Meet Arturo!

Birthdate: August 20, 1971

Family: wife Noemi Ortiz de Rosas (married 2001), and children Emilia (23), Guillermina (18), London (15), and Daleyza Rae (6).

Arturo, who has been cleaning and assisting with facilities needs at NUMC full time since 2018, grew up in Mexico, splitting time between family homes in Maltrata (in the mountains, which have a cooler weather pattern at 3 thousand meters above sea level) and Veracruz (a bustling city right on the ocean where it never gets cold!). He grew up with eleven brothers and sisters and came to the United States in 1999. After a short stop in Hollandale, MN, he and Noemi (Mimi to those who know her!) were married in Albert Lea, MN, in 2001. They later moved to Dundas/Northfield, where they raised their family.

He has worked in a variety of factories and packing plants, often working second and third jobs -he came to us after working for ServiceMaster here in Northfield, cleaning for a wide variety of businesses and organizations. As those who help out around the NUMC campus know, he is an immensely helpful soul who pitches in to whatever odd projects the church has going any given day - from cleaning up after Super Wednesday chaos to weeding the playground by the south entrance.

You will see Arturo pictured in another article in this issue about bats - he says he has seen bats in nearly every room in the church building (!). He has become our resident bat-removal specialist, and has managed to humanely remove a number from the building without too much fuss.

Arturo has a remarkable story of his journey to the US and to us here at Northfield UMC - we are blessed to have him on the NUMC team! When asked if there's something he would want the congregation to know, he shared that sometime he would love to bring his family to church here (Mimi works as the administrator at Bethel Lutheran Church, so Sundays are very busy around the De Rosas home.) When you see him around the church, make sure to say "hello!", and if you have a few words of Spanish, he is quite patient with folks trying out speaking Spanish for the first time.