I was born in South Africa to a culturally Afrikaans family and was raised bilingual in English and Afrikaans. Some of my fondest early memories was of attending our home church, Grace Toti, a church planted by American missionaries. I came to faith at age 9 and was baptized at age 10. My family moved to the United States when I was 12 years old. I was called into full-time ministry in high school and therefore pursued theological education in college. I was called to full-time missions during my studies for my bachelor’s degree. While in college, I started working in ministry at my local church in children’s ministry. I started in the classroom and eventually worked on staff full-time in the administration of children’s and women’s ministry. In working with families, I realized the need for counseling ministry and pursued higher education in both early childhood development and counseling culminating in an Early Childhood Development Specialization and Master’s Degree in Counseling. Since then, I've worked with parents, teachers, staff, and volunteers, training and counseling on various topics related to human development and trauma prevention and treatment. I currently work on a mental wellness team whose mission is to create and distribute resources for mental health care for churches. Recently, I've also been working in the area of crisis counseling, focused on suicide prevention.