Caring for the body, mind and spirit
Rebecca Rabb MTS ’27 has spent her life serving others, from her time in the U.S. Army to work as a seminary student and faith community nurse.
Growing up in rural Pennsylvania, Rabb had an itch to step out from the crowd. “I just wanted to do something different,” she remembers. With drive and determination, she applied for an Army ROTC (Reserve Officers' Training Corps) scholarship at the University of Pennsylvania, starting her career as a military nurse.
“I figured I would do my time and go back to Lancaster and live my happy life as a nurse,” she recalled, but everything changed when she met Robert, an Army engineer, at Fort Carson in Colorado Springs, her first duty station. The two married and spent most of their Army careers stationed together.
“We agreed that as long as the Army kept us together, we’d both stay enlisted, and the Army was very good to us,” she shared.
Rabb’s work in the Army Nurse Corps carried her many places and gave her meaningful, transformative experiences. One of those was in Honduras, where she spent six months providing healthcare to underserved populations.
“That was the best – taking care of indigent Hondurans who otherwise would not have had access to medical care,” she shared. “It was an awesome experience, and I got to work with really great people.”
Following her retirement from the service as a Lieutenant Colonel in December 2010, Rabb and her family landed in State College, Pennsylvania, where her husband began working at Penn State. Caring for her teenage son with special needs meant going back into nursing full-time wasn’t possible. However, a new door opened that would change her life again.
She began training as a faith community nurse while living in Virginia, and her pastor in State College encouraged her to pursue a theology degree, which would strengthen both her faith and skills as a faith community nurse. “The congregation is like my patient, and faith community nursing is about caring for the body, mind and spirit.”
At Lutheran Theological Southern Seminary (LTSS), Rabb has found more than just a school —she discovered a diverse community that welcomed her with open arms.
“I love LTSS. The community is fabulous,” she shared. “I love how it’s such an eclectic group! We’ve got kind of the baby pastors who are going from undergrad to seminary — I’m old enough to be their mom — and then we have second-career students from a variety of backgrounds. And we’re all learning together.”
Studying in Columbia has given Rabb a feeling of home. “Before moving here, we lived in Charleston for eight years, so my heart will always be in the Carolinas. I love that time so much,” she said. “And our daughter is still in Charlotte, so I was like, ‘I can go see my daughter when I go to school.’ It all kind of worked out that LTSS was my choice for seminary.”
Rabb’s transition to seminary has been a natural progression from her nursing career and commitment to the church. “As a public health nurse, I’m used to the broad scope of taking care of all the people and meeting individual needs as they come up,” she said. Her willingness to learn has powered her pursuit of theology. “This will be my third master’s degree,” she shared, smiling. “I like studying. I like learning. Deadlines and papers aren’t all that fun, but I love the idea of being in a community of learning.”
Reflecting on her decision to attend LTSS, she said, “I never thought of myself as seminary material, but I put in the work and it’s paying off. I couldn’t imagine being anywhere else.”
