Nicaraguan Delegation
January 2009
ELCA Delegation Participants:
Denise Benjamin – Southeast Michigan
Denise Benjamin grew up in Florida where she spent her childhood on the east coast barrier islands and as an adult attended University of Central Florida where she earned her degree in Biological Science. She worked for 25 years at Kennedy Space Center, where her focus was environmental management for Space Shuttle ground processing. During her career there, she developed, implemented and provided oversight of policies and procedures for environmental compliance and pollution prevention in the areas of air, water and waste management for Shuttle processing operations. She also served as vice president of the Florida Bahamas Synodical Women's Organization of the Women of the ELCA for four years. She also served on the synod's global mission committee as the coordinator of the Haiti companion synod program. She has traveled over twenty times to Haiti and witnessed the effects of deforestation and environmental degradation. She left Florida to attend seminary at the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Gettysburg. She graduated in May, 2008 and is currently approved as a diaconal minister awaiting call in the Southeast Michigan synod where her husband Paul is serving as pastor of St. Paul Evangelical Lutheran Church in Blissfield. She has two daughters, living in Redondo Beach, CA.
David Creech – Chicago, Illinois
My name is David Creech and I am the new Director of Hunger Education in the ELCA World Hunger program. I am in the final throes of a Ph.D. in Theology at Loyola University Chicago. My M.Div. is from Fuller Theological Seminary in southern California, my native state. I am especially passionate about the church’s historic identity as people who have looked out for the orphans and widows, i.e. the most vulnerable people in society. This trip is an exciting opportunity for me to return to Latin America, where I lived for two years (most of it in Nicaragua’s neighbor to the south, Costa Rica). I am particularly interested in observing the impact that climate change has (and will have) on those who are poor and hungry. I also look forward to hearing strategies for addressing this pressing matter.
Carolyn Engebretson – Rochert, Minnesota
I am from Rochert, Minnesota. Yes, that is a place that may or may not be on the map. I live about 14 miles east of Detroit Lakes, MN. I grew up in Cook County, MN (Grand Marais) having started in the county in a two classroom school. After consolidation, I went to Gr. Marais, graduate…..then on to Concordia, Moorhead. Occupations Carolyn has held include Christian Education Director; Headstart; Early Children, Vocational Education – non-traditional programs. I was a Contract Representative for the Red River Basin Commission. And local politician: Township Government, County Board. Statewide: Environment Quality Board, Environmental Education Board, President Association of Minnesota Counties. I like to serve on boards and committees. I do. Why? It’s the people. I like people and they give me energy, and it is good to learn and to listen to ideas, etc. I do like to gather with family. I have three sons who have significant others and two grandchildren. My husband died in 1995. I serve on several convention/assembly committees and plan to develop a power point presentation that can be used at such gatherings as well as non- religious gatherings.
Mary Suomala Folkerds – Moorhead, Minnesota
My husband and I share a call to four rural churches in southern MN. We went to seminary in Chicago and we have been serving these churches for a little over a year. I like to run and I am learning to play the guitar. I have an interest in Latin America as my husband and I spent 2004 in Brazil studying at the Lutheran seminary in Porto Alegre. I am excited about going to Nicaragua because I want to show the members of my congregations how they are connected to people in another part of the world. When we meet people from other parts of the world, we learn that they have the same desires and goals that we have. We find more similarities than differences. When we return from Nicaragua, I plan to make presentations in my synod that highlight what I have learned and what we could do here to make a difference in the world.
Mark Goetz - Great Falls, Montana
I'm a native Montanan, and enjoy outdoor activities like canoeing and backcountry camping. Also I read, particularly about history and culture. I have a natural resources background that includes agriculture and rangeland ecology. More recently, I've been working mostly in the area of conflict analysis and resolution. In the mid 1980's, a development project with the old ALC, took me (and my wife and our 2 small boys) first to Europe and then to the Central African Republic for several years. The experience changed the way I saw the world. I give a number of presentations and workshops each year on hunger-poverty issues and am always looking for stories and real life examples that help the participants see the world from a different point of view. Further, I'm looking for specific actions we can take as individuals and as a church and specific national policies we can advocate to have more positive influences on people impacted by climate change/poverty interactions. It was the Nicaraguan church that provided the stimulus for our new "accompaniment model" of mission and I'm looking forward to saying thank you in person.
