About Us

Hi, I’m Dr. Joyce Choe and I’m so happy you’re here and considering joining our Med Missionary Training. It’s been a long road to get here.

Med Missionary has truly been a labor of love and faith that was built from the ground up by Mercy Ballard and I in the summer of 2020 in the heat of the pandemic. After suffering with, but ultimately overcoming, our own bouts of chronic disease we wanted to start our own Christian community of like-minded people who were passionate about using natural health principles to overcome illness.

It all started as a Facebook Group and podcast and has since grown into the premier online educational platform for training future medical missionaries and online health coaches. It’s been a tremendous blessing to have graduated thousands of students, many of whom are utilizing their Med Missionary Training to make a difference in the lives of others.

The Founders

Dr. Joyce Choe

Dr. Joyce is an ophthalmologist who works in the Pacific Northwest. She developed significant health issues after being prescribed a powerful fluoroquinolone antibiotic in the late 1990’s.

Dr. Joyce experienced first-hand how difficult it is to find an answer to the difficult problems that medications can cause and the amazing power of simple changes in diet and lifestyle in transforming one’s life.

She found that despite the breadth of scientific literature on subjects of diet and lifestyle, one needed to have a solid paradigm in which to interpret the literature.

Through the paradigm of her background as a Seventh day Adventist (pioneers in the health and wellness movement) she brings a Bible-based approach to the practical science of healing.

Learn more about Dr. Joyce at:
drjoycechoe.com

Mercy Ballard

Mercy is the founder of Years Restored. Mercy went to medical school in Mexico and has worked as an IV infusion nurse in the US for over two decades. When Mercy developed unusual symptoms of celiac disease in 2004, she had to embark on her own search for answers. 

A Seventh day Adventist Christian, Mercy believed that the best diet would be a plant based diet as recommended in the Bible. 

However, she was confused by the recommendations of health care practitioners to adopt a paleo lifestyle. She set about to discover what was causing so many on plant based diets to continue to have chronic leaky gut issues. 

Finding significant improvement for herself, she and her husband opened the Years Restored lifestyle center and since 2013, the plant based protocol and menus used at Years Restored have helped hundreds of clients find remission and healing.

Learn more about Mercy Ballard at:
yearsrestored.com

The Staff

Sonia Salinas, RN, DCDES

Spanish Director for Med Missionary. Worked for the Cleveland Clinic Foundation, Cleveland, Ohio as a registered nurse in the Cardiology Department as part of the Heart, Vascular and Thoracic Institute. She then provided comprehensive outpatient care in the Endocrinology Department, with the focus on diabetes teaching.  Has also completed the Plant-Based Nutrition Certificate, Completed (February, 2024), T. Colin Campbell Center for Nutrition Studies and eCornell. 

I enjoy sewing, cooking, canning, reading, planting, and helping others. I first took the Med Missionary course and immediately enrolled into the Membership because I wanted to learn more. When the 2nd Spanish class started, I attended their Sunday meetings because I wanted to learn the needs of this group and was curious to see how it was! So, I was finishing the Spanish Sunday lecture then I would immediately join the English class; I was back and forth between these two classes, I did not want to miss anything!! Then, I was asked to help with the Spanish group and I am very thankful and blessed to be part of this wonderful end-time ministry. My focus areas are: Ambassador, Health Coaching, and Lifestyle Center.




Adrian and Alina Iorgulescu

Adrian and Alina were born, raised and live in Arad County, Romania. They both attended primary, secondary and high school in Arad. Born and raised in the countryside, used to working in the garden, they have remained connected to nature and gardening.

Adrian studied and worked for a while as a carpenter, he also studied IT both in high school and at university. After that he studied theology at the University of Adventus Romania and did his master’s degree and worked as a pastor for three years, but God had other plans.

Alina started studying at the Faculty of Nursing and soon after she started the Faculty of Medicine in Timisoara. She specialised as a Family Doctor but gave up working in the medical system because God had other plans for her too.After much questioning and fretting, in 2018, God opened the way for them to discover true healing and they studied at Centurion Bible School of Health Center in TN, USA, then attended and studied at Years Restored Health Center in California, where they met Mercy Ballard.

Back in the country, they soon rented a location and set up the SanoVera health centre in Arad county which operated for three years. In 2021 we started translating the The Autoimmune Plant Based Cookbook written by Dr Joyce and Mercy.

In 2022, Alina attended the Med Missionary training course, part of the 9th series. They are now working together with the Med Missionary team as programme directors for the Romanian language and want to reopen a small health centre in the near future.

Joyce Belew

Joyce Belew was born in Sao Paulo Brazil. Graduated college with a Marketing / communication degree. Traveled to the USA to take ESL classes at SWAU. After completing ESL, I completed my masters program in Bussiness (MBA), at the same university. IÂŽm married to Jonathan Belew and I have 3 wonderful kids, I finally completed my last leg of education which was in Nursing.

I have since been heavily involved in the medical field and have completely fallen in love with medical missionary work. I was part of the first graduated group from med missionary. I feel truly blessed to be part of this great program, that has transformed so many lifes.

Davie John Garcia

Davie John Garcia lives in San Antonio, Texas and serves Med Missionary as the Director of Technology and the Director of Marketing. He is a relatively new Christian who gave his life to Christ in May of 2022 after spending all of his teenaged and early adult life searching for truth. He is now an AFCOE graduate and Elder at his local church, and his been with Med Missionary since the beginning in 2020 back when he was first becoming interested in faith and ministry work.

Aida RodrĂ­guez

Aida RodrĂ­guez was born in Caracas, Venezuela but currently living in Colombia. She graduated from the University with a degree in Computer Engineering. She has always had a great passion for reading and health-related content. This inclination has made the opportunity to learn about health in the way of Jesus a great blessing for her, allowing her to apply and teach this knowledge to others.Currently, Aida is serving in the Med Missionary Ministry, supporting student services with platform management.

Additionally, she is studying the course herself to achieve her goal of becoming a Med missionary. This experience has enabled her to contribute to the growth and development of future med missionaries while continuing to strengthen her own knowledge and skills in this field.

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