Helping the Church lead in faith, unity & belonging, adoption & foster care, and women leaders.

Maria currently leads Unity & Belonging focused on cultures, ethnicity, race and women leaders for a global church with churches in over 30 countries, works one day a week as a counselor and spends the rest of her time writing and speaking.

Maria is a two time immigrant, growing up in a small beautiful country in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. As an eleven year old Maria immigrated from the Faroe Islands to Canada.  This wasn’t easy, Maria experiencing enormous cultural and identity loss as an immigrant, while at the same beginning the process of learning the English language.

Maria attended Trinity Western University in Canada for her undergraduate studies.  As a university student, Maria spent two summers as a ministry intern in Camden, New Jersey, USA, with an inner-city Christian ministry called Urban Promise. These two summers birthed her Micah 6:8 ministry, professional, and clinical passions. Maria would forever feel called to love, and having an unapologetic heart for, justice, unity focused on ethnicity and race, trauma parenting and informed practices in all spaces, mental health, adoption and foster care, diversity and inclusion best practices, women leaders, healing and thriving. After completing her BA in Psychology, Maria created Ray of Hope, a program for kids from hard places in Washington, USA.  With God’s kindness, this program is still running.  

Two years later, Maria began her Clinical Masters Degree at Rutgers University.  Since then, 27+ years ago, Maria has dedicated her life to living out Micah 6:8, working in a variety of settings as a therapist, school counselor, social worker and director; and volunteering in a variety of leadership roles with the local church and nonprofits as board member, volunteer, mentor, speaker, educator, and ministry leader.  

​Alongside her husband, Sam, who has an incredible adoption story, they are beacons of faith, hope, and love. Maria calls herself a precious jewels mamma as they have 9 precious jewels, 2 biological and 7 adopted; as well as one adorable grandson and son in law.  

These days, Maria's passions are deeply personal because of her and Sam’s beautifully God created family.  They have both a multi-racial and multi-ethnic family, with five different races and seven different ethnicities/cultures represented.  As adoptive parents and former foster parents, trauma also interfaces their every day.  In addition, their precious jewels have many varying special needs and mental health needs.  Their big and small million little stories are testament to the best stories God writes.

Maria and Sam have been recognized for their unwavering commitment to their faith and community, receiving the prestigious TWU Alumni Distinction Raw Edge of Faith Award.

Maria has loved Jesus her whole life, during every mountain top, valley low, and desert season. Jeremiah 29:11 has been her hope during the many crazy faith stories God has taken her on, during incredibly difficult trauma and attachment stories, during the cancer that resulted in blindness for one of their precious jewels, during the mental illness of another, during the serious medical needs of another, during the daily neurodivergent needs, and other challenges. Maria has come to passionately believe that God writes the best stories, always.