My Mom led me to the Lord when I was 5 years old. Some people have more dramatic testimonies and they remember the date and time and place that they were when they accepted the Lord. I vaguely remember it, but I know it happened.   Growing up, I always had a heart for the Lord and was always sensitive to him.  When I made a wrong decision, it broke my heart.  When I was a little girl, we lived in Sacramento, California. My mom ran a storage center, where she would collect furniture, dishes, anything you could imagine….and we would deliver it to the poor and to the immigrants who were coming in.  This was something I can remember doing on a weekly basis. So, I grew up having a heart for the poor and needy.  Whenever missionaries would come and speak at my church or school, I was sitting listening intently to every word.  I loved the stories. I loved the adventure. I loved the idea of living a set-apart life for the Lord. I would read books on Mother Teresa and pray that I would be able to reach out to the kinds of people who she was reaching out to.
        In my middle school years, I would always attend summer camps. I was the one who was always at the altar, crying out to the Lord asking Him to use me.  Even at a young age, I knew that there had to be more to the Christian life.  When I was a teenager, I read the first book that Eric and Leslie Ludy had written.  Their story made a huge impact in my life because it showed me what can happen when one truly decides to live a life set-apart for the Lord.

        When I began walking this path of living a set-apart life, one of my biggest challenges happened in my senior year of high school when I was deciding where to go to college.  All of my friends were going away and I figured it was the right thing to do. But….I sensed that the Lord was telling me to lay down that desire and stay home that first year after high school.  The thought of staying home, while all of my friends were off at

school having fun was depressing to me!!!  Tearfully, I decided to obey the Lord I did not turn in my enrollment form. Instead, I enrolled at a community college and worked 2 jobs.  During that year, I remember crying a lot. It was a hard year.  It was my first “real” experience of having to obey the Lord when it hurts. Obedience will ALWAYS require something of you.  One night, I remember sitting on my bed crying to my mom just telling her I lonely I was. I was expecting to hear something like “Its okay, Karris. I am so sorry you are going through this. You will come out of it.” Instead, she said “It is good you are experiencing this, because you now get to feel what most people feel.” 

        During that year, Pastor Bill Wilson from NYC came to speak at my church. I had always had a heart for the inner-city and he was the founder of the largest inner-city Sunday school in the world.  I was 18 years old at the time and I knew I had to go visit there. I went to their one week boot camp program, then went through a 4 month internship program. They asked me to come back on staff, so in 1999, I moved to Brooklyn, NY.  I was there for 3 years and learned lifelong lessons about ministry, obedience, and sacrifice.  While I was there, a lady named Danita Estrella came to visit who had started an orphanage in Haiti. Danita moved to Haiti almost 10 years ago with a promise from God, “Go, and I will be with you.” The Lord did not tell her what she was going to be doing or that one day she would have this great ministry.  He gave her a promise and she obeyed.  Her life was and is an example of a life truly set apart for Christ.  I remember that the first time I met her, I gave her my paycheck that week for her orphanage, never knowing a few years later, I would be living there.  Once again, when I heard the stories, I was deeply touched.  There was one story about a little boy she was taking care of in a hospital that died.  I was so overcome with

ver the years, I have experienced joy and heartbreak.  I have comforted mothers who have lost children.  I have seen people die of AIDS.  I have seen racism in the ugliest form. I have met a leper who was ostracized by her friends and family, but decided to serve the Lord in the midst of her pain.   I have had lonely nights. I have felt the pain of betrayal.  On the other hand, I have seen a life changed by the power of love.  I have looked at a child who was about to die and seen God turn their life around.  I have been a part of rescuing 26 orphaned children from the floods of Gonaives.  In Proverbs 19:17 it says, “He who is kind to the poor lends to the Lord, and he will reward him for what he has done.”  This is the only verse that says we can actually lend something to the Lord.  There are many nights in Haiti, where I go to bed with tears in my eyes, thanking the Lord for the privilege of being able to serve the least of these.  Who am I that God has chosen? 

        But, apart from being a missionary in Haiti, I am most grateful for my relationship with Jesus Christ.  I am so thankful that I decided to live a life set apart for Him.  It is not always easy, but it is always worth it.  There will be times where you will have to give up your dreams and desires, but the Lord will place within you His dreams and His desires for your life.  In James 1:27, it says, “Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.” It is not enough to go to church, to read your Bible occasionally, to say the right things. You have to WALK out the Christian life.  It concerns me when I see all of the compromise that is going on in our world today, even among Christians.  Living a life truly set-apart for Christ is not just about staying a virgin until marriage, although that is highly respectable.  We need to set a higher standard.  When “Sex and

In Quanaminthe, a small town just west of where the Dominican Republic and Haiti meet, you’ll find a thriving refuge for 75 children, all who were rescued and taken in from the dark streets and devastating poverty that ravages the poorest country in the western hemisphere - Haiti.  Amid this heartache, you’ll find a hope-filled and promising scene where a devoted and daring young woman has chosen to lay aside the trivial demands and fruitless joys of our culture and live instead for a high and heavenly call -

To be the hands and feet of Jesus

to the very least of this world.

Imagine 75 orphans, a local school for 500 children, a daily feeding program for street kids, a growing church to over 550 people; then envision three single women missionaries to carry it all out.  

the City” becomes a highly watched show among Christians and a normal topic of conversation, I have to ask myself, “What has happened? Who is out there setting the standard?” 

There is a world out there that is suffering. There are people next to you that need to hear a kind word. There is someone that is struggling because no one has reached out to them. There is a boy or girl who doesn’t “fit in” with the popular group and they cannot reach out on their own.  Our mission field is where we are at the present

with emotion when I heard the stories of the children.  The Lord had been preparing my heart to leave New York, but I did not know where I would be for the next season of my life.  In 2002, a group of four of us went on a one week mission trip to the orphanage in Haiti.  After that week, I knew in my heart that I was “home”.  There was no doubt in my mind that the next season of my life would be spent as a missionary in Haiti, so six months later, I moved there.  In September of this year, it will make it 6 years that I have been a part of Danita’s Children. When I first moved there, the ministry was relatively small.  All of us lived in one home with the 26 children in the orphanage.  Our school had about 120 children.  Our one building was a thatched roof in which we held our school, church, and feeding program!  I have had the privilege of seeing the faithfulness of God as we have grown over the years.  Presently, we have 75 children in the orphanage and over 530 children in the school.  The Lord has provided the funds for us to build a school, church, cafeteria, and an older boy’s home. 

        We are about to start the construction of a children’s hospital which is so desperately needed.  My main role at Danita’s Children is being the Administrator.  I handle the finances, receipts, payroll, etc.  I love doing it because I can see the provision of God with my own eyes!