About Us

God started stirring in me a desire to live and work cross-culturally when I was in the 8th grade. As I began studying French that year, I found that I loved hearing about other cultures and learning a new language. Around the same time I heard God calling me to commit myself to being a serious disciple of Jesus. I received a strong biblical education at The Master’s School in Connecticut where I studied for ten years and was mentored by my parents and other godly adults, both at school and at our home church, The Barn (Covenant Presbyterian Church).

In tenth grade a student from Ghana joined our family for a year and became like a brother to me; that was the beginning of my interest in Africa. So through the gifts and passions He created in me, and through people and circumstances, God slowly made it clear that He was calling me to work in French-speaking Africa. By the time I graduated from high school, I knew I wanted to pursue a career in teaching and serving the Lord overseas.

I went on to be certified as a foreign language teacher at Wheaton College, where I also got my first taste of cross-cultural life and ministry through a short-term experience in Honduras, a semester in France, and finally a semester student teaching at Dakar Academy in Senegal. Corey and I met just before I came to Senegal that first time in 1997, when he was just returning from an internship in Tanzania. We were both looking at a career in cross-cultural work in Africa and quickly decided to pursue this together; we married in 1998.