Episode Details

My name is Jacqueline Batres Bonilla.

I was born in El Salvador and moved to Minnesota at the age of 11 years old. I am a Cáncer survivor who lives with a grateful heart and with a mission to bring God’s kingdom to the earth. Happily Married to Marvin Batres who are also excited to become adoptive parents. I'm a Marriage and Family Therapist working with individuals, couples and families. I am also a co- lead pastor  at Espíritu Santo church in the East Side of Minneapolis, MN. I'm a person who believes to be called to listen to others with an incarnational heart and mind to bring healing and freedom.

“The Blessings comes after the step of obedience”

From El Salvador to Minnesota

Transcripts:

Danielle (00:05):

Welcome to the Arise Podcast, conversations on faith, race, justice, gender and healing. And I'm so excited for you to meet my friend and colleague, recent graduate, working in the therapeutic field, also a pastor. Um, and you know, we're gonna touch on the fact that this is this stereotypical Latinx heritage month. But, you know, it is really important for us to take up some space and to give voice, uh, give opportunities to talk about what, what mental health means for our community, and really wanna be celebrating this all year round. And that's gonna be intentional as well. But, you know, here we're jumping in with this wonderful woman. So listen in and, uh, looking forward to the conversation. You know, I'm so impressed with like, your work, and I know just bits and pieces from Instagram and a lot from, like, the feeling I had when I was with you mm-hmm. . Yeah. So I'm excited for your journey and hear what you're hearing, what you're up to, and you know where you've come from. So I don't know where you wanna go or how you wanna open up talking about that, but

Jacqueline (01:26):

Basic things. Um, Okay. Um, me number is jacking Bon. Um, and I was born in El Sal la moved to the US specifically directly to Minnesota. Um, when I was 11 years old, um, my parents, you know, my dad came to California during the Civil War, El Salvador, and, you know, he learned his English and like work in restaurants and he has shared with us that he didn't like the fast pace of the us So he went back and then got married with my mom and had my older brother and I. Um, so he has always, um, fought to be in our country. And it is interesting because he kind of lost the opportunity to become a US citizen, because after he left the amnesty in the eighties, um, so all my uncles who stayed are US citizens, and he's kind of like the only one who was not able to become an, I mean, he planned not to come back to the US

He, we, I mean, my dad always, and my mom worked hard to be business owners and just like, you know, do the best they can. Um, but I remember in the, we moved here 2000. In 2000, I just remember my dad saying like, We have too many debt. Um, we have to go to the us. And my mom was, my mom has always traveled. So, um, so my dad, when he moved, when he moved back in the eighties and he went back, he actually, uh, went to school to become a pilot. So he was a taxi, what they call, um, and when he got married with my mom, he was still like finishing his like license and all that. And, um, he's saw his plane to buy us a house. Um, so then he started like, Okay, I have to do business. And so we were, um, lucky enough to have visas since we were little because my dad, u