Prior to working at CTPM, Naomi spent several years as a peer counselor, advocating for moms with Nursing Mothers of Raleigh, providing support in person and by phone as they navigated the technical and emotional challenges along their breastfeeding journey.  Naomi holds a bachelor’s in Spanish from Mars Hill College and has completed two years of graduate studies in Christian Ministry and Counseling at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary.   When her first daughter was born, she turned her focus towards her children and has been dedicated to raising them since pausing her graduate studies.  She also works as a bookkeeper, which may explain her affinity for spreadsheets.  Naomi is a CTPM-affiliated advocate and a member of the advocacy training team.  She is also a regular presenter for CTPM’s church partnership trainings.  Naomi is a North Carolina native who grew up in a conservative evangelical denomination and is a woman you’d find serving in the music ministry as well as with children and youth.  Having experienced how devastating it is when your church isn’t a safe place, she has walked with the Lord through her prior church’s abandonment, growing in her identity in Christ.  She understands how it feels when your “soul is crushed with grief to the point of death.” (Mt 26:38).

She clings to Jesus’ promise: “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness. Therefore, I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.  For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong,” 2 Corinthians 12:9-10.