¡Mucho gusto!  Soy Rene.  

I’m a Spanish interpreter, Trust Based Relational Intervention (TBRI) practitioner, CBI certified doula by trade, and “favorite Guatemalan aunt” to some pretty awesome little people.  People are my favorite hobby, but I also love making music, art, bilingual puns, curry, and an especially well-timed ultimate frisbee catch.

I followed God from Minnesota to Guatemala in 2013 with stars in my eyes and a brand-new Spanish degree in my pocket, determined to show Jesus’ love to survivors of abuse in a residential program in Sacatepéquez.  

God blessed that adventure with much more humility and grace than I entered with, and launched me on an 8-year deep dive into the spiritual, physical, and psychological impact of trauma on the development of a person, and into what healing that level of devastation might look like.  Those years sparked an interest in neuroscience, expressing with art what words fail to access, and a habit of asking God to show me where He was in the dark places.  

Mid-pandemic, God opened doors for me with a church in the capital city, to bring what I’d learned at Kids Alive’s residential program into community spheres outside of that institution.  One of my favorite seasons of ministry was training foster families from the public child protection system (SBS) in trauma-informed childcare.  

At the end of 2021, in a surprising turn of events, my home church (and then Kids Alive ministry partner) Iglesia Galilea invited me to direct their Fuente de Esperanza nonprofit organization.  To complete this ministry move, I needed a new missionary sending organization; God led me to CCWM.  I was excited about this new partnership, but if I’d known then just how precious Cup’s support would become to me over the next few years I would’ve wept for joy!  

For three years, I had the honor to serve with Fuente de Esperanza as our team ran two faith-based schools and several other community outreaches in under-resourced villages.  We challenged ourselves to grow as an organization, made many mistakes, took a few bold steps away from creating dependence in the way we worked with families in our ministry.  Mostly, we stood together in awe of how God provided the impossible every single day.  

In July of 2025, I had the privilege of handing off direction of Galilea’s social outreach to a dear friend and passionate educational professional (under whose leadership it is truly flourishing) and stepped into this current season of ministry from a different angle within Iglesia Galilea.