CCI Staff

Meet Our Staff

The staff members at CCI are knowledgeable, experienced adoption professionals, who are dedicated to finding loving homes for waiting children and believe that serving you better during your adoption process, will help to realize this goal for more children. Please meet our loving and caring staff!

Sue Hedberg, MA

Executive Director

Guatemalan Program Coordinator

Ethiopian Program Coordinator

Sue is the case manager for Guatemala and Vietnam. She holds a B.S. degree in Occupational Therapy from the University of Central Arkansas and an M.A. in Missions from Columbia International University in Columbia, South Carolina. Sue has worked in rehabilitation in the United States as well as in South Korea.

She has brought home over 900 children from Guatemala, aged 2 months through 15 years old! She has also brought home 25 children from Cambodia.

Sue has been involved in international Christian ministry most of her life. She spent 2 years working as a missionary in a hospital in Korea. During that time, she was exposed to international adoption and even escorted a total of 12 Korean children to the US. Later, Sue and her husband were missionaries in Venezuela and Costa Rica. Her love for Latin America and her ability to communicate in Spanish, as well as her experience living in Latin America, helps this program to run successfully.

In addition to working with the international adoption program, Sue and her husband have a ministry to international students in the Orlando area. They have three children, aged 18, 16 and 14.

Angela Vance, MSW

Assistant to the Director

Angela is a 2005 graduate of the University of Central Florida’s Master of Social Work program. She also has a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Psychology from Warner Southern College in Lake Wales, Florida, and an Associate of Arts degree from Seminole Community College in Sanford, Florida.

Angela attends Parkside Fellowship Church of the Nazarene in Longwood, where she is a member of the choir, a nursery worker and director of the teen Bible Quizzing program. She also loves to celebrate the memories God has given her through the art of scrapbooking.

Angela serves CCI as Sue’s personal assistant. Some of her duties include reviewing home studies, going over travel paperwork, answering Sue’s e-mails while she is out of the office, and answering general questions about the Guatemala program. She joined CCI in June, 2005.

John S. Mischuck, BS

Staff Accountant

John S. Mischuck joined the staff of Celebrate Children International in April 2007 as the staff accountant. He has a B.S.B.A. degree in both accounting and finance from the University of Central Florida.

John and his wife, Anne, have two sons, one of which was adopted from Guatemala through CCI. They are members of a local Presbyterian church.

John is available for answering client questions and concerns regarding billing and payments.

Sara Eisenbart, BS

Haiti Program Coordinator

Sara Eisenbart is the Haiti Program Coordinator for Celebrate Children International. She joined Celebrate Children International in June 2005 as part of the Guatemalan Program Support Staff. Sara has a BS degree in Exceptional Student Education from the University of South Florida and has taught a wide variety of children with special needs, including Specific Learning Disabilities and Emotional Behavior Disorders.

Sara and her husband David have been married for 12 years and adopted their son Carlos from Guatemala in 2004. They are in the process of adopting their second child from Haiti.

Lana Carson, MA

Ukraine Program Coordinator

Lana is the case manager for Ukraine. She holds a B.A. in English, German and Teaching from the Kyiv State Linguistic University in Kyiv, Ukraine, and a M.A. in Higher Education Administration from the Teacher College Columbia University in NYC.

In Ukraine, Lana taught English at high school and university levels; was actively involved in the US-Ukraine student exchange programs with the InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, Warner Pacific College and George Fox College; worked for the US Embassy in Kyiv; interpreted and provided written translations for a number of the US-Ukraine government negotiations, talks and working groups.

In the USA, she is a stay-at-home mom running a home-based translation service.
Lana joined the CCI family in April 2005 to manage the newly re-opened Ukraine Program. She is very excited about this new opportunity for the families in the USA who are looking to adopt a child and the children in Ukraine looking for a loving home, to find each other.

Her native understanding of the Ukrainian culture and traditions, ability to effectively communicate both in Ukrainian and English, as well the ties she maintains with friends and family in Ukraine, contribute to this program’s success and effectiveness and help increase customer satisfaction.

