The soccer field was basically in their front yard growing up in Manaus, Brazil.
Hope and Hannah Ketcham spent their childhood playing pickup games with friends and neighbors, developing skills on a dusty field near the Amazon River.
Now they’re bringing that same passion to Faith Baptist Bible College, where they are both starters on the women’s soccer team.
But soccer is just part of their story; a small part, in fact.
Hope, a junior, is on track to become the first student to complete Faith’s new B.S.N. program from start to finish. Hannah, a freshman, is also a B.S.N. student, pursuing a career in physical therapy.
Both sisters want to serve God in foreign missions, combining their medical training with their love for hurting people.
It’s a unique combination: soccer players in scrubs, athletes with stethoscopes, competitors who care deeply about compassion.
More Than Just Soccer
During the 2025 season, Hope was a captain and played defense while Hannah patrolled the midfield.
But they’ll tell you soccer isn’t the main reason they’re here.
They came to learn, to grow, and to prepare for future ministry. But soccer has become an integral part of their college experience, stretching them and growing them in unique ways outside of the classroom.
“They [coaches] don’t get angry and they care a lot about us,” Hope explains. “It’s very Christ-focused as a whole. Coach Katie plans out a whole devotional for the whole season. She has a booklet for it. We go through it as a team every week.”
When the team struggles on the field, the coaches dig deeper than tactics. Hope says, “When we’re having problems on the field, you know, with most teams would probably be like, okay, what are we doing wrong soccer wise?”
“But for them it’s more like, all right, do we have a heart issue? Is it because, you know, you’re not trusting your teammates or because you don’t respect them? Or do you have some sort of conflict with them they need to resolve?”
The approach resonates with Hope. “I don’t feel like we’re just here to play soccer. It’s more than just playing soccer.”
Even losing doesn’t diminish the joy. “We’re not the best team. But we can have fun playing together…and still lose. But then other teams will be winning, screaming at each other, swearing at each other, and it just looks miserable to play.”
Finding Faith from Brazil
Hope discovered Faith through Instagram, of all places.
During her family’s furlough in Kansas her sophomore year of high school, she saw that an acquaintance had graduated from Faith’s missionary nursing program.
“I was like, oh, that’s what I wanted to do,” Hope says.
She had already decided that nursing would be a useful tool for missions. “I knew I wanted to do missions. That was like my main thing I wanted to do, and so I started looking for a Christian school.”
Hope eventually enrolled in Faith’s online Western Civilization class while still in Brazil, and she loved it. She enjoyed the virtual class so much that she decided that “in person must be even better.”
By the time Hope visited Ankeny in July before her freshman year, she had already made her deposit and committed. “It wasn’t even like a visit. It was just ‘I’m going to see the campus before actually coming.'”
Faith’s Improved Nursing Program
Between Hope’s freshman and sophomore years, Faith’s nursing program went through a major shift. What started as a missionary nursing track became a full Bachelor of Science in Nursing through Faith’s collaboration with Mercy College of Health Sciences.
The change meant more work for the nursing students, but it also meant better preparation. “It’s a more intense program,” Hope says. “If I wanted to use my nursing degree for missions or even in the U.S., this full bachelor’s in nursing would be beneficial.”
Hope will finish her Faith classes in May 2026 with an Associate of Arts in Bible. She will then join Mercy’s 12-month intensive nursing program in September and graduate with her B.S.N. the following year.
Hope’s Future Plans
Hope is waiting to see which areas of nursing she enjoys before deciding where to serve.
Oddly enough, she’s never actually been to a hospital except once when her brother fractured his skull when they were really little. But that has not kept her from pursuing her degree with passion.
After graduating, she might work in the States for a couple of years first to get experience before heading to the mission field. The destination is still undetermined. She has even thought about Mercy Ships, the floating hospital that docks at different third world countries for a month or two before moving on to the next.
Hannah’s Path to Faith
For Hannah, the decision to come to Faith was more complicated. She had taken anatomy and physiology in high school with a teacher who loved what she did and was passionate about it.
“She would always call me whenever people on the river injured themselves, like with a machete or anything,” Hannah remembers. “And then she always like loved explaining it. And I guess I just kind of really enjoy it, like the puzzle, I guess.”
Hannah looked into nursing programs and applied to several colleges. But none of them really worked out; some of them didn’t even respond back to her.
Then there was Faith. But Hannah didn’t want to follow her sister. “I was trying really hard to go to a different college,” Hannah admits. She thought that people would expect her go to Faith just because Hope did, so she had decided, “No, I’m going to go somewhere else, like my own thing.”
After narrowing her choices down to Faith and one other school, the admissions counselor from the other school didn’t see Hannah’s email. Somehow it got lost, and he didn’t respond to her until months later.
By then it was too late, and Hannah had changed course and decided that Faith was the right school for her. “Just praying about it, I felt a lot of peace about going to Faith.”
Hannah’s Future Plans
Hannah is still figuring out whether to pursue a career in nursing or focus on physical therapy. “Just being in sports, just seeing people get injured, I really want to know how to fix it,” she says.
At this year’s missions conference, she had the opportunity to talk to an ICU nurse who encouraged her to consider the benefits of being a physical therapist. She explained that in the creative access country where she serves, physical therapy would be more effective because of all the deformities and mental and physical disabilities in the area.
For now, Hannah plans to continue in the nursing program and then perhaps use that foundation to pivot into physical therapy. She knows that she would appreciate having nursing knowledge either way: “I kind of like knowing a little bit of everything.”
The Bigger Picture
Hope and Hannah came from Manaus, Brazil, home of the famous “Meeting of the Waters” where the dark Rio Negro and sandy-colored Rio Solimões flow side by side for miles without mixing. It’s a powerful picture of two distinct things coming together.
In some ways, that’s what the Ketcham sisters are doing at Faith. They’re bringing together their love for soccer with their desire to serve in missions. They’re combining medical training with ministry preparation. They’re merging athletic competition with compassionate care.
The sisters see their time at Faith as preparation for something bigger than college athletics or even career success.
“I think it’ll just help, having a solid foundation biblically to help me going forward,” Hannah says about Faith’s impact.
“I want to go into missions, like foreign missions, and so being biblically sound and having answers biblically or, you know, why you believe what you believe.”
Hope agrees. She values the relationships with professors and the spiritual depth of the program. “They care about you as a person. They care about, not just your school life. ‘How are you doing? How’s your relationship with God? Are you walking with the Lord?'”
For Hope and Hannah, Faith is uniquely equipped to prepare them for their calling.
They’re getting a solid nursing education that will open doors anywhere in the world. They’re building relationships that will last beyond graduation. They’re developing spiritual maturity that will sustain them in ministry.
Oh, and they’re playing soccer together, just like they did growing up in Brazil, but now with teammates who share their faith and their future vision.
The Ketcham sisters aren’t here just to earn degrees and play college soccer. They’re here to prepare for a lifetime of ministry.
Soccer and nursing are part of the journey, but they aren’t the destination.
These sisters are aiming for something bigger than the goal posts on the field. They’re aiming for God’s glory as they take the Word to the world.
Want to learn more about Faith’s B.S.N. program? Visit our nursing page to learn more!
