Action Photo for Rosa Gonzales

Live Your Mission

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Rosa Gonzales

Chiclayo, Peru
I am planning to go wherever God takes me.

Even though she got good grades, Rosa Gonzales wasn’t able to go to college in Peru. “To get into a national school, the vacancies are very tight,” she says, “so you have to go to a special academy to get trained to take a test. Everybody fights for the spaces. I didn’t have the money for it.”

Instead, Rosa began volunteering at The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod mission. She learned that they didn’t have enough translators, and that sparked an interest in her. “I’m a person who likes to communicate,” Rosa says. “And I like languages, so I was like, I’m going to work and save money to go and study English.” Rosa worked at a call center and studied English for two years before becoming a translator for the mission. Soon after, she was confirmed in the Lutheran faith.

Two of the missionaries were looking for a housekeeper and nanny for their newborn baby. Rosa saw an opportunity to further serve. When the missionaries moved back to the U.S., they invited Rosa to visit and she traveled the country, seeing other families that she’d worked with in Peru and visiting colleges, including Concordia. That visit, with the way she felt on campus and the people she met, sealed the deal for Rosa; Concordia was where she wanted to be.

Now, Rosa is studying middle level education with endorsements in social science and Spanish. She wants to teach in a traditional classroom or serve as a missionary—or experience another unexpected path. “I am planning to go wherever God takes me,” she says. “It’s not my plan; it’s about God’s plan. If He wants to send me wherever, I will go to serve there. I’m sure I will be afraid, but I don’t think I belong anywhere. I belong wherever God puts me.”