Lana and her husband Craig, together with their son Michael (2) and dog Tanker (4), live in Oviedo, FL.

Julie Erwin, MA

Taiwan Program Coordinator

Julie Erwin holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Education and a Master of Arts degree in Guidance and Counseling. She has worked as a classroom teacher, guidance counselor and school principal. In 1998 she founded and became the Executive Director of Adoption Assistance, Inc..

Over the last six years Julie has worked closely with Sue Hedberg, CCI's Executive Director. In 2004, Julie join CCI's staff as the Case Manager for CCI's Taiwan program. Julie and her husband, Bill, have adopted 5 children internationally, including a child from Taiwan.

Carmen Lopez Cepero

Humanitarian Aid Coordinator

Carmen, a native of Puerto Rico, has been living in the United States, on and off for almost twenty years. She originally came to the U.S. to obtain her Master’s Degree of Public Administration at American University in Washington, D.C. She did her undergraduate work at Catholic University of Puerto Rico where she obtained a Bachelor in Arts Degree, majoring in Social Science with a psychology minor. After several years working as a social worker in Puerto Rico, at the Children and Family Welfare Department, she moved to the United States for some time after marrying an American diplomat.

On her long journey through life, her love for children has always involved her in different situations where she worked and minister with young adults and children. At present, she is a Sunday school teacher at Northland, a Church Distributed, in Longwood, Florida, and during the summer she coordinated the VBS program for the Presbyterian Hispanic Church in Orlando.

Her work experience includes being the former director for the International Christian Dance Fellowship out of Australia, representing the Puerto Rico chapter. She has also coordinated seminars and conferences to bring the message that body language is a God given tool that could be used for praising and worshiping Him. She coordinated two International Conferences, with people attending from all over the world. Her passion is to praise and worship the LORD in all ways possible! Being a world traveler, she has visited all continents, learning from different cultures and enjoying the beautiful sights God has blessed her to see.

Carmen joined CCI in August 2006 in a manner that became a real testimony of how God answers her prayers (to the last detail). Being a retiree, she started as a part time helper to our Director with her Spanish translation skills and in less than four months she was named Humanitarian Aid Coordinator. She attended and assisted in coordinating the recent mission trips to Guatemala in Summer 2007. CCI is blessed to have Carmen as part of its team.

Jennifer Crist, MS

Assistant Humanitarian Aid

Jennifer is the Assistant Humanitarian Aid Coordinator of Celebrate Children International. She graduated from the Pennsylvania State University in 1994, and completed her Masters in Anatomy and Neuroscience from Penn State in 1998. Jennifer worked as a nutrition peer educator at Penn State and researched social behaviors in young children. In her graduate studies, Jennifer is listed as the author of several scientific publications.

In her spare time Jennifer taught martial arts to children and adults; she holds a second degree black belt in Judo, Hapkido and Tai Kwon Do. She is currently a Court Appointed Special child's Advocate for the county in which she lives.

Jennifer married George Crist in 1994 and they have 3 children, Jessica (7), Emily (5), and Jonathon (2) who was adopted from Guatemala in December 2003. Jennifer now homeschools her three children. She has organized and coordinated several aid outreach efforts to Guatemala. Jennifer's main focus at CCI is The Center for Children of the Streets program.

., BA

Kazakhstan Program Coordinator

Tammy is a 1994 graduate from Ohio University with a Bachelor's degree in Political Science and a Minor in Psychology.
She has worked as a Paralegal since 1996 and more recently has worked in the Publishing Field.

She is an active member of the Community of the Good Shepherd where she is a involved in several outreach ministries.

She is married to Tom and has a 2 biological children that are 11 and 8 and three adopted children from, both, China and Guatemala, ages 7, 6 and 2.

Shortly after the adoption of her son from Guatemala, through CCI, she began working with CCI as a Guatemala Case Manager. She currently is Celebrate Children's Guatemala Case Manager Supervisor and is now the director of the Kazakhstan Program