Noemi Rivera Roman recently joined the Vida Medical Clinic and Support Services team as the Bilingual Support Services Supervisor.
While Noemi just recently joined the staff in this role, she is a familiar face in our community and her positive impact on women, couples, and families in the region spans more than a decade. From 2010-2019, she worked at Vida, known as Mother and Unborn Baby Care at that time, as a Support Services Assistant and, prior to that, volunteered as a group Bible study leader with the organization. Formerly involved in pastoral ministry, Noemi leans into prayer and her relationship with God to help lead her path throughout life. This brought her back to this growing role at Vida.
“Where God is, I want to be. Where God sends me, I will go,” Noemi says. “I was seeking a new opportunity and felt called to this role at Vida. If we are open to Him, He will use us.”
In her new role at Vida, Noemi leads bilingual support services programming for Vida Support Services. From providing pregnancy and parenting education to mentoring expectant or young parents to connecting clients to additional community resources for a variety of needs (career, housing, food, education, etc.,) Noemi plays a critical role in serving and supporting women and men, specifically Latinos or those needing bilingual services, who are facing an unplanned pregnancy or difficulties parenting young children. These services bring hope, healing, and a means to address some of the despair or uncertainty clients may be facing in their lives that may present obstacles to parenting.
Obstacles can vary from material needs, such as buying diapers, to spiritual needs, such as reconnecting with a church community, to emotional needs, such as healing from previously abusive relationships. The aim of Vida Support Services is to provide a loving, safe, and welcoming place that clients can receive the support, love, resources, and encouragement they need to better love themselves and, in turn, have the capacity to better love their children.
“I am helping people, but through my work, I too am being helped,” Noemi reflects on the many stories and situations her clients share as part of their mentoring sessions. “You hear the clients’ stories and some of the major difficulties they are facing, … but they are here. It is encouraging.”
From a woman overcoming past trauma from six abortions to choosing life for her two youngest children to a young mother suffering from depression becoming emotionally healed and empowered through years of parenting mentoring and resources at Vida, Noemi says her work is relational and begins with trust, love, and support.
“While all of our clients come to us voluntary, they come here carrying trust issues, fear, lack of confidence, and other concerns. We love, love, love on them. That builds up trust with them that this is a loving, trusting, and safe place, and they begin to open up. This leads to healing, helping, and hope,” Noemi shares.
As Vida continues to serve more clients and patients every year, the organization hopes to continue to serve and love its clients well – both in the short- and long-term.
“God is working. We don’t always know or see how He is working, but He is. I am here for Him to use me and [through that] to support the people we serve.”
