Real-Life ‘Call the Midwife’ in Haiti: Tara Livesay and KJ Johnson

Our series on Powerhouse Women continues with two strong women who are helping women in Haiti get through the most powerful and vulnerable moments they will ever experience: giving birth. Midwives Tara Livesay and KJ Johnson are best friends who work with Heartline Ministries and, like Melinda Gates, they champion maternal care as a human right. As Enneagram 2s, Tara and KJ became fast friends, and they tell Jen why they decided to become midwives, about the birth story that brought them together (an unexpected twin!), what it’s like to offer maternal care in Haiti (it involves Tara driving a van on the rules-optional streets of Port-au-Prince—not for the faint of heart!). Tara and KJ are facing broken systems that are daunting for people in their line of work, and instead of walking away defeated, they are offering love to one person at a time—the kind of love we’d all like to receive in our own moment of need. And sometimes, that’s all we can do.