--- description: Discover Dave Hatfield's transformative journey from Beverly Hills stockbroker to missionary in Kenya, highlighting obedience, faith, and community impact. title: "#120: From Beverly Hills Stockbroker to Missionary in Kenya: Dave Hatfield’s Story" image: https://withinreachglobal.org/hubfs/MP%20THUMBNAILS-1.jpg --- [Skip to content](https://withinreachglobal.org/missions-pulse/120davehatfield#main-content) [![WRG-Logo-white](https://withinreachglobal.org/hubfs/WRG-Logo-white.png) ![WRG-Logo-black](https://withinreachglobal.org/hubfs/WRG-Logo-black.png)](https://withinreachglobal.org/) - [Why the unreached](https://withinreachglobal.org/why-the-unreached) - Get involved ##### [Mission trips Come as an individual or bring your team to Thailand for 7-14 days on the front lines.](https://withinreachglobal.org/trips) ##### [Apprenticeship 3, 6, or 12 months of discipleship and hands-on ministry in Chiang Mai, Thailand. 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What followed was a journey of obedience, betrayal, forgiveness, and redemption that would change everything. [Get the book ›](https://www.amazon.com/dp/1737743604?lv=shuf&channelId=500&plpRedirect=mhFallback) On this episode of Missions Pulse, David Joannes connects with Dave Hatfield, founder and president of Livingstone Global, who joins from Nakuru, Kenya. Dave never set out to be a missionary. He was a Beverly Hills stockbroker who gave his life to Christ at 46, and nineteen years later he is still saying yes to the next thing God puts in front of him. 📖 If this conversation stirs something in you, you can learn more about, pray for, or give to the work of Livingstone Global at livingstoneglobal.org. Dave describes himself as an “American dream kid.” He made his goal lists, listened to Zig Ziglar, and had accomplished everything on them by 35. Then life got dry. When his business partner took the business, the identity he had built around success went with it. Not long after, he walked into a church in a small town, heard the gospel for the first time, and realized he had been following the wrong playbook. Seven months later he took a ten-day trip to Kenya with his 13-year-old son. The day school let out, he went back with his wife and their ten-year-old, because he couldn’t explain what God had done in his heart and they needed to see it for themselves. What began as a short-term trip became a school. Dave saw three- and four-year-old children with nowhere to go until age seven, and the problem solver in him said, “Let’s open a preschool.” They started with 18 children. A few years in, a partnership fell apart, funding was pulled, and the school closed. Dave had quit in his heart. Then God said something he did not expect: “Do it again, and I’ll be with you.” He had $273, no land, and three months. In January the doors opened with 18 children again. Today Maisha Mapya, which means “new life” in Swahili, serves over 400 students through grade nine. Many of them call him “Daddy Dave,” and Dave is careful about what that means. In a place with few healthy father figures, he says, it is a chance to point children to their Heavenly Father. David adds Amy Carmichael, known as Amma to the children of Dohnavur, as another picture of a missionary who became family. The heart of the conversation is what happened during COVID. Tensions between rival groups in the community were rising, and a four-year-old student’s family was caught in the middle. Dave was locked down in California when God told him, “Go to Nakuru and I’ll make peace between the groups through you.” He was 59, with no seminary and no training. He went. He ended up baptizing two rival members in the same water after they asked each other for forgiveness. Word spread, and people began bringing him their hardest problems. One by one, men who had lived by violence gave their lives to Christ. What came next was just as unusual. A former group leader named Wes told Dave he wanted to do something for God. Dave suggested they read the Bible together, and Wes said, “Right now.” They opened the book of John on the steps where Wes used to spend his days. Within nine days, 32 people were coming. For three years Dave taught and Wes translated, then the two traded places, because it was Wes’s church and Wes’s people. They called it Light and Love Church, and it still has no programs, no membership, and