About Rachel

How I Got Here

I grew up in a small town in East Texas. I graduated in May 2008 from Texas Christian University in Fort Worth, Texas with a degree in interior design and a minor in Spanish. After graduation I moved to the Plano/Frisco area to work as a designer at a commercial architecture firm.

Although I enjoy design and architecture, I have wanted to become a teacher since I was a child.  Further, I fell in love with the Spanish language in high school and desired to improve my fluency after college. With these passions at heart, I began pursuing certification to teach secondary Spanish not long after entering the design profession.

As I plugged into a church in DFW, I had the opportunity to attend a send-off of some church members to be missionaries. One of them mentioned always having a heart for missions but after a while she assumed it just meant occassional short-term trips until, out of nowhere, a long-term opportunity appeared. Her words caused me to consider my own calling. I was in elementary school when I first felt drawn to missions, but it wasn’t until a mission trip to Peru in 2006 that I experienced the fullness and joy of serving others. Together with my love for Spanish and Spanish speakers, I hoped that more trips were in store for me. But as I considered the way God has wired me and the experiences I have had, I began to wonder if God had actually been preparing me for something even better than I could imagine.

One weekend while visiting my parents, a magazine from the Texas A&M College of Education arrived for my mom (it must be said that she does not remember receiving one in the last twenty years). As I skimmed through it, I found an article about a school in the Dominican Republic founded by an Aggie couple with the mission of bridging the gap between the socioeconomic and denominational divisions of the community. I eagerly investigated the school further to realize that all its goals and visions aligned with my own. I applied, and everything fell into place.

I will be fulfilling more than one dream when I move to the Dominican Republic to teach at Doulos Discovery School. I am thrilled to have the opportunity to be immersed in the Spanish language and culture. I am excited to share my love for learning with middle school students and help prepare them for life by teaching geography and English. But mostly, I am honored and humbled to be apart of God’s work in Jarabacoa.