HEIDI grew up in cities and villages of southern Michigan, where she dreamed of growing up and possessing her very own golden retriever and a house with a white picket fence. During her years as an art student at Hope College she gained what would be a key tool to shattering this dream—an understanding of the Spanish language. After a grueling semester learning Spanish and trying to pass her foreign language requirement, Heidi vowed to continue with Spanish because if she never was never able to use the language, all of her labors would have been in vain. She barreled through a Spanish minor with no small difficulty, and felt relieved upon graduation that her struggles with Spanish were coming to an end. This was not to be the case, as opportunities fell into her lap again and again to use her second language—first as an instructor of migrant children in public schools, and then as a volunteers coordinator for an organization in Nicaragua, AMOS Heath, Hope, & Healing.
It was in Nicaragua, a country still recovering from the wounds of war, that Heidi started to see that God had a larger vision for his people than cute houses or financial security. Heidi felt that following Christ meant engaging in relationships with the people around her, especially if they were lonely, in different positions in life, or in the middle of strife, and to connect people of diverse walks of life so that the lives of our neighbors on the margins of society could be celebrated. She felt that when we listened the marginalized, cried with them, and worked along side of them, that a greater life could be entered into by everyone. For Heidi, this meant dramatically changing her vision for her life.
Her studio art practice, which had been her great love, turned from the production of beautiful objects into creating platforms to present large societal questions in her own community. She moved her art from the galleries onto the streets in hopes of reaching everyday people who might in turn engage large questions in their everyday lives. Desiring to align the ideals that she had for her life and the concepts for her work with the actual way she was carrying out her life and her faith, Heidi decided that she needed to plant herself within a community. Heidi came to Good Works, Inc. because she felt that she had found a people who also felt called to breathing health into the world, both through the living of life and through care of those at the margins.
Heidi was married to Dan Kauffman on March 20, 2010. We'll have pictures of the happy couple soon!
HEIDI grew up in cities and villages of southern Michigan, where she dreamed of growing up and possessing her very own golden retriever and a house with a white picket fence. During her years as an art student at Hope College she gained what would be a key tool to shattering this dream—an understanding of the Spanish language. After a grueling semester learning Spanish and trying to pass her foreign language requirement, Heidi vowed to continue with Spanish because if she never was never able to use the language, all of her labors would have been in vain. She barreled through a Spanish minor with no small difficulty, and felt relieved upon graduation that her struggles with Spanish were coming to an end. This was not to be the case, as opportunities fell into her lap again and again to use her second language—first as an instructor of migrant children in public schools, and then as a volunteers coordinator for an organization in Nicaragua, AMOS Heath, Hope, & Healing. 
