Our Story
The story of Remedy Road begins with a couple feeling like God was calling them to something bigger than themselves. We are Lisa and Brad Vinson, an Arkansan couple who desires to love God passionately and love our neighbor tangibly. We treasure our family, especially our three kiddos. We love the Razorbacks (Woo Pig!). And we adore Northwest Arkansas, particularly our thriving Bentonville community.
In 2012, our family flew halfway around the world to visit friends in a small village in Northeast India. Four airplanes, two taxis, and more than twenty-four hours later, we arrived.
Our friends had moved to India in 2010 to start a textile company that made women’s accessories. Everything was hand-woven, hand-stitched, and hand-printed because, according to their vision, the more artisans that touch an item in production, the more jobs created and the more lives impacted. The phrase they have coined is “purposefully inefficient.”
For years, we had ached for the impoverished of the world, but the raw desperation we saw in India was unlike anything we could have prepared ourselves for. Barely clothed, parentless children wandered the streets hand in hand with even younger siblings. Limited clean water meant sickness was rampant. The need for change was and still is dire.
Fast-forward to present day and our friends, their business, and the artisans they employ are thriving. Through their work, the people have access to healthcare, childcare, transportation, and healthy meals. But more than just the basic needs we typically think about have been met. For example, artisans have been fitted for eyeglasses and can see clearly for the first time. Even interest-free loan programs are now available for purchasing scooters and motorbikes which have expanded their world by enabling them to travel farther than ever before. Their children are being educated, taught to speak and read English with the hope that through formal education and job opportunities that can outflow from this, the cycle of generational poverty can be broken for good.
But most importantly, their story points out the redemptive nature and sense of purpose instilled by earning a fair wage and creating beautiful things together. All they needed was a chance. For someone to believe that these circumstances did not define their humanity. For someone to believe they could instead rise above. Rather than begging, they now create. Rather than scraping by, they now flourish with a livable wage. Hopelessness has become hope. Despair has become joy. The chains of poverty have become freedom.
Because you can’t unsee what you have seen, we were changed, though seeing desperation didn’t change our hearts- seeing redemption did. Despite both of us working full-time jobs and juggling a normal (chaotic) American schedule of school, church, sports, and diaper-changing, we obeyed God’s call. That obedience was the spark which is now Remedy Road.
We are part of a growing number of entrepreneurs starting companies solely to create jobs in locations where they are desperately needed, thus creating magnificent change in a world crying out for it. We hope you’ll join us to help pave a ROAD to REMEDY for those who need it.