Before becoming a counselor, I worked as an EMT, firefighter, Emergency Room Technician, Youth Pastor, high school athletic trainer, and Teacher. I attended Austin College for my BA in Psychology and Southwestern Seminary for my MA in Marriage and Family Counseling. I am a Licensed Professional Counselor and supervisor in the state of Texas, USA. I am working on my Ph.D. in Psychological Studies at Regent University with a concentration in International mental health.  

As a counselor, I worked in Texas for a few years as an elementary school behavioral interventionist and a counselor at Catholic Charities. In 2011, I joined Wycliffe and its global partner, SIL, as a counselor serving in the USA for a year. I then went to Kenya, where I worked for five years at Tumaini Counseling Center. While in Kenya, I met my wife, Ellie, and we continued to work in separate organizations. After leaving Kenya, we joined the SIL Eurasia region together. We lived in North Africa and are now based in Malaga, Spain, where we partner with Sentwell.org in addition to serving with SIL. For SIL I am the Eurasia staff care coordinator and a counselor. I have extensive experience working with children, teens, and families living cross-culturally. 

My counseling background is based in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Systems Therapy, and Trauma using EMDR and CBT, all from a Christian perspective. My counseling includes individual, marital, family, and group counseling and debriefings with people from all nationalities serving in many organizations. These sessions range from ongoing counseling, short-term intensive counseling care, and debriefings of critical incidents. My counseling expertise includes but is not limited to, trauma and PTSD, anxiety/OCD, depression, children and adolescents issues, addiction, stress/burnout, marriage and family, and any aspect of cross-cultural life and work. I also offer administrators support and consultation about staff-related issues.

I enjoy writing, developing workshops, and speaking on mental health and cross-cultural issues. You can see the workshops I have developed Here. These topics include  The Integration of Spiritual Formation with the Traumatized Client, Emotional Intelligence, Trauma Informed Staff Care, Boundaries, Stress, Parenting in the Digital Age, Teens and Trauma, Addiction, The Porn Problem, Resilience and more. I co-authored Healing Teens' Wounds of Trauma facilitator guide and teen journal, the Online teen disaster guide Unstuck, and have a chapter in the book The Essentials for People Care and Development. I co-host the podcast Shop Talk with Brandi and James, which has over 30 episodes dedicated to mental health issues for cross-cultural workers.