We are delighted to share the warm and heartfelt message from the Revd Jassica Castillo-Burley as she prepares to join the Parish of Great Yarmouth as Team Vicar. In her own words, she introduces her background, passions, and hopes for ministry in our community. With a love for music, outreach, and spiritual care, Jassica brings a wealth of experience and enthusiasm to our parish life.

You can read her full introduction below, as it appeared in our June edition of Parish Life magazine:

Hello everyone

I would first like to introduce myself. My name is Jassica Castillo-Burley, and I am the newly appointed vicar at The Great Yarmouth team. I was born in Nottingham and spent all my school years there. Before the call into ordained ministry, I studied Applied Chemistry at university and worked as an analytical chemist for a major pharmaceutical company. Since ordination I have lived and worked in some wonderful churches in Shropshire and for this appointment in Great Yarmouth I will be moving from Telford and arriving with my husband Roy and my son Elnathan. (See above) I was raised in a Christian home and attended church every week, being involved in outreach events with the church choir, running Bible study groups, and attending youth services.

I love singing and have been singing semi-professionally for most of my life and have sung in many countries as a soloist, in various choirs and groups. I also enjoy setting up and running community choirs. This has been one of my favourite achievements, in collaboration with vocal training.

In my spare time and on my days off, I do a lot of walking, building up my strength in anticipation that one day, very soon, I will walk the Camino de Santiago and eventually visit Santiago de Compostela. I am a friendly, outgoing nonjudgmental person.

Since ordination I have worked and have developed some great skills on the way. I love walking alongside people, encouraging, and developing individuals, using my pastoral, spiritual direction, mentoring and counseling skills. I appreciate time given for visiting.

I am looking forward to coming to Great Yarmouth, to finding my place within a team and seeing what adventures we will encounter. I am so happy and excited for this great opportunity and a chance to live and work in a beautiful place. Whether it’s in a new church, with new people with different cultures and ways of worship, I’m looking forward to fulfilling God’s call on my life in the unfamiliar environment that I will find myself in.

A quote to help me through:

Christ has no body now on earth but yours,
no hands but yours, no feet but yours,
yours are the eyes through which to look
at Christ’s compassion to the world,
yours are the feet with which he is to go
about doing good,
and yours are the hands,
with which he is to bless us now.
– St Teresa of Avila

Jassica

Revd Jassica will be licensed by the Bishop of Norwich on Sunday 15th June at 3pm at Great Yarmouth Minster. All are warmly invited to attend and help welcome her to the parish.

This article originally appeared in Parish Life, the monthly magazine of the Parish of Great Yarmouth (June 2025 issue).