In the summer of 2001 Jeff & Vicki Rogers went on a short-term trip to the Dominican Republic that would have an unexpected long-term impact on their future. They were awakened to the reality that their lives were not their own. In a matter of months all of their long term plans were utterly transformed. Since 2001 they have been working with G.O. Ministries learning what it means for one’s life to be leveraged for the sake of others.
Jeff & Vicki have lived on the island of Hispaniola for over 3 ½ years working through a network of 31 local leaders serving their communities in radical ways. Since they first started with G.O. the organization has grown to also serve Colombia, Mongolia and Urban America. Jeff & Vicki currently serve on G.O.’s Leadership Team and live in the inner city of Louisville with their daughters Sophi, Raena & Ella. Together in partnership with passionate local leaders they continue to respond to the breach of nutrition, addiction, education, drinkable water, healthcare and human dignity locally and globally.
In January of 2005 they were making the move to the island full time and discovered in January of that year that they were pregnant. They discovered in Spanish with their Dominican O.B. that they were having twins.
They returned state-side in early June to finish off thei third trimester with the expectation to return after the girls were born. Their first visit to their state-side O.B. revealed that they had a very high risk pregnancy; they were having monoamniotic twins. They were in the hospital almost 2 weeks after their return home and were delivering almost 2 weeks later. Their girls came at 29 weeks, 2 ½ months early. When they got out of the NICU they failed their hearing screening and it was confirmed 4 months later by their audiologist that they had severe to profound hearing loss in both ears due to a recessive genetic trait that Vicki and Jeff both carry, Connexin 26. At 14 months old Sophi and Raena received Cochlear Implants and began intensive therapy with a teacher of the deaf, developmental interventionist and speech therapist. They are now attending public school. They can speak and sign.
The girls' deafness have made Jeff and Vicki mindful of the deaf in the DR and Haiti in a way they were not before. They have begun to dream about possibilities of how they might intentionally reach out to these people in the future.
The support needed for their daughters is not available in the Dominican Republic which led them back to working state-side at the international headquarters. Since 2005 their roles with G.O. have transitioned and they now serve as 2 of the 4 key leaders (the others being Tim Krauss and John Martinez) of the ministry under Brook. Vicki works in tandem with Tim regarding teams and supervises everything related to the development of teams, G.O. Kids, and promotional material. Jeff supervises everything related to Partnership development, On-going training, office staff and Kingdom Business and works in tandem with John Martinez with the National Partners. Together they both represent G.O. Ministries, networking and developing new relationships and visiting churches in order to help further the ministry initiatives of G.O. all over the world. They still spend about one to two months out of the year in the Dominican.
Jeff and Vicki believe that God’s Kingdom work is both local and global. We are always called to both. Since circumstances have required them to remain based state-side they have made an effort to be faithful to the local call by living intentionally and incarnationally in the inner-city, hoping their presence and neighboring in Jesus' name will be a service to the community and a benefit to their neighbors. They desire to love mercy, do justice and walk humbly before God more and more each day, growing into his Kingdom, awaiting its fulfillment.
