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Revelation 7:9 Award is presented to six intercultural leaders

“After this I looked, and there was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, robed in white, with palm branches in their hands” (Revelation 7:9, NRSVue).

Six intercultural leaders in the Church of the Brethren received the Revelation 7:9 Award during today’s Mission and Ministry Board meeting in Grand Rapids, Mich. The award was presented by Founa Badet, director of Intercultural Ministries.

Badet read the text from Revelation 7:9 as she introduced those receiving the award: Michaela Alphonse, Joshua Brockway, Duane Grady, Matt Guynn, Gilbert Romero, and Joe Vecchio.

Here are brief biographies of the honorees:

Michaela Alphonse is pastor of Miami (Fla.) First Church of the Brethren. Previously, for five years she worked as a Global Missions volunteer in Haiti alongside her husband, Ilexene Alphonse. Prior to that, she was the program director at Camp Ithiel in Gotha, Fla. She is currently serving as a member of the Church of the Brethren’s Mission and Ministry Board, and she is the lead for Atlantic Southeast District’s Program Team. She is a member of PACT Miami. Throughout her life, she has worked with children and youth in the public school system. She is the founder of Ubuntu Learning Village, an educational initiative that provides academic support to students and connects the community with public schools. She is pursuing a post-graduate degree in education at Florida International University.

Intercultural Ministries director Founa Badet (at left) with five of the six recipients of the Revelation 7:9 award: (from left) Gilbert Romero, Matt Guynn, Duane Grady, Joshua Brockway, and Michaela Alphonse. Not pictured: Joe Vecchio. Photo by Chris Brumbaugh-Cayford

Joshua Brockway is director for spiritual formation for the Church of the Brethren. In 2017, he participated in the Sankofa Journey of the Evangelical Covenant Church. He worked with Gimbiya Kettering, then director of Intercultural Ministries, to plan the Dikaios and Discipleship journey in Cincinnati, Ohio, focused on the history of the slave trade and the underground railroad. In 2019, he coordinated a second Dikaios journey along with then-Brethren Volunteer Service worker Monica McFadden, focused on indigenous peoples, especially the Cherokee of North Carolina. His recent article for Messenger grew out of that and the Annual Conference resolution lamenting the Doctrine of Discovery. Since 2017, he has co-led a course in Atlanta, Ga., with Dan Poole of Bethany Seminary, in which he lectures on the racial history of the south and its impact on Atlanta. He has completed training to be a qualified administrator for the Intercultural Development Inventory and Intercultural Conflict Style Inventory.

Duane Grady, who was born and raised on a farm in Iowa, spent three years in Brethren Volunteer Service in Dayton, Ohio, and Des Moines, Iowa. Prior to graduating from Bethany Seminary, he directed the Iowa Peace Network and the Interfaith Council for the Homeless in Chicago. He spent 33 years pastoring three churches in Indiana covering inner city, small city, and rural locations. He was a founding member of the former Congregational Life Team of the Church of the Brethren, and served in that position on the denominational staff for 11 years. During that time he was staff liaison to the Cross-Cultural Ministry Team and coordinated 10 annual Cross-Cultural Consultations and Celebrations for the Church of the Brethren. He has helped to build houses in Tijuana, Mexico. Currently, he spends his time following the example of Quaker John Woolman by walking across the earth answering God in everyone.

Matt Guynn is co-executive director of On Earth Peace and director of organizing for the agency. He was part of a small group who helped start On Earth Peace’s anti-racism journey in 2002 and is currently part of a group within On Earth Peace who are reinventing its Anti-Racism Transformation Team. In the Church of the Brethren, he is provided staff support and leadership for the Standing with People of Color Committee of Annual Conference. In involvements outside the denomination, since 1996 he has been involved as a staff member, board member, or workshop facilitator with Training for Change, a social justice training center based in Philadelphia. He has consulted with groups including Greenpeace, MoveOn, and various union and labor groups. He served for a year as co-coordinator of training for Community Peacemaker Teams (formerly Christian Peacemaker Teams), and served with CPT in Chiapas, Mexico. He is a graduate of Manchester University, the University of Notre Dame, and Bethany Seminary.

Gilbert Romero pastored in East Los Angeles, Calif., for 30 years. In September 2017 he began work as the Ministry Training coordinator for Pacific Southwest District and is continuing to serve in the pastorate as part-time pastor of Glendora (Calif.) Church of the Brethren. He brings a breadth of experience in the Church of the Brethren and a commitment to working at growing the denomination’s capacity for ministry growth with Hispanic sisters and brothers—for example, supporting and motivating licensed ministers who are participating in SeBAH and EFSM-Español with the Brethren Academy for Ministerial Leadership including regular check-ins to see how they are doing in their ministry, studies, and life. He is a member of the Bittersweet Band and is on the board of Bittersweet Ministries in Tijuana, Mexico.

Joe Vecchio holds an undergraduate degree from California State University, Los Angeles, in philosophy and classics, and a master of divinity degree from Fuller Theological Seminary in southern California. He was ordained in the Church of the Brethren in 1987. He pastored for 5 years in California before becoming the Pacific Southwest District’s administrative assistant for 30 years. Now retired, he is an active member of Restoration L.A. Church of the Brethren in East Los Angeles. This July he is serving as a resource leader for the “Discovery Camp” at Camp Peaceful Pines in Pacific Southwest District. In retirement he has continued to support the Intercultural Ministries of the Church of the Brethren offering tech support to the program and serving as a great advisor.

Find out more about the Church of the Brethren’s Intercultural Ministries at www.brethren.org/intercultural.

#cobac2024 #racialjustice #strategicplan

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