The New Testament talks about the sower and the seed and many preachers reference the great Harvest of souls, but the lack of workers.   I appreciate each step of the spiritual development process, but found my niche in "tilling the soil".  Alan Keith-Lucas wrote a mandate for Christian Social Workers to pull the weeds and till the soil of people’s hearts.  He points out there are many, many people in the world who have been hurt and hardened to a point in which they cannot receive the overwhelming and incomprehensible Love of Christ until they are first shown earthly love. Although I fail most days, I constantly strive to show love to the hurting and hardened around me.

I had a wonderful, loving childhood.  I grew up in a family of Assembly of God pastor’s and came to know the grace and hope of Christ at an early age.  I also grew up in public school in New York and knew that not all of my peers had a life as blessed as I did.   In a world of extreme hurt and pain, the need to share the Hope of the gospel was always very evident.  I wanted to be a missionary and went to Evangel University in Springfield, Missouri as a missions major.  However, my theology classes were my least favorite.  I had a heart for orphans, victims of the sexual slave trade and illiterate woman.  After all, a woman must first learn to read before she is given a Bible.   I quickly discovered and fell in love with Social Work.  Social work is the ultimate mandate as a Christian.  Help the poor, the orphaned, the elderly, the sick, the persecuted and the discouraged in the world.  I worked with children who have been sexually abused, investigated families for abuse and neglect, children in surbuban U.S.A. who were starving physically and emotionally.  My final semester of college, I had to do a research project and internship to receive my Bachelor’s in Social Work.  I went to Togo, West Africa and worked with a missionary nurse who coordinated an HIV/AIDS program with local West African pastors.  It was brillant! They are natural leaders within their communities and they understood the nuances of their culture.  Instead of being the white people, who told them about AIDS, abstinence and condoms... we taught corrective theology.  Jesus embraced those with leprosy.  He did not condemn them as others in the New Testament society did.  These pastors learned how to treat seropositive members of their community with the same compassion that Christ demonstrated to those with AIDS and began a grassroots effort to organize their congregations to use whatever gifts and means they have to meet the needs of people living with AIDS in their communities.  It was wonderful and inspiring, but it was not easy.  Two weeks into my semester abroad the government fell and rioting began.  Two weeks after that happened, I contracted malaria.  Despite a trying few months, I left with Africa tattooed on my heart.   A few weeks later, I went to the University of Pennsylvania and started a Master’s program in Social Work.  I spent a year working with immigrants in Philadelphia both in casework and as a policy advocate for legal reform.   Our current laws are very unfriendly to refugees, aslyees and immigrants of all sorts.   After 9/11, we have become more xenophobic as a nation and that has made it quite difficult for refugees and persecuted Christians to find asylum within our borders.  I believe our immigration policies need to be consistent, coherent and comprehensive.   I completed my Master’s program and got married to a wonderfully compassionate man name Philip.  Instantaneously, I  became a stay-at-home military medical student’s wife.  My husband and I traveled the country for the first year of our marriage and lived in military motel rooms while he completed various rotations.  We moved to D.C. for his final year and I worked in retail and as a recruiter at an Executive Search Firm.  We were priviledged to recently take a three week trip to Tanzania, East Africa together to work at a regional HIV/AIDS treatment hospital.  As always, Africa is an adventure!   My husband, Philip, graduated from medical school and we moved to the panhandle of Florida for a residency program in Family Practice/Flight Medicine with the U.S. Air Force.  I was ineligible to get licensed as a social worker in Florida, because my master’s program did not meet the requirements for hours of psychotherapy.  I began a job search and now work as a Live Event Coordinator for the Church Communication Network.  (www.ccn.tv)  We are planning several LARGE Ignite Men’s Ministry Events in various cities around the country over the next 18 months.  We were formerly known as Promise Keepers.  

I am a freelance photographer on the side.  http://web.mac.com/kflatau/Site/About_Me_.html is my website.  

Please contact me if you need a professional photographer for social justice projects or want to host an Ignite men’s ministry convention at your church or need a physician/social worker combo for your team.  I speak French.