no offering, just tea and an hour in the Word. They later rented a bar and turned it into a coffee shop where free coffee, open Bibles, and prayer meet people where they are. Dave says it was never about fixing the community. It was about staying. “I was the one who didn’t leave,” he says, through a staff betrayal, the loss of the school, and the hardest seasons. Dave also shares what he calls the biblical case for short-term missions. In Mark 4, Jesus tells his disciples to cross to the other side of the lake. The point, Dave says, was to form them: to put them in unfamiliar situations they couldn’t control and see what came out. He tells visitors to just come, without a perfect plan, and let God shape them. David connects this to his own story, since a short-term trip at 14 set the course for a long-term commitment in his life. For Dave, formation is the whole point. “No one’s changed more than me,” he says, at 65, and God used the people of Kenya to teach him how to follow Jesus. Even the pace of his ministry was part of that formation. Dave wanted to expand years ago, but God told him he wasn’t yet who he needed him to be. After losing nearly his whole team, the staff has been rebuilt to 62, including an American missionary family, and Dave is out of daily operations. Looking ahead, Dave dreams of turning a five-acre property into a boarding school and building a Christian restoration home for women on land that borders Lake Nakuru National Park. Six men from Wes’s former group now work with Livingstone Global after going through an eight-month Bible-based program. Dave is also writing a trilogy about the call, the cost, and the life he is living now. He knows his next step of faith is to step back so the ministry belongs to the community. He and his wife, Kim, are volunteers who don’t draw a salary, and Dave is the organization’s only fundraiser. David closes the conversation by encouraging listeners to visit livingstoneglobal.org and to find Dave’s books there or on Amazon. This episode reminds us that obedience doesn’t have to be complicated. Say yes, take the next step, and stay. The invitation to know God’s heart and join His mission is still open.   Share this episode [mailto:?subject=%3Cspan+id%3D%22hs_cos_wrapper_name%22+class%3D%22hs_cos_wrapper+hs_cos_wrapper_meta_field+hs_cos_wrapper_type_text%22+style%3D%22%22+data-hs-cos-general-type%3D%22meta_field%22+data-hs-cos-type%3D%22text%22+%3E%23120%3A+From+Beverly+Hills+Stockbroker+to+Missionary+in+Kenya%3A+Dave+Hatfield%E2%80%99s+Story%3C%2Fspan%3E&body=https%3A%2F%2Fwithinreachglobal.org%2Fmissions-pulse%2F120davehatfield](mailto:?subject=%3Cspan+id%3D%22hs_cos_wrapper_name%22+class%3D%22hs_cos_wrapper+hs_cos_wrapper_meta_field+hs_cos_wrapper_type_text%22+style%3D%22%22+data-hs-cos-general-type%3D%22meta_field%22+data-hs-cos-type%3D%22text%22+%3E%23120%3A+From+Beverly+Hills+Stockbroker+to+Missionary+in+Kenya%3A+Dave+Hatfield%E2%80%99s+Story%3C%2Fspan%3E&body=https%3A%2F%2Fwithinreachglobal.org%2Fmissions-pulse%2F120davehatfield) More episodes ## Keep listening [![](https://withinreachglobal.org/hubfs/MP%20THUMBNAILS-1.jpg)](https://withinreachglobal.org/missions-pulse/120davehatfield) ### [#120: From Beverly Hills Stockbroker to Missionary in Kenya: Dave Hatfield’s Story](https://withinreachglobal.org/missions-pulse/120davehatfield) Nov 2, 2026, 3:47:25 AM [![](https://withinreachglobal.org/hubfs/MP%20THUMBNAILS%20(3).png)](https://withinreachglobal.org/missions-pulse/119johnnyyeverino) ### [#119: Ruined for the Ordinary: Johnny’s Journey from a Dream to Thailand](https://withinreachglobal.org/missions-pulse/119johnnyyeverino) Oct 15, 2026, 1:38:22 AM [![](https://withinreachglobal.org/hubfs/MP%20THUMBNAILS.jpg)](https://withinreachglobal.org/missions-pulse/118kendallcobb) ### [#118: A Legacy of Faith: Kendall Cobb on His Family's Lifelong Missionary Journey](https://withinreachglobal.org/missions-pulse/118kendallcobb) Oct 1, 2026, 9:36:18 AM [![](https://withinreachglobal.org/hubfs/MP%20THUMBNAILS%20(1).png)](https://withinreachglobal.org/missions-pulse/117shanepruittshellymelia) ### [#117: Reaching Generation Alpha: Shane Pruitt & Shelly Melia on Real Faith in a Digital World](https://withinreachglobal.org/missions-pulse/117shanepruittshellymelia) Sep 15, 2026, 7:34:12 AM ## Reach the unreached with us. 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