Growing up in a small town in Texas, Debra’s lifelong passion for Africa was always a bit of a puzzle to her. It finally made sense once she discovered she was adopted from her birth mother who had lived in the Congo as a child. Debra’s birth grandparents were missionaries there in the 1930s and had even rescued and tried to raise a young elephant. Saving elephants is truly in her blood. When it came time to name the foundation, she only had to look to her birth family’s surname, Havens, for inspiration.