4 Authentic Facts About the Weichel Family

“As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”

JOSHUA 24:15

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Welcome to Faithful Servant!  We are so glad you’re here.

Our names are Derek and Amy Weichel, and we are a blessed Christian family walking on our journey together, trying to be radically effective stewards of all the gifts God has entrusted us with on this earth.  We created this blog to encourage others on their journeys to do the same. We are excited to tell you more about the Weichel family in this post.

Derek 

• Loves to learn
• Blessed with the gift of being a giver
• Currently serves in our community as an orthopedic surgeon at our local hospital
• Favorite trip – Family international volunteer trip to Cusco, Peru
• Favorite food – Steak fajitas 
• Confirmation verse: 1 Corinthians 6:20 – You were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body.

Amy

• Loves to help people
• Currently serves in our community as a full time volunteer instructor at a Christian school that she is starting 
• Favorite trip – Family international volunteer trips to Cusco, Peru and Cape Town, South Africa
• Favorite food – Fruit
• Confirmation verse: Ephesians 2: 8-9 – For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith – and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God – not by works, so that no one can boast. 

Our Family

We have been blessed with four healthy Christian children.  

Cole 

• Blessed with the gift of curiosity
• Favorite trip – Family international volunteer trip to Costa Rica
• Favorite food – Disney Cruise Macaroni and Cheese
• Career goal – Aerospace engineer

Leah 

• Blessed with the gift of being a caretaker to her siblings and other children
• Favorite trip – Cruises to Alaska, Hawaii and Virgin Islands
• Favorite food – Hamburger noodle hot dish
• Career goal – Babysitter and a police officer

Lexi

• Blessed with the gift of being detail oriented
• Favorite trip – Disney cruises to Alaska and the Virgin Islands
• Favorite food – Buttered noodles
• Career goal – Doctor

Lily

• Blessed with the gift of bringing joy to those around her
• Favorite trip – Disney World
• Favorite food – Macaroni and cheese corn casserole
• Career goal – Veterinarian

We both grew up in Christian homes in very small communities in the rural Midwest.  Derek’s hometown was an agriculturally-based community in Nebraska, where he was raised helping on the family farm with his grandfather and uncle.  

Amy grew up in rural Wisconsin, where her father was a Lutheran pastor.  The church building was right next to Amy’s childhood home, and the church was a very big part of their lives throughout her younger years.  

In college, Amy became friends with Derek’s sister, and it was at his sister’s wedding in Nebraska that we met.  A year later we were married and moving to Tampa, Florida for Derek’s residency.  

After Derek completed his education in Tampa, we moved back to the agricultural community in Nebraska Derek grew up in.  We have been living here for the past nine years and plan to continue to raise our children here.

1. Educational Background to know about the Weichel family

We were both personally blessed with a Christian education from elementary through high school.  This education was a strong priority for both of our families.  After Derek completed high school and went to college at Missouri State University in Springfield, Missouri, he was initially pursuing an athletic training degree while also taking premedical classes.  Following his undergraduate education, he was blessed to attend medical school at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. 

After that degree was completed, God gave him the opportunity to go to a five-year orthopedic surgery residency program at the University of South Florida in Tampa.  During his residency, Derek was also able to obtain a Master of Business Administration through the University of Colorado Colorado Springs.  Derek is a lifelong learner, continuing to grow his knowledge through reading books and blogs, listening to audiobooks and podcasts, and attending seminars and Mastermind events as often as he is able.

After Amy attended her Christian high school, she enrolled at Martin Luther College in New Ulm, Minnesota.  She received her degree in Elementary Education with an emphasis in English. Amy continues to educate herself regularly by reading books on topics such as Christianity, relationships, education, and parenting.  She also enjoys attending seminars and Mastermind events alongside Derek.  

2. Spiritual Background

We have both been blessed to be born into Christian households and were baptized as infants.  We were brought up in the Lutheran Church, Amy’s father serving as a Lutheran pastor.  Derek’s grandfather and several of his uncles were also Lutheran pastors.  We have continued to attend Lutheran churches throughout our childhood and adult years, and all of our children were baptized children of God within a week of their birth.  

We both feel strongly that a Christian education is a very high priority in our household.  We will go into more detail about Christian education and how we incorporate that into our lives in other portions of this blog.  

3. Summary of Christian Beliefs

Please note that our website has a separate page for our statement of beliefs.

We know that we are not perfect and that we are sinners like everyone else.  We have been blessed in many ways but have also failed and stumbled many times, both individually and as a family. Some of these failures have been more significant than others.  We pray that God will allow us to grow and learn from those failures and that we can also give Him praise, honor, and glory through those failures.  We will plan to share our challenges and failures through this blog in the hope that others can grow from these experiences.

4. Travel

We enjoy traveling together as a family and have been blessed to do so a fair amount, both in the United States and internationally.  Within the United States, some of our favorite places to visit are Branson, Missouri, Disney World and Eastern Tennessee.  In this blog, we will explain some of the things we like to see and do in those locations.  We have also enjoyed going on cruises together as a family.  So far we have been to the Virgin Islands, Hawaii, and Alaska.  

Our most amazing trips, though, have been our family’s international volunteer trips.  Together we have been to Peru, Costa Rica, South Africa, Guatemala and Kenya with an organization called Globe Aware and have also been to Indonesia with Kingdom Workers.  These trips have been very educational and rewarding!  We will talk about those trips on various aspects of our blog.  

Please see this clip which aired on CNN highlighting the Globe Aware Costa Rica experience we were able to participate in:

We plan to do a lot more traveling in the future and want to share some of the lessons we have learned with all of you.  We have discovered some things that have made traveling as a family easier, and we have also encountered many challenges that we hope others can learn from as they follow this blog.  

Key Points:

• We are a blessed Christian family walking together as stewards of the gifts we have been entrusted with
• We strive to utilize the unique gifts that God has blessed each of us with to their fullest
• We are blessed to have been brought up in Christian households in the rural Midwest and are thankful to be able to provide that same experience for our four children
• We are thankful for the educational opportunities we have experienced and look to utilize and build on the knowledge we have gained through them
• We are sinful humans who have and will continue to sin and fail on our stewardship journey and in other aspects of our lives, but we pray that as we share these failures with you, we will both be able to grow, learn from, and ultimately give God glory through those challenges
• We have been blessed with the gift of travel and want to use that gift to its fullest potential, sharing with our readers some of the lessons and experiences we have learned through travel