It’s 5:30 am, May 2009. The roosters have started to crow, dogs have begun to bark, and Ivette Rivera is dressed, books in hand, patiently waiting for the public bus at the entrance of the neighborhood of Monserrath. Her daily commute to college is underway.
For 5 long years, Ivette followed this routine until she received her hard-earned degree in Social Communications. Shortly after graduation, Ivette landed a good job writing daily pieces for an online newspaper that thousands read daily. While she enjoyed this hard-won job, she realized that something was missing.
“God,” she says, “had a different plan for me in mind.” That same year, she attended Young Life camp in Nicaragua. When her relationship with Christ began to grow, Ivette knew she wanted more for her life and her career. “I wanted to help people. I wanted a job with purpose,” she said.
The problem was, no one else in Chinandega was hiring journalists, the career she had studied for years. A friend told her that Amigos for Christ had jobs available, but nothing specific to writing or journalism. In faith, Ivette sent in her resume. She was selected for an interview and began to pray that God would fill her desire to use her talents for a purpose.
If you have ever met Ivette, you’ll never forget her huge smile, warm personality, and heart for people. Ivette is authentic and has a gift to really focus on the person who’s right in front of her. These qualities were so evident in her interview that she was offered a completely different job than the one she had interviewed for, one that was created just for her: Amigos for Christ Storyteller.
Over the last 3 years, when you’ve been inspired by a story in our Quarter Highlights or monthly eNews, had a moment of nostalgia seeing a picture of the Amigos Team on Facebook, or shared an Amigos video with a friend, chances are, Ivette was behind it. She’s a seasoned writer, photographer, videographer, and storyteller extraordinaire. Her ears are always to the ground, funneling and filtering inspiring information from our huge team of 80 into each article, photo, video, and story we publish.
Our Amigos family makes an impact every day, and Ivette’s passion is to find and share the stories that will highlight that impact. But her greatest gift to Amigos, and the world, is her heart. Through each click of her camera and each story she writes, every person Ivette meets knows they are valued and loved. Her picture of a family smiling ear-to-ear with their new Modern Bathroom is truly beautiful. Even more beautiful is the fact that the family knows that their picture will be used to encourage those who helped build their bathroom because Ivette explains it to them. She takes the time to connect our different cultures, to allow us all to see how we are in this together.
Ivette has seen her prayers answered. She is changing the world every day with each story she writes and each picture she takes, and making Christ more visible as she does it.
“My biggest hope is that, through me, through us, our big Amigos family will know that they are loved. It will give them hope to move forward. I’ve learned that if we have faith, God we can do so much. He has a specific plan for everyone. I’ve learned that from my own experience.”
