. Her two oldest sons only went to Junior High so they could support their mom. Her two youngest graduated from college and one is now an industrial engineer, one is a psychologist. This was only possible because of the ministries from Kansas City that supported education programs that gave these kids an opportunity to have an education. 

Thankfully Lakeland now provides rice, beans and eggs. Bertha is one of the families that is supported with rice, beans and eggs and what a blessing this has been for her family. For her to be able to count on this each month gives her security of knowing she can count on having a food for a month. This brings her the opportunity to save money to buy other groceries for her weekly needs. And this gives her the security of having a meal each day. To know you can count on food for your kids is a huge blessing. 

Bertha now lives at home with two of her sons, a daughter-in-law, and two grandkids. For her and her family it has been worth all they went through and now they do not want to leave Anapra. Bertha is involved with church, mission, library and a cooperative were women are assisted with different workshops.