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Len grew up in Manchester, New Hampshire and is the last of nine children. At age 19, while serving in the US Army at Ft Benning, Georgia, Len made a commitment to serve the Lord. Jennifer grew up in Morgantown, West Virginia. She made a commitment to serve the Lord at age five during a meeting where her father was preaching the gospel.They met at Regent University School of Divinity in Virginia Beach, Virginia in 1992.

Doulos Missions International began in June 2006 with a vision for helping the indigenous leaders of Eastern Europe plant churches. Our roots, however, go back to the mid-1980s and early 1990s, when God began creating a special place for Eastern Europe in the hearts of DMI founders Len and Jennifer Lacroix.

Len Lacroix was serving in the U.S. Army when he gave his life to Jesus Christ in February 1986, and he committed his life to go wherever the Lord would send him and do whatever the Lord would command. That year, he was sent to Berlin, a city 120 miles inside communist East Germany, to help patrol the Berlin Wall as a recon scout. He served there for about 18 months and saw firsthand the scourge of communism.

In 1989, Len felt the Lord’s call for him to pray for Eastern Europe. And later that year while in Bible school, he formed a small group of students who prayed regularly and saw God open doors in these countries for the gospel.

Len and Jennifer weren’t married at that time, but she, too, was feeling God’s call toward missions in general and Eastern Europe in particular. Just before enrolling in graduate school at Regent University, Jennifer went to Romania on a short-term missions trip to work with orphans. It was there that the Lord began to touch her heart with a special love for the people of Eastern Europe.

Len and Jennifer met at Regent while studying for Master’s degrees in World Missions. During their time at Regent, Len went on a short-term mission trip to Bulgaria (1993). And in 1995, he returned to the region as an intern teaching at a Bible school in Kiev, Ukraine.

Len soon began a 10-year career in health care, eventually managing large projects across multiple regions in what became the largest private health insurance company in the country. Even as a Project Management Professional, he continued his efforts to reach people for Christ. He and Jennifer married in 1997 and began raising a family. The couple became active in a church, where God began to teach them the relational aspect of New Testament church life, as well as the importance of accountability to work through important issues in family life.

When Len left the corporate world in 2006, it became clear the Lord was calling the couple to take a step of faith and follow His calling to serve on the mission field.

They named their new organization for the Greek word Doulos, which means slave or bondservant. The Apostle Paul used this word to refer to himself: “I became a servant of this gospel by the gift of God’s grace given me through the working of his power.” (Ephesians 3:7). 

Len and Jennifer with their five children now live in North Carolina, USA, where they base DMI’s global ministry.