God called our family of six to Nicaragua in a completely unexpected way. It’s beautiful how he has a way of stirring our hearts for something, for a nation and people completely unknown to us. How he uses crazy connections and gifts and dreams and weaves them all together for his purposes. He has a way of pushing us out of our comfortable, known places and into new things.

We’ve always had a heart for missions in the nations. We spent a lot of years raising babies, building a business, and serving in local ministry where we lived in the PNW. And then God began to put a hunger in our hearts for something more. Nicaragua started coming up in crazy ways everywhere we turned. In the summer of 2015 we met friends who had just been on a short term missions trip to Nicaragua with their church. We took them to dinner one night and they shared about their missionary friends in Nicaragua who had a vision for a youth camp called Ruby Ranch that would serve vulnerable children and youth living in poverty. The fire in our hearts was officially lit and we knew we had to go see Nicaragua for ourselves.

In April of 2016 we spent a month in Nicaragua on an adventure missions trip as a family. We met some amazing people, helped with a clean water project, played in the warm ocean tide pools and learned how to surf, and fell in love with the vision and people connected to Ruby Ranch. That trip was completely life-changing for us. The short version? We sold our home, our belongings, closed our business, packed up our family and moved to Managua, Nicaragua in February of 2017. It was the wildest leap of faith then and has been the best “yes” and the best adventure of our entire lives.

Our main focus as missionaries in Nicaragua is serving children and youth through hosting camps at Ruby Ranch alongside our ministry partner and friend, Brinson Buzbee. The heart and mission of Ruby Ranch is to create an atmosphere where kids living in extreme poverty can encounter Jesus. It’s our greatest desire to see lives transformed by the power of the Gospel and forever changed by the love of Jesus.

Life on the mission field is wild and unpredictable, and so incredibly beautiful. To burn and ignite the hearts of others with the fire, power and love of Jesus… it’s all we want to do on this earth.