Dianne Darr Couts grew up as a missionary kid (MK) in West Africa. Many of Dianne’s childhood experiences were wonderful, but she also experienced sexual, emotional and institutional abuse as an MK. Her story is told in her recently published memoir, Things Fell Apart, but the Center Held, available online at Amazon and Barnes & Noble. Drawing on her own experience of trauma and its lasting effects, and on her years as a board member of MK Safety Net, Dianne speaks at national conferences and in churches to raise awareness of abuse in religious settings and to encourage abuse survivors on their healing journeys.
Dianne is a retired high school teacher whose career of teaching English and French spanned four decades and included teaching in private and public schools in the U.S. and abroad. Dianne and her husband Bud, who have been married for over fifty years, live in Akron, Ohio. They have three married children and seven grandchildren.