Jim and Kathy Carter, from Lincoln, NE, served at YLM the last two weeks of January

Rev Dr. Karl Heimer, along with Maritza Muñoz-Hernandez, Donations and Distributions Facilitator at Ysleta Lutheran Mission Human Care (YLM), and her husband Miguel, attended last year’s Orphan Grain Train (OGT) Conference in Norfolk, NE, where they had the opportunity to see the breath of the ministry taking place through OGT. It was there where Kathy and Jim Carter had the opportunity to connect with Maritza and Miguel about serving at YLM.

“I shared about the work I do through an organization dedicated to feminine hygiene care,” Kathy explained during one of the YLM radio programs where she and Jim were interviewed, “They gave me a contact person at YLM and everything just fell into place from there.”

On their first week, Jim and Kathy shared about life after retirement in an interview for the YLM Radio

Before retiring, Kathy worked as an ARNP in Nebraska, while her husband, Jim, left a forty-year career in industrial sales to start his own company in construction and remodeling.

“I enjoy using my hands to repair, create, and build things,” Jim shared during the YLM radio interview, “So helping build bookshelves for the mission’s growing library, as well as helping repair things like the dormitory doors, is something I am enjoying very much.”

Ignacio Jose de Allende is a secondary school had sixty girls and fifteen mothers attend Kathy’s first presentation on Days for Girls and the feminine hygiene kits

Arriving on a Saturday with their camper, and their dog Murphy, Jim and Kathy were ready to work. Monday morning, they were taken into Juarez to a secondary school that’s been partnering with Iglesia Luterana Santa Biblia in Anapra, where Kathy was able to educate sixty girls (ages 9 to 13) and 15 mothers about their bodies, feminine hygiene care, and human trafficking prevention.

“This is something special taking place,” Pastor Heimer shared the day after, “To be able to show God’s love and compassion by teaching girls and women their value in God’s eyes, and how special they are to Him.”

Jim has spent his days at YLM building bookshelves for the growing library and doing other repairs around campus

Kathy has traveled to multiple countries, teaching and educating on the importance of feminine hygiene care, as well as distributing sustainable and reusable menstrual kits that last between three to five years. Using curriculum provided by an organization called Days for Girls International, Kathy has the added joy of sharing the love of Christ by reminding girls and women they are wonderfully made in God’s image, loved beyond belief, and deserving of dignity and care because their bodies are the temples of the Holy Spirit.

Partnering with a couple of Rotary Clubs in El Paso and Juarez, Kathy presented the entrepreneurship possibilities of the female hygiene kits

Kathy partnered up with the Zaragoza Rotary Club and the Juarez Rotary Club to spend a day in Juarez, where she presented to 130 girls and 8 teachers at the Secundaria Estatal 38, then presented the entrepreneurship possibilities connected to these hygiene kits to 200 university students, male and female, at Technologia de Monterrey.

Kathy and Jim were invited to come to Iglesia Luterana Santisima Trinidad on the east side of Juarez for Kathy to present the education curriculum for the girls and women of their congregation. Close to sixty teenage girls and women attended this workshop, asking questions and showing an interest, not only in receiving kits, but also in how they can help other women through them.

“This is a topic that needs to be discussed but we can never figure out how exactly to do it,” Pastor Jose Hernandez shared afterwards, “We are so thankful for people like Kathy who can educate and encourage the females of our church…there were even girls and women there I hadn’t seen for quite some time!”

Kathy and Jim’s passion for sharing God’s love through the skills and knowledge acquired through their career experience has become evident as they work tirelessly every day, teaching us all how, as followers of Christ, we never really retire, but simply become repurposed.