Katie Arnold

I am a graduate of Nursing from Minnesota State University Mankato, December 2010. Currently I am working as a Registered Nurse at the Good Samaritan Society Ambassador located in New Hope.  I heard of Healing Haiti's mission trips through a friend and immediately wanted to be involved.  This will be the first time I will be out of the country as well as my first mission trip.   I am looking forward to serving God and helping people who are in  need.

Nikki and Mike McCain

We have been married for almost seven years.  We live in Richfield with our two wonderful children and our crazy dog.  Both Nikki & I are attorneys by profession.  I recently opened up my own law firm in St. Paul.  Nikki does contract work at a law firm in Minneapolis.  We joined Calvary in 2003 after graduating law school and moving from Boston to Minneapolis.  We have been blessed to be involved in several different ministries at Calvary.    

In January 2012, I went to Haiti for the first time on a mission trip through Healing Haiti lead by Brian and Anne.  The trip was life changing.  While in Haiti, I witnessed people living in desperate poverty, and yet many had an impenetrable faith in Jesus that I had never seen nor experienced before.  On this trip, I understood for the first time what it meant to be completely sufficient in Jesus Christ.  I am so excited for the opportunity to co-lead this trip with Brian and share this amazing experience with Nikki.  I pray that the trip will impact Nikki as much as it did me and help us to more fully surrender to God. 

“You are the light of the world.  A city set on a hill cannot be hidden.  Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house.  In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.”  Matthew 5:14-16   

Cheryl Burmester

My name is Cheryl and I live in Rochester, MN, which has been my home for 44 years. My husband, Ruben, and I have three grown children Brian, Rhonda and Jessica. Brian and his wife Teresa have three children, Emma (13), Sam (10) and Jonathan (7). They also live in Rochester and I get to see them often and attend many soccer, hockey and baseball games! Rhonda and Chris’s children are Ben (10), Annabel (7) and Ruby (4) and they live in Plymouth, MN. We have made many trips to the Twin Cities to watch their activities and school programs as well! I am blessed to have 6 grandchildren that keep me very busy! Our youngest, Jessica, is volunteering and serving in Haiti at Grace Village for the next year.

I am going to Haiti to witness firsthand what God has called Jessie to do and see what she is so passionate about. I am looking forward to meeting all the children at Grace Village that she loves so dearly and helps to care for. Jessie has a blog http://healinghaiti-jessica.blogspot.com/~jessicaburmester . Please check it out she is a much better writer than I am!

I know this mission trip will be a life changing experience for me, as we witness the desperate poverty and suffering in Haiti. But it will also give me comfort to experience what Jessie is doing and see where she is living.

Sandy Rogness

This is my first trip to Haiti, my first mission trip. It’s been my first year of retirement from teaching after 22 years focused especially on how to help those with special needs in a classroom. It’s my 59th year of looking out for my impaired sister; 35 years as her legal guardian. It’s my 36th year of marriage, 34th year of being a mom to two sons, 6th year of being a grandmother to now three girls and a boy. It’s my 43rd year of being a volunteer in my church in many varied roles. It’s been 21 years since my husband and I helped our eldest son fight successfully through 8 years of chemotherapy for Leukemia. In all of those years I have never wondered what God had in store for me until this past year. Events just seemed to be placed in front of me and the strength of the Holy Spirit was with me. Yet now, it’s been almost a year of trying this and that wondering how the Lord thinks I should serve best. I knew Jessica B. kept visiting Haiti, and I had followed her blogs. I told her mom, "You should go!" Then six months ago, her mom, Cheryl, said, "Well, I’m going. Are you?" Here I am, anxiously waiting to greet God’s people of Haiti. Oddly enough, all of those other experiences and skills seem to have melted away, and I feel like a newborn asking God to make me a servant in the best way possible.

Cathy LeVahn

I live in Lino Lakes and have two grown children, John (29) and Amy (28).  I’ve worked in Human Resource Management for over 20 years, a majority of that time in the medical device industry.  My ‘holy discontent’ drives my passion to serve the poorest of the poor.  I went on my first mission trip to Nicaragua in 2010.  In January of 2012 I was put in the path of Healing Haiti and was blessed with the wonderful opportunity to become their Aquaponics Advocate (raising fish in a recirculating system to grow vegetables hydroponically).  In April I made my first trip to Haiti to view the future aquaponics site at Grace Village.  Construction of the aquaponics system is now complete so I will be spending an additional week at Grace Village to get the system up and running and provide training to those who will partner with me to ensure sustainability.  I am also Healing Haiti’s Sponsorship Coordinator, a new and exciting role that I am excited to dig into.

“Being unwanted, unloved, uncared for, forgotten by everybody, I think that is a much greater hunger, a much greater poverty than the person who has nothing to eat.”
― Mother Teresa

Dick and Gloria McNeill

We have been married for 45 years,  have three children and 12 grandchildren. We live in Plymouth in the summer and then have a condo in Clearwater, Florida where we live for the majority of the year. We have supported a number of missionaries and short term mission trips for many years. Gloria has been going to the inner city of Chicago to work at an inner city church for the last 13 years. Two years ago we decided we needed to actually go on a mission trip out of the country. So for the last two years we have gone on mission trips to Peru where we taught English to approximately 500 Peruvian children. We also taught them about the love of Jesus.

We look forward to going to Haiti with our son Brian. We have read some of the blogs in the past and know it will be a very meaningful and impactful trip. We look forward to demonstrating God’s love for all people regardless of circumstances. We are looking forward to spending time with the children at the orphanage.

Ken Tritch

I was confirmed at Calvary in 1997, though just in the past two years have I become an active follower of Christ. I am currently working on my PhD in chemistry. My reaches into science have been foundational to the growth of my faith, an outcome that I was neither seeking nor expecting when going into science. Music and designing and building guitar electronics is my biggest hobby. I frequently play electric guitar and other instruments at the Journey Community worship service. Upon becoming active at Calvary, I felt immediately called into serving the local community through several of the many channels available through church, in addition to stepping outside of the box during everyday life around the twin cities area. Roughly one year ago, that calling expanded to the international scale when I felt drawn to participate in a Healing Haiti trip during a presentation at Calvary. I was unable to go last January due to a school conflict, and I have been looking forward to the trip coming up this September since that time. I had never booked an airplane flight before this trip, nor have I left the country by more than a few miles into Manitoba, nor been on a mission trip. I am looking forward to this opportunity to serve the people of Haiti with music, embrace, and loving energy. I also look forward to having my heart broken in a way that will forever transform my perspective on living and giving for the benefit of many, both abroad and back home, both needy and wealthy.