In 1947, Dorretta Brown and her husband, Zeral, packed their two children into their '35 Ford and headed south from Fort Wayne, Indiana. The young family was on its way to the Dominican Republic, then held in the iron grip of dictator Rafael Leonidas Trujillo, embarking on what would become a life-changing journey. The seventh of ten children born to Midwestern farmers, Doretta never gave much thought to a life outside of Minnesota. But when she was just seventeen years old, she accepted Jesus Christ as her savior, and the world as she knew it changed forever. After high school, she moved to St. Paul, where she enrolled at Northwestern Bible and Missionary Training School (now Northwestern Bible College). There, she met and married another student, Zeral Lewis Brown, and together the young couple committed their lives to "go into all the world" and spread the Word of God. Despite her devotion to the path laid before her by God, Dorretta quickly discovered that life as a missionary, especially with small children, was rarely easy. She faced cultural and linguistic barriers, as well as the most primitive of third-world living conditions."