I started in travel 18 years ago as an International Group Travel Consultant.   Travel wasn’t always my passion.  My passion was working with kids at risk.  After graduating college, I worked with the Department of Social Services, Child Protection and Foster Care Programs in NYS.   I then moved to Raleigh, NC with my husband, and took what I thought would be a temporary role as a travel consultant for a small local agency.   That is when I met Lela Steel.    Lela  was  an amazing, beautiful lady and missionary who traveled faithfully to Ukraine.   Lela worked  with Harvest International and was going to help with  an orphanage,  House of Hope (http://harvestinternational.org/15HouseOfHope/).  The goal was to find children, whom had been cast a side and living on the streets.  A vast majority of these children had birth defects.  Lela, would find children of all ages on the streets, rescue them from predators or other uncertain fates, and provide them with food, shelter, and love in the name of God.   Learning what Lela did, as well as so many of my other clients, touched my heart so deeply, I fell in love with the travel industry, specifically serving missionaries and humanitarians, I knew then working with such great purpose, travel was no longer a temporary career path.