

HOW IT
Began!
Jay & Stella met in Brooklyn in 1989 and married in 1991. Jay is from Connecticut and Stella is from Colombia and they have 3 children. They both have news backgrounds, Jay working at CNN and Bloomberg and Stella at NBC in New York.
As they entered their 50’s, Jay was facing unemployment and Stella was confronting returning to work after years of focusing on the children, having put her career aspirations on hold to focus on the children, their next
steps were uncertain.
What is interesting is how things work out if you are open to them.
A week after they were notified that Jays department was being eliminated, Jay was offered a position in Beijing,
China. At the same time, Stella became aware of “The Way” (The Camino de Santiago de Compestela) and decided she wanted to do it. “The Camino” is a pilgrimage along the route St. James walked to gain followers 1,800 years ago. It is
a hike of over 600 miles, crossing the Pyrenees in France across northern Spain to Santiago de Compostela. Once purely religious in nature, it is now also a path of spiritual, cultural and recreational purpose.
The process
of obtaining all the documentation required for working in China took several months, affording Jay and Stella to experience the “Camino” together.