She found herself alone in a new country, working on a temporary visa and pregnant.
Then, Dixie Marie Judilla says she was blessed by an extraordinary act of kindness in Claresholm, about 130 km due south of Calgary.
In 2008, Judilla left her small town in the Philippines for another small town in the Canadian prairies. She arrived in Claresholm during a December blizzard.
Days later, she was making Blizzards at the local Dairy Queen.
Several years passed and money was tight. Then, Judilla found out she was going to be a mom. A single mom. And she was considering very difficult decisions.
"Because as a foreign worker, you're not entitled, you don't have any benefits and nannies are expensive. So I just cried and said, 'I think when I give birth I'll just take my son back home [to the Philippines] and let my parents take care of him. And then I'll just come back [to Claresholm] to earn money,'" said Judilla.
