Lifestyle of a relief exec

Lifestyle/Technology: Traveling through a broken world—and fighting back against the brokenness—is a big part of Ben Homan's calling | Susan Olasky

Food for the Hungry

In 1987, when Ben Homan was courting his future wife Annette, she told him, "I have a sense you're going to be doing a lot of traveling and I'm OK with that."

It was a generous thing to say because Annette had been diagnosed with MS the year before at the age of 22—and neither of them knew the course the disease would take.

They also didn't know how prescient her prediction would be: For the past seven years, since becoming president of Food for the Hungry, Homan has logged about 100 days a year on the road, traveling for the relief organization to Iraq, tsunami-ravaged Indonesia, and many other trouble spots. While he logs frequent-flyer miles, Annette tends to their three children—Tess, 15; Ethan, 13; and Carter, 7. Until recently she homeschooled all of them in their one-story house on a dirt road about a 30-minute commute from downtown Phoenix.