April 8th, 2022
Jady Whetzel is a 2nd grade teacher at our Manantial school in Puerto Escondido, Mexico. She and her husband Tanner, whom she met through GEM, have faithfully served as missionaries for two years. Before Jady moved to Mexico, she was a teacher in Brazil. She had felt that the Lord was guiding her to use teaching in some sort of capacity for full-time ministry. She wasn’t sure what this necessarily looked like, but she was searching for what God might have in mind.
One day as Jady was scrolling through instagram, she came across GEM’s page. She had the thought of, “Wow, this is such a cool ministry! I really wish that they had a school in Brazil that I could work for.” The Lord continued to work in her heart and kept growing the desire within her to use her teaching skill sets for full-time ministry.
In March of 2020 when the pandemic hit, the school Jady was working at closed, so she began working from home. She had already told her boss at the school that she was not interested in working long-term and that she was keeping her mind open as she looked at other job opportunities. The very first weekend of the pandemic, GEM posted a photo on instagram that they were hiring new teachers. Jady felt as if the Lord was opening this door for her to work as a missionary teacher with GEM, but still asked Him to make it clear to her and to shut the door if this isn’t what He had for her. It turned out that two of the positions they were hiring for were for a 2nd and 3rd grade teacher, which was exactly the grades the Jady had been teaching in Brazil the last two years. Everything was fitting together for her to join GEM and serve the ministry using her professional abilities, and the Lord paved the way and showed Jady that’s exactly where He wanted her. Jady moved to Puerto Escondido, Mexico in August of 2020.
Whenever a missionary first moves to a new country, there is a time where they have to adapt to a new culture. Being immersed in a new language and way of doing life can present new challenges and struggles. One of the things that was hard for Jady was leaving the strong community that she had in Brazil and having to form a new one in Mexico with people who did not speak the same language. However, God was faithful in surrounding her with wonderful, like-minded people, who supported her and helped her when she needed guidance and direction, who prayed for her and read the Word with her. She has now formed lifelong friendships here in Mexico, and has also found the man she will spend the rest of her life with, her husband Tanner.
Jady shares that one of the biggest blessings was allowing God to take control of every aspect of her life and submitting to His direction to come to Puerto Escondido. In doing this, the Lord not only changed her professional path, but He also allowed her to meet Tanner, fall in love, and get married. She came as a single girl and is now a married woman. Jady says that leaving everything behind and in the Lord’s hands, really allowed her to live a life that was far greater than she could have ever planned for herself. She came to serve the students and families here in Mexico, and God has blessed her with seeing the fruit of that labor as well as many more added blessings. Jady expresses that it is an honor to be a tool of God and get to be used by Him to build His Kingdom here in Puerto Escondido.
