Latest project: Global Soccer Mom: Changing the World Is Easier Than You Think (Zondervan), releasing this month.

Resides in: Wheaton, Ill.

Is “global soccer mom” a good description of you? It is. It’s a phrase that was actually coined by a friend of mine because I really am a soccer mom. I was a stay-at-home mom for almost 14 years. I was blessed to be able to stop teaching and stay home when I had my babies. My babies aren’t babies anymore—they are teenagers and the youngest is in third grade, so I really do spend my time in carpool and driving to sports practices and instrument lessons. But I came to the realization and conviction that I wanted to also be a global thinker and think outside of my family and my suburbia life and wanted to make a difference.

Tell us about how you got involved with ONE and World Vision. When I first woke up to the reality that I could make a difference on a global level and just really felt convicted with that, I started with World Vision. I just knew it as the strongest Christian humanitarian organization. It has the largest infrastructure on the ground in these developing world countries. It was a safe place for me as an evangelical Christian, and I stayed involved with them. … ONE Campaign, they don’t want your money, they want your voice. ONE is a nondenominational, bipartisan organization, so it’s really neutral. Yes, it’s secular, but it’s really neutral. I actually work really closely with the faith relations directors at ONE; they really work with churches and Christian colleges to be a voice.

How does your family feel about your volunteer work? My husband is super-supportive. It honestly is just being a model and a guide for my children. When I went to Africa a year and a half ago, I was on Facebook and I would be uploading these pictures in Zambia and doing these different things with World Vision and another organization, World Bicycle Relief, and I would upload these pictures and before I even got home, my daughter, who was in fifth grade at the time, had already printed out the pictures, put them in a presentation booklet and had already presented my trip to her classroom. … It was because she was watching me live my life.

You have done some work with celebrities—are you star-struck? I’m not star-struck, I don’t know why. I’m 40 years old, so I think it’s kind of fun. I think it’s just my generation kind of all in it together. I have met Bono, I have spoken with him. I filmed a commercial with Julia Roberts at the ONE Campaign. She and I visited for a long time as we were filming. … Julia Roberts talked about as using celebrity as currency, so that she can raise awareness about these things because people know who Julia Roberts is.

When did you decide that changing the world was something an ordinary person could do? It really was with the ONE Campaign—I think that’s where it really connected for me. I would find myself visiting Henry Hyde, who was my congressman, and at that time we were asking him to support The Global Fund to fight AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria. … I’m educated, but not in international foreign policy. When I introduced myself and I just said I’m just a stay-at-home mom from your district, it was like I was the only person in the room. He wanted to know why I was there and why I took the time to come to his office and talk about The Global Fund. I was a very unlikely person in those sort of players. I think it was situations like that that started to wake me up that I have more influence than I think. Stay-at-home moms or full-time moms—they want our voice.

How do you advise Christian retailers about your book? It’s how I got involved with issues of global needs and how I became a global thinker. … Sometimes women wait in the pews to get permission to get involved, and I hope that Global Soccer Mom is their permission and is their invitation.

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