Special Hope Staff
Special Hope Network’s founders, Eric and Holly Nelson, have a combined 50 plus years experience in working with special needs populations.
Holly is a certified Special Education teacher certified in Moderate and Severe Special Needs, as well as Early Childhood Education. In addition to the ten years of teaching in public school systems, she has also created the educational program each year for their three children who each have Down syndrome.
Eric has been working, volunteering or parenting children with intellectual and developmental disabilities continuously since he was 17 years old. He holds degrees in Biblical Studies and a Masters of Divinity. Vocationally, Eric has helped oversee and manage several group homes and emergency shelters for adults with developmental disabilities, he has also been Director of Sales and Marketing for a start-up Business technology consulting company in Washington, D.C. and has Pastored for over 10 years.
Together, they have been married for almost 22 years and have four children. The first is an unofficially ‘adopted’ daughter, Shauna, who is now married with four children of her own. This summer will be her 9th anniversary to her husband, Adam. Thanks to Shauna 
and Adam, they have had the unexpected joy of being grandparents four times over! The family picture is on the right. Shauna and Adam’s kids are Josiah, Seth, Abel, and Ashlyn.
The next two kids are 17, and adopted from Brazil. They are Maggie and Mollie, twins who spent their first 14 months in a hospital in Sao Paulo. Both of them have Down syndrome.
When we brought them home to the Boston area in August of 1994, they both received the medical care they hadn’t received in Brazil, including heart catheterizations, EKG’s and ultrasounds of their hearts to diagnose heart problems that were not fully diagnosed in their birth country since they were orphans. After these tests, both girls received open heart surgery at Children’s Hospital in Boston, and started to get stronger immediately. They walked at almost three years old, started sign language acquisition, and have been a joy and a source of constant growth for us as parents ever since.
Mollie, Sam, and Maggie (L to R)
Samuel is 16, also from Brazil, but from the North Coast of Brazil, a city called Recife. He also has Down syndrome, and had his heart repaired one week after arriving here from Brazil. He was 10 lbs. 2 oz. at 13 months old, and wasn’t expected to live longer than a week. The doctors at Children’s Hospital in Boston did all kinds of tests on him to try to figure out whether to get him stronger first, or do heart surgery first. They ultimately decided that he wouldn’t be able to become stronger without a repaired heart, so we increased his calories for a week, and they did open-heart surgery, and he has been growing and getting stronger ever since then. He actually hit 100 lbs. this year! And, he did all the writing and the artwork for our Special Hope logo, so he is a budding artist, as well.
As a family, we love to swim together, hike the Blue Ridge Mountains, sing and worship, and dance. Our kids love to eat, so they are helpful in the kitchen, since the reward of their hard work is a delicious meal. We exercise every day together to try to burn the calories that we love to eat!
Read more from the Nelsons on their personal blog: Nuffin Is Easy.
Contact them at eric@specialhopenetwork.org or holly@specialhopenetwork.org.
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Beth Bailey, serving as a missionary and functioning as Director of Operations Africa with Special Hope Network, graduated from the University of Virginia with a degree in Religious Studies. She spent the four years working with Younglife, a Christian outreach program to high school students, in Charlottesville. Within those four years, she led a team of fellow college students in ministering to teenagers, focusing on evangelism and discipleship.
Beth’s commitment to care for orphans began in college, through various experiences. She did mission work at an orphanage in Sao Paulo, Brazil in 2007, where she was first exposed to the problem of the worldwide orphan crisis. Also while in college in Charlottesville, Beth came into contact with several families who had adopted children from Ethiopia, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Ukraine, Brazil, and the US. Her passion for orphans grew as a result of her interaction and work with these families, and compelled her to join Special Hope Network in the work they are doing in southern Africa.
After living in Lusaka for seven months, Beth became a foster mother to a little boy she named Joab, who was born in July 2008 and had lived in a local orphanage for nearly 2 years. Though his development is significantly delayed, he continues to grow and learn in a way that is so fun and encouraging to Beth as she, herself learns how to parent this little guy.
Read more from Beth on her personal blog: So That He Might Increase.
Contact her at beth@specialhopenetwork.org .
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Aaron Schmidt – Senior Media Advisor/US 
Aaron Schmidt graduated from Gordon College (Wenham, Massachusetts) in 1989 with a degree in Middle School Education and a minor in History. He taught 5th, 6th, and 7th grade, worked as an Art Director and Graphic Designer, and is currently the Marketing/Communications Director for ASI Gymnastics in Dallas, Texas.
Aaron met Eric & Holly in college and they have been close friends ever since. He has been a part of Special Hope since its inception, and accompanied Eric to Africa in 2008. His gifted work with both art and computers has enabled Special Hope’s logo to be creative, unique, and upbeat. He took Samuel’s writing, and drawings, and incorporated them into our logo. He works to produce our different logo needs whenever we need them, and is tirelessly encouraging to us!
Aaron resides in Dallas, Texas with his family. His wife is Theresa, and his 2 sons are Connor (17), and Ben (14).
