Priscilla Jackett – Interpreter

November 2019 – When Dr. Janet Whelan and Roger Martin told me of their GMRP experience in 2015, I was immediately drawn in, still regretting my incomplete Peace Corps application over fifty years earlier.

Recently retired from my 35+ years at our local community health center assisting the uninsured navigate state health insurance, I now had the time and energy to follow a passion. My husband and I had traveled frequently to Mexico while he was alive, keeping my college Spanish at sort of an intermediate level. There were no openings available for the 2016 mission but I made it in 2017 as an interpreter, assigned to the vision clinic where we enjoy almost instant gratification by offering free glasses and/or the potential to improve their vision significantly.

I will be returning for my 4th mission in 2020, each year building on the previous with growing friendships with the team members, with the gratitude of the people we serve, and my gratitude to be part of this amazing group. Surely, we are but pebbles dropped in a huge pond, but perhaps we can cause a ripple in someone’s precious life.