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“Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.”
A licensed attorney, Noelle began her career at St. Paul, MN-based nonprofit, Breaking Free, providing legal advocacy to victims of sex trafficking, training community stakeholders and criminal justice system professionals at the statewide and national level, supporting the implementation of diversionary programs for women involved in prostitution, co-facilitating the Offenders Prostitution Program, advising on state and federal legislative policy, and serving as co-chair of the Minnesota Human Trafficking Task Force Policy Committee.
After Breaking Free, Noelle served as Staff Attorney and Trafficking Policy Coordinator at the Minnesota Coalition Against Sexual Assault. In that role, Noelle provided state and national technical assistance to community-based advocates and criminal justice system professionals responding to sexual assault and sex trafficking cases, and coordinated the Safe Harbor Protocol Development program, which supported the development of community-specific multidisciplinary responses to trafficking.
In 2018, Noelle joined Men As Peacemakers (MAP) to lead a statewide initiative to end the demand for sex trafficking (Don’t Buy It Project), later overseeing MAP’s local, statewide, and national prevention and restorative programs as Director of Programs. At MAP, Noelle worked with Native, Hmong, and Latino partner programs to co-create community-specific tools and resources to address sex trafficking and other forms of sexual violence. Noelle is also a national Training and Technical Assistance Provider for the Restorative Practices Pilot Program through the Office of Violence Against Women.
Noelle and her husband served as missionaries for over 5 years in Tokyo, Japan, where Noelle also obtained her Master of Public Administration with Certificate in International Peace and Conflict Studies from the International Christian University and completed an applied field study at the United Nations Institute of Training and Research in Hiroshima, Japan. She also holds a Bachelor of Science (double major) in Mathematics and Biblical Studies from Evangel University in Springfield, MO.
The city of Waite Park has been instrumental in our growth as we support these women by offering us a free home for a little over two years. Then they worked with Martin Marietta Materials who bought the home and leased it back to us for free. This miracle gave Terebinth Refuge and the women in our program the security we needed to have the confidence to grow and thrive in this community. Now we have two homes for the women as they work through our program from the shelter home to the transitional home.
In 2020, Terebinth Refuge was blessed with another miracle. Part of the vision for Terebinth was to have a social enterprise. One of our volunteers, Kim Gregoire, had her own natural person care products business named Basic Care. One day Kim came to us and shared her heart for giving Terebinth her business which turned into what is now The Hope and Healing Store today. We still use all the same recipes and ingredients that Basic Care did, but now it is part of the vision for Terebinth.
Part of the vision for Terebinth was to have a social enterprise to give women the opportunity to practice employment skills. Now when they are ready to go out into the community, they have the confidence they need to excel.
Your generosity has impact. With your support, Terebinth Refuge can continue to help survivors find hope, healing, and freedom.