Rich and Rachel Mastrogiacomo are deeply in love with Christ and want to spend the entirety of their lives spreading the joy of the Gospel. While earning a baccalaureate in Sacred Theology and a licentiate in Spiritual Theology from Pontifical universities, Rich developed a strong connection with the poor of Rome, Italy. He was initially transformed by an encounter with Christ in the disguise of Jamaica’s poor while serving on a mission trip with the Missionaries of the Poor in Kingston. He in turn worked with the Missionaries of Charity in Vatican City State, Rome, Moscow, and Armenia while finishing his studies.
Rachel first experienced Jesus calling her to foreign missions when she was 10 years old during the song "Here I Am, Lord" at Mass. Around this time, her father posted newspaper clippings of starving Sudanese children on the family refrigerator in hopes of fostering in his own children an attitude of gratitude and awareness of global poverty. The Holy Spirit used this small gesture to inspire in Rachel more than just a little thankfulness. While in high school, she kept a love in her heart for Sudan. She tasted the abundant joy of foreign missions while serving in Honduras as a freshman in college, and later set out to labor in the Lord’s vineyard as a youth minister upon graduating from Franciscan University of Steubenville with degrees in Theology and Religious Education.
Rich and Rachel met in Rome on Thanksgiving of 2009 and were later joined together through the Sacrament of Holy Matrimony in 2014. As newlyweds, they attended Family Missions Company’s annual Proclaim Conference and were solidified anew in their missionary vocation and supreme duty of proclaiming Christ to all peoples everywhere. After a year of working with at-risk youth at Boys Town, Rich and Rachel joined Family Missions Company. Given Rich’s particular gifts and FMC’s recent exponential growth, the Mastrogiacomo’s first mission post was stateside at the missions base in Abbeville where Rich served as FMC’s Director of Development and together with Rachel, ran a certified foster home in the state of Louisiana. The Lord moved Rich's heart in a wild way in the spring of 2017 and opened the door for the Mastrogiacomo family to serve as full-time foreign missionaries in Africa. Empowered by the Holy Spirit, they have left behind the comfort of their American lives in order to give themselves entirely to the service and evangelization of the South Sudanese refugee community in northern Uganda.
