Lydia Rubenic
Lydia began doing mission work in 2014, and it sparked a life-long passion for the people and culture of Guatemala that is still burning brightly today. Lydia was moved by the conditions she saw around her, and her goal is to bring love and justice to the people of Guatemala by investing in medical and water purification public health efforts. Lydia returned to Guatemala the following year as a global missions intern to lead a team in the distribution of water filtration systems to the communities surrounding Mission El Faro near Puerto Barrios.
In 2015, Lydia graduated from her high school, Wheaton Academy, in Illinois, and her passions for health led her to Nashville, Tennessee to pursue a course of study in pre-med biology at Lipscomb University. In her time at Lipscomb, Lydia had a hand in assisting the campus ministry by leading the university’s first contemporary worship team, and Lydia continued her missions work abroad through Lipscomb’s missions center.
In 2018, Lydia worked with IMN and Lipscomb Missions to design a new trip and cultivate a team that traveled to Guatemala to facilitate pop-up medical clinics which provided primary care, dental care, and public health education for all of its attendees. Lydia is passionate about the growth and intimacy that can come from building a team that is passionately pursuing God’s heart, and she hosted weekly meetings to foster community and build a foundation of love and trust amongst her teams before taking them abroad.
As Lydia’s heart for global missions grew, her desire to understand the social and cultural nuances of the Guatemalan people also grew. Lydia moved to Guatemala in the summer of 2019 to design the IMN Apprenticeship Program. The Apprenticeship Program is a six month program that focuses on spiritual formation through discipleship, and cultural acclimation for passionate new missionaries and students who desire to seek the Lord in new ways on the mission field abroad. Lydia traveled regionally during that time to gather a fuller picture of Guatemalan culture and the intricacies of how to share the powerful, life-changing gospel in a culturally sensitive and informed way.
Lydia is currently living in Jocotenango, Guatemala working as the Director of the IMN Apprenticeship program. She will spend the Spring season writing and refining the program, and she will walk her first students through the program in August of 2020.
