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Esther Jarrette A Half Century of Service
Michigan, where she earned her bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Andrews University. She had planned to return to Trinidad after completing her undergraduate studies, she said, “but God intervened with a phone call from the employment director at the hospital, offering me a job as a secretary in the pathology department.” At the time, UChicago Medicine AdventHealth Hinsdale was called Adventist Hinsdale Hospital.
God continued to guide her career within the health system, Jarrette said. Early in her employment, her visa was about to expire, and her application for a work permit had been rejected three times. The employment director at Hinsdale called her into his office, where they knelt together and prayed for a solution.
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“Less than a month later, I received my work permit,” she said. “To me, that experience was a sign from God that He had a plan for me here at Hinsdale.”
She held other positions within the system, including 26 years as executive assistant to six vice presidents of finance for AdventHealth in the Great Lakes Region. In 2004, the region’s then-President & CEO Ernie Sadau told her about an open position in Mission and Ministry.
“I told him I knew nothing about that department and that moving from finance into that role sounded terrifying,” Jarrette said. But she took the job, and it has given her a greater opportunity to serve the system and its mission.
Esther and Michael, who met in Trinidad, married in 1987 and have two grown sons, Rommel and Larnelle. The couple enjoys nature, travel, time with family and friends, and good food.
Jarrette sees her long career as a way in which to live out God’s plan for her, and she believes that she has been blessed to be able to follow that plan for five decades.
“Throughout my life’s work experiences, God has presented me with opportunities that I would have never found on my own,” she said. “I love that in our work we can embrace opportunities that give us the privilege of extending the healing ministry of Christ.”
