About

Our Vision

Our Mission

We reunite broken people living on the Cycladic Islands of Greece—people who have been:

• separated from God by culture, authority, and tradition
• traumatized, afraid, or abused
• rejected, ashamed, or forgotten
• sorrowful, grieving, or hopeless

—with the One who loves them by releasing hope and healing in Jesus’ name.

Our Faith

We believe the Bible is the inspired and only infallible and authoritative written Word of God (II Timothy 3:15-17, I Thessalonians 2:13, II Peter 1:21).

We believe there is one God, eternally existent in three persons, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit (Deuteronomy 6:4, Exodus 3:14, Isaiah 48:16, Matthew 28:19, Luke 3:22).

We believe in the deity of our Lord Jesus Christ, in His virgin birth, in His sinless life, in His miracles, in His vicarious and atoning death, in His bodily resurrection, in His ascension to the right hand of the Father, in His future bodily return to this earth (Matthew 1:23, John 5:22-23).

We believe that the only means of personal salvation is by faith in Christ, and in Him alone (Romans 10:9-10, Galatians 3: 1-9, I Corinthians 2:1-5, Ephesians 2:8-10).

Our History

One wintery morning in late November 2008, a knock at the door would change the course of history. A police chaplain informed our founder that her husband of 20 years died unexpectedly while driving home after a morning of cross country skiing. In seeking God’s will for her future, she left her adult children in America and went to Uganda on a short-term mission trip. That experience quickly revealed itself to be a divine appointment, as did the series of events that followed.

Our founder lived and served in East Africa from 2010 to 2022 and used this experience along with her education and work experience to lead Surprised by Hope and its team of national facilitators in providing Christ-centered business education and fostering personal encounters with the love of God.

Surprised by Hope was formed in the United States in February 2011 and granted 501(c)(3) tax exempt status as a nonprofit corporation. We received registration as a CBO in Uganda in June 2012, as a Foreign NGO in Uganda in May 2013, and as a Society in Kenya in March 2014.

Surprised by Hope finds itself in Europe because of a surprising but clear call from God. The overwhelming sadness our founder experienced on the Areopagus in Athens during a 2021 holiday filled her with compassion for people separated from God by culture, authority, and tradition; for people traumatized, afraid, or abused; for people rejected, ashamed, or forgotten; and for people sorrowful, grieving, or hopeless. In 2022, she established a home in Greece and began ministering spiritual freedom by reuniting broken people with the One who loves them and releasing hope and healing in Jesus’ name. (For her protection, her name has been removed.)

Our Founder

Coupled with 12 years of full-time ministry in East Africa, our founder holds a Doctor of Business Administration (DBA) degree, a Master of Science in Management (MSM) degree, and a Bachelor of Science in Ministry Leadership (BSML) degree. She is an ordained reverend and an ordained chaplain, possesses a Project Management Professional (PMP) credential, has 20 years of operations management experience, and has served as adjunct faculty at a Christian university since 2008 teaching both traditional and adult students both on-ground and on-line.

She considers Surprised by Hope a precious legacy. Without her husband’s life, and his death, this ministry might never have been born.

Our Island

Mountain peaks largely made of the distinguished Parian marble rise out of the southern Aegean Sea forming a circular group of islands called the Cyclades (SI-kluh-deez), which include a smaller grouping known as the Lesser Cyclades. Naxos and Paros, the largest two of this subset, hug to their coastlines several smaller and less inhabited islands. Drawn to this grouping, by a word from the Lord, our little table sits on Paros Island and our ministry extends to her neighbors.