Leader Spotlight: Alex Huechteman

What is up, my dudes? I’m Alex!

I grew up in Frisco, Texas before it was cool – my favorite days were spent plowing a bicycle through piles of dirt in empty lots next to my house and eating as many watermelon snow cones as humanly possible. Most of my childhood was spent training as a competitive gymnast, but then I pulled a fast one on my parents and decided to be a normal kid and play soccer. My family joined a tiny church plant called Water’s Edge in 3^rd grade and our Sunday mornings were spent with a few dozen families in an elementary school cafeteria. My youth group was about 5 kids, but that was where I started to figure out what faith in Christ really meant. Of course, that’s also where I learned about Spoke Folk. I was a young chicken when Mark Schaefer took my brother, Nathan, on his first tour. After listening to all his stories I was in, and I showed up as soon as I could for Illinois 2011. Even though I broke my wrist on my rookie tour, I mostly remember my first taste of the ever-loving, servant-hearted, God-glorifying community that transcends state lines after tour ends. I’ll be upgrading to double digits for my tenth tour this summer in Minnesota. See you there, I hope!

I graduated high school in 2014 and went to the University of Alabama (ROLL TIDE!). I studied Biology and Public Health, where I discovered my big-time interest in healthcare policy and how the heck we’re going to fix it. I met many of my best friends through a campus ministry called Reformed University Fellowship, where I sang on the worship team. I worked in the emergency room through the latter half of college, and have the stories to show for it. Though I never expected to, I also spent about a month living in Nicaragua working and doing research in a free clinic that drastically redefined the way I see medicine and the world. My coolest fun fact is that I saw the inside of an active volcano while I was there!

Currently I am in physician assistant school at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston. It’s been a tough year, but the best is yet to come! In August I will start working in different hospitals in Texas, and will be a real PA next December. I have no idea what life looks like after PA school yet, but can truly say I am trusting that the Lord will prepare me for whatever’s next.

I try to spend all my free time with the people I don’t get to see enough. As I’ve gotten older and moved around, I’ve come to learn that relationships are to be cherished most in life. These days that often looks like heading home to Dallas for the weekend to hug my family and my dog, Rocky. I also love doing anything outside and in a perfect world would be able to read a book in a hammock, jump in a lake, and hike a mountain in the same day. Unfortunately, there are no hammocks or lakes or mountains in Houston. Rip.

To me, Spoke Folk is where every part of every person can be known and loved. I do not just mean on a bike or in a home church, but in your place in the lives of the people who want to walk through life and faith together.