It’s not about us.  Why did you even click on this page?  🙂

We have had several people who have asked us about our backgrounds and what has lead us to this family involvement in ministry, so we decided to add this page.  But please keep in mind that it’s all about what God is doing, not us.

We have very different stories about how we came to know Christ and the perspectives we bring to our faith.  We think that this is no coincidence and makes us a good team.

I (Rachel) grew up in a Christian home, accepting Christ as a child and never really knowing a life without God in it.  I attended a Christian college and became a teacher, feeling the public schools are the mission field in which God has placed me.

Ben came to know Christ as a young adult after searching for meaning down many different roads.  Having lived a life apart from God, He understands people who have a lot of questions and doubts. He currently works as a network and systems manager for a public school corporation.

In 2005, we lost our second daughter at birth after a month-long fight to save her life.  This tragedy tested our faith, but brought us to a point of full surrender to God’s plan for our lives.  Soon after, Ben enrolled in Lincoln Christian College’s adult education program and began working towards a bachelor’s degree in general ministry.  He was ordained in 2011.  Although he doesn’t feel preaching or church staff positions are his calling, he does feel that these were necessary steps of obedience to a God he wants to serve.  His current role in public schools allows him many opportunities to be a voice of God’s love and grace to students and adults alike.  I write a blog for those who are coping with the loss of an infant, because I believe that God can bring healing to others through it and bring good out of our pain.

Anna is 14 years old.  She is smart, beautiful, caring and a pretty deep thinker (I might be a little biased).  She enjoys music, art, and theater.  Ethan is 11.  He is witty, imaginative, mathematical, creative and very particular.  He is all about creating new worlds in Minecraft and with Legos right now, and is part of his school’s robotics team  – we just may have a future engineer in our home.

All of this is to say that we are just some very ordinary people who want to serve God in every opportunity we have.  Ben’s love for God and World War II era history came together a few years ago when he was able to participate in a mission trip to Poland and interact with several holocaust survivors at this camp in Ostróda.  His passion for this ministry has continued to grow and lead him to journey back in 2012 with me.  Since then, we have spent a month each year on the mission field as a family. We don’t know how much deeper God will lead us in the future, but we are committed to obey the call, whatever it may be.