It all began in High School, Joel and Marissa both went to Haiti on separate mission trips (one year apart). Haiti was their first glimpse at how much hope and joy can coexist in brokenness and despair. These moments and experiences are where they both developed a passion for empowering people by serving them. After seeing all of the need that exists and realizing that they had both the desire and the skills to help, they decided that they wanted to devote their lives to serving people in different cultures and countries.

Together, Joel and Marissa have decided to serve the people of Uganda. They moved to Uganda full time in the fall of 2019. In early 2020, they had to come back to the US. Marissa was five months pregnant and Uganda was going into full lockdown. Their daughter Juniper was born in August. In February 2021, they returned home to Uganda full time. They are a crucial part of the team, assisting and leading many aspects including; assisting with and overseeing construction of the single mothers homes, aquaponic construction and development, vocational skills training, personal mentorship to apprentices/students and administrative support. Joel is also a board member for the local Primary school BCS (Bethany Christian School). The main funders for the school backed out of supporting it during the COVID lockdowns. After this, a group of 5 community members put their money together to help get the school going again. There are currently around 435 students in the school and the number has been growing weekly! We love seeing the kids back in school after a two year gap (the Ugandan government offered remote teaching but most families don’t have the proper technology in our community).

Joel and Marissa also hold one voting place on the Develop Sustainability Executive Board.

Joel has been partnering with Brenda and Jason Sommer (Develop Sustainability) since 2013, building aquaponic systems and assisting in other sustainability projects. Joel has an aptitude for construction work and strong teaching skills. He has been a part of construction in a variety of countries and has a unique understanding of some of the challenges that come with it. He has been an integral part of building 10 of the 13 current aquaponic systems.

Marissa completed her Bachelors of Social Work at George Fox University in 2019. Since being involved in Develop Sustainability she assists with various administrative work (social media posts, creating forms, etc) and has stepped into training some ladies in our crew to work with her to do hospitality while teams are here. Marissa is currently pregnant with twins that are due in March. They will be heading back to Oregon early December to prepare for adding two little ones to their family.