Oksana was born in Warsaw, Poland, of Ukrainian parents, Volodymyr and Stephania Bovdor, and raised in Lvov, Ukraine, near the border with Poland. She started piano at age twelve, studying in the local music institute. At age fifteen, she entered college and completed a bachelor's degree in music pedagogy. During that time, she was baptized into the Seventh-day Adventist church, at age eighteen.

Oksana started teaching in 1984, teaching successively in kindergarten, a conservatory program, and in secondary school. In 1985, she began work on a master's degree in pedagogy musical, which she completed in 1989. In Mexico, this five-year degree is regarded as equivalent to a doctorate.

Following completion of that degree, she taught again at several levels, except from 1993 to 1996, when she stayed at home to care for her newborn son, Alexander. She left the Ukraine in 2003 and in 2008 remarried Nephtali Jacobo, an art teacher at UM.

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