Our Story in New Orleans REI

We met in a chance meeting one day when Jess was promoting her first book stateside in 2010. I knew the moment I met her that I had to make her mine. She said she decided to give me a whirl because I was from the south and had a truck! HA! Africa has always held a MAJOR part of our hearts. It was there that we began merging dreams of Jessie's focus on children's homes in Africa with my real estate investment business, which is now known as Rei Montgomery. But it took a while to see those two dreams become one. What didn't take a while was getting her to take my name. Six weeks later, we were married on a beach in Mozambique, Africa under a million stars and at the edge of the Indian Ocean. I thank God every day for that chance encounter and the unction to ask that ornery northern blonde for her number.

Life took on the usual newlywed story of figuring out how to merge our lives together. Like many, we shared incredible highs. But in 2014 and 2015, we buried our newborn sons, Beau and Montgomery. Life was pretty hard. However, in that sadness, we wanted to show our two living children, Jolie and Tuck, that grief can be powerful. In 2017, we took the LEAP and moved 10,000 miles away to Uganda, Africa, where we gave our real estate investing (REI) business the testing it needed to succeed anywhere in the world. We loved real estate investing, and we also knew we wanted our family to embrace adventure. More than anything, we wanted to show our kids that our response to pain can change the world.

We laugh now thinking back to those days when we would buy and sell investment properties with just a smartphone while on a boat in the Nile River. Many nights, we experienced power outages and conducted business by candlelight with only a mobile WiFi box! Our time in Africa taught us the true value of virtual REI, and we are grateful for the freedom it provides as a mobile family business. Currently, we are on the Gulf Coast, where we love coaching others who share a passion for real estate investing, especially those interested in rei Montgomery. Oh, and our family has expanded! We have been blessed with two more sons, Beau (named after his brothers in Heaven), Gentry, and Shepherd. Life with five kids, homeschooling, traveling, and running a family business is chaotic — holy chaos. And we love every minute of it!