April has always loved to be outside in God's creation. She loved it so much she went to school at Penn State for Forestry and Environmental Resource Management. She worked with outdoor education and a host of other outdoorsy jobs before she found herself in Pittsburgh Theological Seminary where she earned a Masters of Divinity.

While she was in seminary she visited an agriculture reforestation project in the hills south of Léogâne, Haiti sponsored by Haiti Fund, Inc., a ministry of New Hope Presbytery. Of course, she loved it and wanted to come back. The Comprehensive Development Project (CODEP) captivated her and she immediately began planning to return.

In August, 2007 she entered the country and expects to stay for at least a year, talking to peasant farmers, who are the beneficiaries of our work. She will find out how environmental responsibility impacts the lives of the families in the small communities which dot the hillsides, which are being gradually being brought back to their pristine nature through the hard work and efforts of the people who have seen what redevelopment can do.

She's glad to be living in the mountains now where she is learning to speak Creole even better and to walk even faster.