About Us

Bethany was born in upstate New York and grew up in Lancaster, PA (and no, she’s not Amish). She has two younger brothers. She did things like play the role of Gertie Cummings in her high school’s production of Oklahoma! and the timpani in her church orchestra (it was a big church). She attended Messiah College and studied to become a high school social studies teacher.

Greg was born and raised in the Pittsburgh area where he did things like draw stuff and teach himself acoustic guitar. He has one younger brother. He attended Messiah College and ultimately got certified to teach English and German at the high school level.

As part of their course work, they took a geography class and met when the professor assigned some partner work. He studied off her notes and got better grades than she did. She went to Kenya to study for a semester and he went to Germany to study for a year. Afterwards, she went on a summer missions trip back to Kenya and he went on one to China. She graduated after four years and taught middle school in the Harrisburg area for a year while Greg finished his double major in five years (no snickering—two majors takes more time!).

During her junior year, Bethany met Bonnie Westberry, who with her husband Steve is now the Director of Priority 1 Ministries, at Messiah’s Missions Awareness Week and signed up to be a team leader the following summer for a group of teenagers going to El Salvador to work with kids there. The next year both Greg and Bethany helped out with Training Camp for the teams going out that year. The next year, Greg and Bethany, now married for 7 months (hooray for December weddings!), led their own team to El Salvador to work with some of the same kids Bethany had worked with before.

By this point they had procured positions at East Juniata Junior/Senior High School in Juniata County, and they knew that teachers in Pennsylvania must continue their education to make their certifications permanent. They decided, instead of taking master’s classes at night (as some of their sleep-deprived colleagues did), that they would join the same organization Greg went with to China. They taught English (and did other M-type stuff – and if you don’t know what that means, private message us and we’ll tell you) in Chinese universities and took courses through Wheaton College. After three years they both received MA’s in Missions and Intercultural Studies.

After China, they came back to live in the Chambersburg, PA area and work with Priority 1 Ministries. Greg got a job at a Kmart distribution center and later led worship at his church for a year and a half, and Bethany tutored at Sylvan Learning Center for a little while. Now they have three beautiful girls, Virginia, Cora, and Juliet, and have felt the call to move to the Bronx, NY to work with Priority 1 full time.

Greg loves playing his guitar, following the Pirates, Penguins, and new favorite NYCFC, and books. Bethany loves working with kids, re-reading The Hunger Games, and anything with chocolate and peanut butter. Ginny loves drawing. Cora loves pretending. Juliet loves to wiggle her limbs.

And we all love Jesus. We want to serve and follow Him wherever He wants to go.