It is our joy to announce the members of the 2023 Journey of Hope cohort. This leadership development program is one of Global Immersion’s flagship incubators, designed to form Reconciling Leaders as they shape Reconciling Communities for repair in their contexts.
Journey of Hope utilizes live access to leading voices in global peacemaking, peer group collaboration, and personalized coaching and spiritual direction sessions to invite the next level transformation that is unique to and necessary for each leader in the program. The cohort culminates in June with a five-day immersion into the U.S American Deep South. While there, we will focus on racial reconciliation, integrating resistance, and resilience into our leadership practice.
Brandon Bleek currently serves as Director of Mission and Adult Formation at Sammamish Presbyterian Church in Sammamish, WA. He is a Reconciling Leader committed to forming people of faith into empathetic advocates for justice.
Ben Fleming is the co-senior pastor at Westside Church in Bend, OR. He is a Reconciling Leader who is guiding the transformation of an influential congregation at the intersection of suburban wealth and rural poverty.
Charlie Foltz is the co-founder and president of the San Antonio-based, The GOODHOOD, a non-profit seeking to fight poverty by creating opportunity on San Antonio’s Eastside. He is a Reconciling Leader working to bridge the divides that race and class have created in his context.
Jen Foltz is the co-founder of the San Antonio-based, The GOODHOOD, a non-profit seeking to fight poverty by creating opportunity on San Antonio’s Eastside. She is a Reconciling Leader committed to empowering women and addressing education gaps in her community
Hannah Lutz serves as lead pastor of Ada Chapel Friends Meeting, a Quaker congregation in Wilmington, OH. She is a Reconciling Leader in rural America who is working to replace violence with reconciliation as a reflexive response to conflict.
Paulina Machi serves as a clinical social worker. She’s a Reconciling Leader serving asylum seekers, refugees, and survivors of crime through a combination of theological formation, spirit-led practice, and psychodynamic/creative therapeutic modalities.
Jen Manlief currently serves as the program director for Seattle’s University Heights Center, where she focuses her efforts on providing holistic care for the vehicle-residing community. She is a Reconciling Leader who has been formed by years of lessons learned in trauma, resiliency, and healing as she offers companionship to her outside-living neighbors.
Josh Phenow serves at the native-owned and operated Dream of Wild Health, a Minnesota-based non-profit that works to restore health and well-being for the local Native community by recovering knowledge of and access to healthy Indigenous foods, medicines, and lifeways. He is a Reconciling Leader who cultivates the land and contributes to the holistic healing of indigenous youth.
Scott Rasmussen is a project director for Americares, an international health and disaster relief non-profit. A former U.S. diplomat and executive director of Hands of Peace, he is a Spokane, WA-based Reconciling Leader focused on building human-to-human connections that promote human rights and economic opportunities for marginalized communities.
As the story unfolds, we’ll bring you in on some of our collective learning for your own formation.