The Rev. Thomas Dunseth was serving as an LCMS missionary in Macau, China, when he first met Deaconess Diana Rice. At the time, Rice’s surname was Lei, and she was a 16-year-old student at Concordia School for Special Education (CSSE) in Macau.
Rice, who has been deaf since age 5, was born in Fujian, China, but when she was 13 years old, her family moved to Macau to access the city’s more extensive educational resources for the deaf. Dunseth said, “It was pretty clear when I first met [Diana] that she was already an exceptional student — naturally bright, with an inquisitive mind.”