Sandra Pardo has dedicated her life to the service of the Adventist Church and society through her gifts, talents, and vocation, participating actively and without neglecting her studies or work. She participated in Adventist Volunteer Service (AVS) in Brazil in 2018, as gratitude to God for helping her finish her studies in a non-Adventist university.
Pardo applied for a job in 2020 to work as a psychologist in a medical center of the Ministry of Health of Peru. She started working remotely. She attended in person on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays; and her partner, on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. In this way, they took turns to attend to the mental health of the population through therapies.
However, in 2022, Pardo’s immediate boss changed the schedules to work Monday through Saturday. She talked to her boss to allow her to work on Sundays instead of Saturdays, under the right of religious freedom. She was then asked to send a document to the medical center's administration arguing for the change of day. Pardo sent her request, but it was rejected.
Pardo then recalled the testimony of the Adventist teachers of 2022, where the Peruvian government's Ministry of Education moved the exam they were supposed to take on Saturday to Sunday, after a first negative response. "At that moment, I just thought, ‘I must be faithful to God in this test; God will work, and I will accept His will,’" says Pardo. After that, she decided to seek help from the Public Affairs and Religious Liberty Department of the Adventist Church in the country to present a new document with her request, but this time, addressed to the Ministry of Health of Peru.
Learn the outcome of Pardo's story, a woman who decided to be faithful to any test, and how God answered her request in the following video.
The original version of this story was posted on the South American Division Spanish-language news site.