Rice Field

Our story begins in Florida, where  we both were born…one on each of the Florida coasts. While it isn’t hard to imagine how two people, born in the same state end up married, the routes we took were pretty unexpected.

Derek was born in Panama City, Florida. His family lived in three southern states before moving to Ohio where he finished high school. He then moved to  Tennessee to attend Lee University and transferred to APU (Azusa Pacific University) in Southern California for the last two and a half years of college. At APU, Derek completed his undergraduate degree in Music. 

Christiana was born in West Palm Beach, Florida. Her family left Florida when she was 4 years old to join her missionary grandparents in Japan. Their original plan of staying for 9 months turned into 25 years! At 18 Christiana left her family in Japan to begin college at APU as a Communication major.

At 6000 miles apart, we did share one big constant in our lives - our parents’ unwavering faith in God which they passed along to their children.

 We met our Sophomore year at APU. A year after graduating together we got married and after five years of marriage we had our first child, Naomi Lynn, born on March 14, 2008!  

Derek was the worship leader at Baseline Community Church in Claremont, California through December, 2008. Christiana has been working for a mission organization called Church Resource Ministries, based out of Anaheim. We’ve both been involved in each other’s ministries through the years and have grown in our passions and giftedness for ministry together.

As we’ve gotten to know CRM people, we’ve had the opportunity to see “up close and personal,” the transformational work that CRM has been doing around the world. After several years of sensing God’s call to missions, in January, 2009, we joined CRM full time as a family.