Our Bios

Dan in the DR with children in Los Perez

I (Dan) was born into a great christian family and  I have two younger sisters.  I was raised in the suburbs of Chicago and spent most of my life in and and around church.  At a young age, my mom led me in saying the "sinners prayer" but it was not until my sophomore year of high school that I came to a point of full understanding of my brokenness and need for a savior.  It was at that point that I submitted my life to Christ and have strived to live for Him daily ever since.  It was during my high school years that I really began to feel a calling to serve in vocational ministry, specifically in the area of youth ministry.  After graduating high school, I attended Judson College (Elgin, IL) to pursue a degree in Youth Ministry/Adolescent Studies with an emphasis in multi-cultural settings.  During my tenure at Judson, God really opened my eyes to how He was at work abroad and I began to investigate missions for the first time.  I participated in my first short term missions trip to El Salvador in the summer of 2002 and my life was never the same.  The following spring, I participated in one of Judson's missions trips to Guatemala.  It was through this trip that I connected with a beautiful girl who later became my wife!  My senior year at Judson, I co-led the missions committee and traveled to the Dominican Republic for the first time.  Through that experience, I knew that if the Lord ever opened the door for me to serve overseas, the DR was where I wanted to be!  Holly and I got married in June 2005 and served faithfully in our local church through high school ministry and missions/compassion ministry.  In 2009, I joined the staff at Glen Ellyn Bible Church as the junior high director and eventually took the role of Student Ministries Director.  In 2010 Holly and I became the proud parents of triplets (Maddie, Josiah, and Jackson).  It is clear that the Lord has been preparing us for this next step in our faith journey.  Hebrews 11:1 tells us "Faith is the confidence that what we hope for will actually happen; it gives us assurance about things we cannot see" (NLT).  We are excited to serve Jesus and the people of Hispanola, and we are sure that God will provide for the means we need to get there and to sustain our ministry!

Snuggles with my trio (5 months)

Snuggles and everyday sillies with my favorite
 little people (3 1/2 years old)

(Holly) I was also blessed to grow up in a Christian home. When I was about 4 years old, my mom was leading a neighborhood Biblestudy and I was eagerly listening, full of questions (What child isn't at this age, right?) Later that night, she patiently answered my questions and walked me through a prayer to accept Christ into my life! When I was 12 years old my family moved from California to Indonesia where my parents pursued vocational jobs while doing missions work and helping with a local church. This was  a difficult time for me as I was uprooted from what was familiar to a completely different culture, new language, and new school environment. God used my experiences and my immature faith at the time, however, to begin planting seeds in my heart that would grow into a more global perspective of God's world. After returning from Indonesia when I was 15 years old, God really got a hold of my heart and convicted me that I was living to please myself and others and rather than Him. It was that summer that I recommitted my life to Him and really made my faith in Christ my own. My faith continued to grow as I finished off high school and went on to Judson University where I studied Elementary Education, served on compassion teams, an amazing RA team,  and learned more about who God created me to be in Him. Five years after saying "I do" and over a year of many tears as we walked through infertility, Dan & I welcomed Maddie, Josiah, and Jackson into the world (Oct. 2010). We are incredibly blessed to be their parents and our lives are so much fuller (and busier!) as a family of five! My fun-loving, active trio daily teach me about grace, patience, and love. They are currently in preschool two days a week and I work part-time teaching middle school at a homeschool co-op (until May '15). I'm excited to walk through this next journey with them and see how God uses it to plant seeds of faith in their sweet, little hearts!