Ladner's Kim Steinke is getting ready to embark on a whole new chapter in her life.
She recently left her lucrative position as an accountant for a downtown company and is getting ready to move to Guatemala where she will serve as a missionary.
Steinke said she was introduced to the region on a high school trip to Nicaragua. The Delta Secondary grad said that trip planted the seed that grew into a passion for helping those in need in developing nations.
"Christmas was never the same after that," she said, adding it was difficult to reconcile North American traditions of making a wish list with what she saw there.
"I gave a kid a toy and it was the first toy he'd ever had. He was four years old and had never had a toy before," she remembered.
When she got older, Steinke started going on mission trips with the Evangelical Church out of Kelowna. Every time she returned she said it became harder and harder to reconcile her life in Vancouver with what she encountered on her trips.
At home she had what is considered a good job with a large company, she had an office overlooking Vancouver's waterfront and an Olympic Village condo.
In Guatemala, many families live in squatter villages and survive on meager incomes.
As well, on one trip a
year and a half ago she met and fell in love with a fellow missionary. "I say Jon is the bonus," she said with a smile.
The couple is now engaged and Steinke is moving to Guatemala on April 24, just over a week before their May 2 wedding.
After the wedding, the couple will head to Texas for missionary training
and then they will settle into their new life in Villa Nueva, a suburb of Guatemala City.
Steinke said she will be able to use some of her accounting skills in her new position. She will help with some of the administration for the mission, Servants, Inc., and will also be involved with a program that provides micro-loans to single mothers.
The loans will help women start a home-based business and will also teach them the financial skills to run the business, pay off the loan and provide for their family.
Her fiancé, Jon Pelen, grew up in a children's home in Guatemala and works for Servants, Inc. as a liaison between the mission and the people it is serving.
