Karla and her family have lived all over the United States, but eventually planted roots in Nashville after her husband retired from the military. “You know that song, ‘I’ve been everywhere, man’—that was us." Karla began searching for her next opportunity, but it found her. She recalls, “That year, my dad was going to Missions in Baja, Mexico and he was going to be there for his birthday. I always spent my dad's birthday with him, so I told him, ‘Sign me up, I’m going with you.’” Karla had never been on a Mission trip before, but once she was there, she fell in love. Using her bilingual skills, she served as a translator—and discovered a passion for helping others communicate.

From that trip on, she became more connected with the Missions Committee at Madison Church of Christ, when committee member Sheila approached Karla about Begin Anew’s need for a new teacher for our ELL class. Karla was excited to participate in this new opportunity, and ran home to tell her husband, "I'm going to teach English!" Her husband, confused, responded, "Don't you mean Spanish?" You see, Karla was a Spanish teacher for a local K-12 school. She responded, "This time I will be teaching English." Spanish-teacher-by-day/English-teacher-by-night, she continued to use the gift of teaching and communication that God gave her in new ways.

Her first year brought challenges, including helping several Haitian students who spoke French. “They speak French and I was struggling to help them with conjugations. I wondered, ‘How do I explain it?’” but instead of giving up, she started learning French herself, using simple comparisons to make English clearer. Her students were amazed: “Mrs. Karla, we didn’t know you spoke French!”

Karla is a dedicated individual with a loving heart for her students because she’s been in their shoes. “I came to the United States way back when I didn’t know any English. I know how it feels when you cannot communicate, when you want to talk to someone—even something as simple as going grocery shopping can feel frustrating.”

Karla is a wonderful part of our volunteer team and her lovely personality is a great kickoff to our Influential Women series.