Dr. Karen and her family served as cross-cultural missionaries for 13 years among the Hindu & Buddhist peoples of Nepal, serving through Community Development, veterinary medicine, gender equity, and drinking water projects. She then served as Director of Training and as the Asia regional director for Christian Veterinary Mission (CVM). In these roles, she supervised long-term overseas mission field staff in half a dozen South and Southeast Asian countries and the sending of short-term mission personnel to national partners in Asia. Ministry models included rural community development, technical training, university teaching, and business as mission. Karen’s approach to training stresses participatory methods that build on participant sharing, indigenous knowledge, sustainability through use of local resources and hands-on methodology. Karen retired in 2022 after 32 years with missions. She and Ron moved to Central Pennsylvania to be near their grandchildren. Karen serves on the Board of Directors for ECHO, a Christian agricultural mission based in Florida, serving small-scale farmers around the world to eliminate hunger, and teaches the Christian Community Development lesson in the Perspectives course. Karen and Ron raised their two daughters overseas and served as foster parents to three refugee orphan girls here in the USA and have a heart for missionary kids and foster kids. She has a Doctor of Veterinary Medicine from Cornell University and a Master’s in Christian Leadership from Azusa Pacific University.
