Melissa is a small business owner in Durham, North Carolina. After graduating from Campbell University, she officially became a Northern transplant living in the South. Melissa has served in church ministry leadership since 2007.  She helped establish a non-profit, No Longer Orphans, after spending time in India in 2008. In 2014, she and her husband Shaun planted a church in Washington, DC and returned to North Carolina in 2020. They have 3 children.