We both grew up in Christian homes. Although we grew up in christian homes, each home had different forms of trauma. We came from broken, dysfunctional families with various abuses and addiction due to the fathers actions and extended family members toxic cycles. Each situation resulted in our moms raising us with struggles along the way.  Although there were struggles our moms kept us in church, which encouraged mentors and people to speak into our lives.

 

We Met in January of 2007, Got married in Sept 2007 . We just couldn’t wait! God blessed us with four incredible kids in His perfect time. We had our first child in 2011 and 4th (and last) in 2019.

 

We have been working in ministry at Restoration Church together for many years. We were on staff from 2010-2020 serving in various positions as worship leaders, Discipleship, youth leaders, kids leaders, creative directors, toilet cleaners, moppers, you know, the church staff and volunteer thing! In 2017 we accepted the position of Location pastors. We led and launched the 2nd location of Restoration Church. 

 

In 2020 We felt God was transitioning us out of pastoring, so in September of 2020 we transitioned out and into an unknown season. At the time we weren’t sure why God asked us to step down because we had no direction. There were a lot of questions. What we began to realize is God brought us into a season of wilderness that looked like stepping back from what we’ve always done, feeling lost, because when it came to ministry we only ever knew pastoring within the church and fulfilling the roles within a church staff and volunteer positions. It was clear that God needed us to get a fresh new perspective so we could really hear what He was leading us into next. It was a year and a half of unknown, doubts, questions, wanting to bail, major spiritual attacks, and healing.

 

While we were in this wilderness season we started to grow a passion and desire to bring awareness to the world wide epidemic, Human Trafficking.  In this same time God led us to put all of our efforts into one of our Businesses, Wildflower Ceramics. This was and still is a big step of faith as it wasn’t the business that provided our income and seemed to not make a lot of sense. Our hope was to use our business to support those in the fight against human trafficking. 

Shortly after taking this step we left for a missions trip to Misungwi, Tanzania in 2023. Not knowing this would completely change the direction of our lives in a big unforeseen way. We knew we would be impacted in some way, but this trip ended up being very different. While we were there, within the first couple of days, God birthed something in us we could not shake.

 

Our initial conversation was with two women we met. They have been a part of the Center of Hope from a young age. We found out they had been trying to start a ceramics business for the last three years! We quickly connected on that. From that conversation our hope was to bring them to America to train them in our ceramics business with the hope we could help them get it started in their community. We were excited and so were they! We started the visa process as soon as we got home. We both knew that was the right step but we were never quite at peace, believing that God had more for us to put our hands to. At the time the Center of Hope had no directors in place to lead the organization in the United States. There wasn’t a day that went by for the following couple of months that the orphanage, the kids, and the people of Africa were not on our minds. God was giving us so many ideas on how we could help our new friends and the kids in Tanzania. With much prayer and conversations with our Pastors we knew God was leading us into something we never imagined…to become the new Directors of the Center of Hope. In May of 2023, after 3 months of being back home we took on this new role. All of this God has been orchestrating for the last 2-3 years. Stepping down from our roles as Pastors at our Church, to getting one focus on the a singular business(Wildflower Ceramics), our growing passion in fighting human trafficking, then to our trip to Africa and becoming the new directors of the Center of Hope. We believe God will use our faith in him, our business, our passion to help the oppressed, and the Center of Hope to bring a hope and future to those who felt they had none. We would love to partner with you or your business in Restoring Futures in Misungwi, Tanzania.

 

Chris & Anna

Executive Directors, Center of Hope