about us

a 30 second review

Hi, we are Troy and Tara.  We mostly grew up in Minnesota. Troy in White Bear Lake, and Tara in Brooklyn Park.

We got hitched in 1998.  We were 23 and 26 at the time. When we got married Troy became a step-dad to Tara's two girls (Britt and Paige) who were four and eight yrs old at the time. That made Troy a baby-daddy. (A dad that was just a baby himself.)

We wanted a child. We decided to adopt.  In April 2002 we went to Haiti to visit an orphanage. We were woefully uninformed of international adoption issues at that time. We met and fell in love with two brilliant children named Hope and Isaac.  In late 2002 they joined our family, left Haiti, and moved to MN.

We had a surprise baby named Noah in early 2004.  Suddenly we were the parents of five kids.

In mid 2005 we were 100% certain that for some bizarre and unknown reason God was prompting us to move our family to Haiti.  We left our families and friends and moved January of 2006.

The first two and a half years in Haiti were spent living in a village outside of the city.  There were many challenges. We learned a lot about joy & love and pain & suffering.  We experienced Malaria and Dengue Fever & another surprise pregnancy  (Lydia) & another surprise adoption (Phoebe).

By the end of 2007 we were parents to seven kids. Holy.Cow. 

In Aug. 2008 we moved our family from the rural village to Port au Prince to work with John and Beth McHoul at Heartline Ministries. We love the work we're doing. We're blessed to do it.

In January of 2010 there was a massive earthquake.  Explaining the ways in which the earthquake impacted Haiti and her people and ministry and our family would take longer than you have because it has been 30 seconds.

There are tabs on top and links on the right side of the blog with lots more background information.

Welcome!  Thanks for reading.

Britt (22 and married) Left - Blue shirt
Paige (17) Center - turquoise shirt
Hope (10) Nike shirt
Isaac (10) Haiti flag draped around his shoulders
Noah (8) Center blue shirt
Phoebe (5) In Troy's arms
Lydia (4) Green dress
Troy and Tara  - (old enough to know better) on right