A Little Bit About Us
Luis was raised in Texas by a Mexican-American father and a Korean mother. Rachel was raised as a missionary kid in Indonesia. Little did they know that God had laid out a plan for their lives that was better than anything they could have dreamed of individually. They were introduced by a mutual friend in Lubbock, Texas, in 2010 and were married two years later. They now have four beautiful children: Daniel, Emma, Isabelle, and Joshua. They spent the first ten years of their marriage acquiring skills and experience in their respective fields and, in 2022, felt that God was calling them to take these skills and serve the people of Ethiopia.
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Rachel graduated with a degree in Biology/English from Texas Christian University in 2008. She completed her Medical Doctorate from Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center School of Medicine in 2012 and a Masters of Public Health from Johns Hopkins University in 2014. She completed general surgery residency at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences in Little Rock, Arkansas in 2017 and a Trauma/Critical Care Fellowship at the University of Texas Health Sciences Center at San Antonio in 2018. After fellowship, she joined the faculty at Grand Strand Medical Center in Myrtle Beach, SC as a trauma/acute care/critical care surgeon.Rachel has always had a heart for helping others and has felt God’s calling to Africa since college. Partnering with a PAACS facility in order to train local African doctors to become surgeons and to disciple them in faith so that they may go out and heal their local communities with surgical skills and faith in God’s wisdom is what inspires her.
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Luis graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Civil Engineering from the University of Texas at Austin in 2007. He completed a Master of Science in Civil Engineering from Texas Tech University in 2010, where he met Rachel while she was in medical school. He has worked for three different engineering/construction firms, gaining valuable experience working on various structural projects. In 2021, he felt God’s calling to obtain an MBA with a healthcare administration focus from George Washington University and completed this degree in December of 2023.
Luis never imagined of serving the people of Africa until he met Rachel. Since then, God has been working to grow this desire and make it his own. Working in a location like Soddo Christian Hospital allows Luis to help from an engineering standpoint on various projects. Additionally, having an MBA will also enable him to help administratively. Working with locals to foster relationships where we can disciple others to further go out into their local communities and make their own disciples to further God’s kingdom is what drives him.
We plan to depart in summer of 2024 and spend our first year in Addis Ababa so that we may learn the language and our children can transition to a new country while attending a local international school. Our goal is to make it down to SCH as often as possible during year one so that we can start building relationships and maintain a connection to the place we feel called to serve. We would then move to Soddo full-time in the summer of 2025.
