Healing Body and Soul: Robert Peck ’99
Each year, the Iron Thistle Award recognizes a Covenant alum who has faithfully used their God-given gifts and Covenant education to serve the Lord in their homes, communities, and careers, and to build the Church for the glory of God.
The 2026 Iron Thistle recipient, Robert Peck ’99, was presented with the award on September 25 in chapel, one of the highlights of Homecoming weekend.
Rob grew up as a pastor’s kid in Maryland. When he was ten years old, his grandmother
took him to visit missionaries in Kenya, where he fell in love with East Africa and
was inspired by the work those missionaries were doing there. From that point on,
he knew he wanted to be a missionary doctor in Africa when he grew up.
When it came time for college, Rob wanted to go to medical school and planned to join his best friend at Johns Hopkins University. However, his dad said, “There’s one other school I’d love you to visit. It’s called Covenant College.”
Rob reluctantly agreed. During his visit, he sat in chapel directly behind then-President Frank Brock. President Brock turned around, greeted him, and asked, “Are you interested in Covenant?” To which Rob, bluntly, replied, “No.”
But somewhere along the way, Rob’s resolve broke down, and he ended up calling Johns Hopkins to let them know he was going to attend Covenant College.
At Covenant, Rob studied biology and chemistry, ran cross country, worked for the school newspaper, served in student government, and met his wife, Liz. Well, technically, that last part isn’t true. Rob and Liz had actually met as one-year-olds when their dads were studying together at Westminster Seminary. However, as Rob put it, “We didn’t hit it off right away and both went our separate ways as two-year-olds.”
In God’s providence, Liz and Rob reconnected on a Mac Scholars campout, dated through college, and were married one week after graduation.
After Covenant, Rob and Liz went to Nashville, where Rob earned his MD from Vanderbilt. He went on to complete a combined internal medicine and pediatrics residency in Boston, training at Massachusetts General Hospital and Boston Children’s Hospital.
Liz, a nurse practitioner, shared Rob’s heart for medical missions in Africa, so when an opportunity came along to join Cornell’s efforts to develop a medical training program in Mwanza, Tanzania, Rob and Liz answered the call.
On July 17, 2007, they packed up their belongings and moved across the Atlantic with their young daughter, Bridget, now a Covenant student, and another baby, Jack, on the way.
Over the next 16 years, Rob trained doctors and medical students, brought American physicians and specialists to Tanzania to provide instruction, and helped develop research that continues to serve patients and physicians in East Africa. He even managed to earn a PhD in infectious disease from the University of Copenhagen in 2019.
But Rob’s work was never about accolades or even medicine. It was about people. Rob and Liz opened their home to friends and coworkers, served in their local church community, and cared for missionaries and their families. They provided medical care to children at Forever Angels, a local orphanage, and eventually adopted two of those children, Evie and William. They helped local families with education, housing, and small business needs. And when people called with medical emergencies, Rob and Liz made themselves available.
One missionary couple who knew the Pecks in Tanzania said, “We like to tell people: the best missionaries we knew weren’t ‘missionaries’ in the traditional sense. Rob and Liz poured out spiritually to numerous people, ourselves included. They made it their aim to heal body and soul.”
That phrase captures something essential about Rob. He understands medicine as a calling to serve Christ by loving his neighbor.
In 2023, after 16 years in Tanzania, Rob and Liz returned to the United States. They joined Grace Redeemer Church, a PCA congregation in Glen Rock, New Jersey, where Rob now serves as an elder. Their home remains a place of hospitality, and their family continues to serve the church and their community.
Rob also continues his work with Cornell, supporting his research team in Tanzania and mentoring PhD students, even though, just six months after returning to the United States, Rob was diagnosed with stage four terminal cancer. In the midst of intensive chemotherapy treatment, Rob considered stepping away from his work, but his director at Cornell encouraged him to continue contributing as he was able because of the value of what is being accomplished through his work in Tanzania and East Africa. So he carries on.
Looking back on his time at Covenant, Rob said:
“Covenant was an incredible place to grow as a disciple of Jesus. The people I was learning from were really modeling what that looks like. There was a real foundation built there in my relationship with Jesus, a deep understanding of the Reformed faith, the inerrancy of Scripture, the sovereignty of God, the Church as the body of Christ, the all-sufficiency of Christ’s work, and the power of the Spirit. Those ideas have been a source of great comfort and assurance over many years and through many trials.”
Rob, with Liz by his side, has spent his life faithfully preaching the gospel in word and deed: building relationships, training others, caring for the sick, serving the Church, loving his neighbors, and using his vocation to make Christ preeminent.
Rob’s life offers a powerful example and exhortation to the Covenant community: to use whatever gifts God has entrusted to us, wherever He has called us, for the good of others and the glory of Christ.