Meet the Board
Kristi Garrett
CFO, Board Chair
Kristi has been serving in the missions field since 2014 after her first trip to Cambodia. Since first working with LOHI she has been an advocate for the work they have done and continue to do. This first visit sparked a calling in Kristi to serve women and children in Cambodia and around the world. With nearly 20 years of banking and finance experience, Kristi has chosen to honor that calling by serving as CFO for LOHI. She is currently attending graduate school at the University of Oklahoma to obtain her MS in Finance.
Brendon Journey, MPH
CEO, Executive Board
Bren is a published author of Cambodia’s first and only Human Trafficking Prevention Notebook “Safety with Sopheap”. She has served Stateside and abroad with survivors, assisting in developing policy and procedures for safe homes, leading retreats to house parents and workers for self care and burnout prevention. She is honored to have served as a volunteer for over 15 years. Bren has been at the front lines of public health anti-violence advocacy prevention and education for over 20 years. She was formerly with Trafficking in American Task Force leading the “Sister Walk” Initiative as well as assisting in Law Enforcement Trainings. Bren has also had the honor of working alongside Salvation Army, Rescue Mission, On Eagles Wings, Child Helpline, Chab Dai Coalition, Love146, Rapha House, as well as Teen Challenge. She has developed and led many trainings for college professors, social workers, students of all ages, as well as medical personnel on equality, equity, and disparities within our society that lead to unhealthy relationships; familial trafficking/abuse. Bren currently serves on the Life 107 Board and one of the founding leaders of NC Demand Reduction Taskforce. Like many in the field of public health profession Bren is best described as an impatient optimist that drives Hope home in every relationship.
She is passionate about collaborating, Educating, Elevating, and Empowering all of humanity.
“We were not created to be sold and made into a mere commodity.”
Tim Brown
Founder, Executive Board
An entrepreneur at heart, Tim is a South Carolina resident with a passion for travel and adventure. Over the past decade, Tim has established international business in Southeast Asia, affording him the opportunity to see many places where the affects of child maltreatment, trafficking and forced child labor left their mark on his heart.
Because of the great needs of 'children at risk' in third world countries and his involvement with survivors of child abuse and trauma, Tim set his sights on making a difference in the lives of children in need. His desire is to ELEVATE these little ones out of difficult situations, add value to their lives through
EDUCATION and EMPOWER them to help lead their villages and communities into a better future.
Creative and compassionate, Tim enjoys helping people and is the Founder of LOHI.
Lee Rhea Johns-Mabry, RN, MSN, Lt. Col. (ret.)
Secretary and Medical Ambassador of Hope, Executive Board
Lee Rhea is married to Keith Mabry and has 2 sons, Aaron and Brandon. They have 3 German Shepherds and live in the countryside of the mountains in Leicester. She began volunteering with LOHI in October 2022 and is LOHI's Medical Ambassador of Hope.
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Lee Rhea has worked for 40 years as a Registered Nurse. She retired in March of 2022 but is keeping her license active. Her nursing experience is in Oncology, Hospice and Palliative Care, and Workers Compensation. Concurrently, she was in the US Air Force Reserves for 28 years, with 4 years as a Clinical Nurse, 14 years as an Aeromedical Evacuation Flight Nurse, and 10 years as the Chief Nurse Executive. She retired as a Lieutenant Colonel and is a Veteran of 2 Foreign Wars.
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Lee Rhea's Education history is a Master of Science in Nursing, Adult Health/Primary Care Nurse Practitioner Curriculum; 2 Bachelor's degrees in Sociology and Nursing.
Phil Hudson
International Director, Executive Board
Phil and his wife Gwen and 3 children spent 14 years living in a rural area of Kenya and implemented Education, Agriculture, Health and disaster mitigation, Water security, Animal husbandry, and small business startup programs. Some of these community based projects and programs were in close cooperation with Government ministries and some were with community leaders. In addition they were
involved in starting new village based Churches and training leaders in an unreached region of Narok District. Phil is the co-founder and a non-resident team member of AfricaHope. (Africahope.org)
Phil has over 15 years of consulting and program design experience working on short consultancies and/or
program evaluation in 30 countries. In addition, He did initial fact finding and research trips into 35 other countries increasing his knowledge base to include systemic poverty eradication, small business development, food security, NGO best practice, Intercultural conflict resolution and change management. His consultancies and program management spans six continents.
Phil was deployed to Haiti to design and implement a major earthquake relief and recovery program for a faith-based Health organization. He facilitated an Orthopedic surgery center and implemented a nationwide program to eradicate Clubfoot as an adult disability. He also designed a trauma counseling program, trained social workers and implemented and ran a program delivering 44,000 one-on-one trauma counseling sessions by the first year anniversary of the Earthquake.
More recently his interests have turned to the causes of extreme poverty and various methods which reduce risk to Children and youth. He is keenly interested in the holistic nature of uplift and seeks to assist groups to consider and include spiritual, emotional, and physical aspects of poverty and how sustainable and long-term change is only possible when an integrated approach is used.
They live in Fort Myers where Gwen works as an RN and Phil works at the NI headquarters when not traveling. Phil has a Masters degree in Intercultural Studies from Fuller Seminary School of World Mission in Pasadena California.
Karen Cowen MSW, LCSWA
Advisory Board
Karen Cowan has been in North Carolina since 1976 from Detroit Michigan and has lived
places like New York City, Maryland, California, and as young child wanted to make things
better for people. Volunteering at age 8 with her church in Michigan at a home for abused
children changed her life forever. Not really understanding it at the time but knowing that it
was wrong and wanting to make a difference. This has been her driving force her whole
life. Karen became a foster parent to teenage girls at the age of 24 wanting to have a place
that they belonged and were cared about before officially entering into adulthood. Her life
has been involved in some type of community service, or helping agency as either an
employee or a volunteer.
Karen has worked for Buncombe County Child Development, the County
Commissioner/County Manager’s Office, the Baby Love Program as a Maternal and Child
Outreach worker, Group Home Employee and at Blue Ridge Mental Health as a Clinical Case
Manager. She has also done work with non-profit agencies around Human Trafficking.
Karen attended AB Tech and obtained an Associate’s Degree in Law Enforcement
Technology and then went to Mars Hill College to finish up a bachelor’s degree where she
double majored in Criminal Justice and Social Work. Afterward, she attended UNC-Chapel
Hill to obtain her Master’s degree in Social Work.
Karen has worked in this community in the service field for more than 3 decades, loving
every minute of it.
Dr. Marianne Thomas
Subject Matter Expert, Advisory Board
Marianne Thomas has a PhD in Behavioral Psychology and an MA in Mental Health Counseling. A survivor of childhood abuse and human trafficking, Dr Thomas used her lived experience and education to provide counseling and mentorship for abused and trafficked youth and women for over 15 years. During that time, she oversaw a safe home for minor girls who had been trafficked that was called the “gold standard” in the state of FL. She began, grew, and subsequently ran the largest crisis and long-term, mobile, anti-trafficking program in the state.
Now, Marianne is the founder and president of My Name My Voice, a collective of lived experience experts who provide education and ongoing consultation for organizations who want to build a new or grow their existing anti-trafficking program. She is also a public speakerwho helps people overcome self-sabotage by talking about forgiveness.
Steve Moore
Advisory Board
Steve Moore is a proud father of five amazing children. Honored to have two brilliant son-in-laws, handsome grandson, and two beautiful granddaughters. Steve is humbled and retired United States Air Force Veteran with serving over thirty-two years in the insurance industry. He was most recently promoted to Vice President of the parent company of the agency he works and has many more honors.