Peter Metcalf – Montana
Peter Metcalf is a writer, river guide, and graduate student based in Missoula, Montana. Raised in western Oregon, Metcalf moved to Montana to spend a summer as a counselor leading backpacking trips with Flathead Lutheran Bible Camp. One memorable summer turned into two and led to a three year stint as a youth minister at Atonement Lutheran Church in Missoula, Mont. For the past four summers Peter has guided whitewater and scenic rafting trips in Alaska, Montana and Idaho. He is currently finishing a master’s thesis in environmental studies at the University of Montana that examines how practices of Christian faith, such as Sabbath keeping, or sharing a meal, can help shape and inform a faithful, personal response to the present ecological crisis in general and climate change in particular. Metcalf spent the summers of his youth at Camp Lutherwood, outside Eugene, Ore. He attended Whitworth College in Spokane, Wash., where he ran track and cross country, wrote for the student newspaper and graduated with a degree in English Literature. Today, Metcalf enjoys virtually all outdoor recreation, but especially fly fishing, backpacking, telemark skiing and hunting. During the winter, Metcalf works as a high school basketball referee. He hopes to work as an environmental writer, outdoor educator and as an organizer within the Christian community on environmental issues, especially climate change. He is honored to be a part of this delegation to Nicaragua.
Jack Mortenson – Mitchell, South Dakota
I am a professor of MultiMedia at Dakota Wesleyan University in Mitchell, SD. My wife, Mary, who is executive director of Prison Congregations of America, and I have four grown children and one granddaughter. I have been involved in media since my days as an undergraduate at the University of Sioux Falls in the early 1970s. I have worked in radio and television, on both sides of the camera and mic and have produced a wide diversity of programs in the US, in Cameroun, West Africa, and in Sweden. I plan to video much of this trip and to put together DVD, Flash movie, and webpage elements and make them available to whomever might make use of them. I am blessed that my photographer son Chris has also been selected for this trip and we have talked about collaborating on photographic, video, and print materials that would be a part of a coordinated campaign which would be made available to congregations all across the US. While the focus of Climate Change, Hunger, and Poverty are certainly of prime interest, I am also most interested in getting to know the people of Iglesia Luterana, Fey Y Esperanza and learning from them how we might help each other to greater Faith and cooperation in healing this broken World.
Chris Mortenson – Sioux Falls, South Dakota
Chris was born and raised in Sioux Falls, SD. He attended the University of South Dakota in Vermillion, SD where he earned his BFA in Art with an emphasis in Photography. He is currently living in Iowa City, IA and working towards an MFA in photography at the University of Iowa. Chris has a deep passion and concern for the health of the World and his recent work has been a project that challenges people's conceptions about wild spaces in an ever increasing manufactured world.
Ryan C. Rinn – Richmond, Virginia
I was born raised in south Texas and started my journey with the ELCA at Faith Lutheran Church in Seguin, Texas. In 2000, I left Texas to attend the University of Richmond and since that time I have called Richmond, Virginia home. In 2006 I began working for the Virginia Interfaith Center for Public Policy, which is the State Public Policy Office for the ELCA in Virginia. During my tenure as the Grassroots Organizer at the Interfaith Center I have organized several large events, including the Day for All People of Faith at the General Assembly where we help to raise the call for social justice in Virginia by bringing people of faith from across the state together in common purpose. I have enjoyed meeting Virginians of all backgrounds and hearing their stories and realities that have served to strengthen my faith and passion for social justice. I am excited and humbled to be able to learn more about the interrelated aspects of extreme poverty, hunger and climate change in Nicaragua, and on my return using this new perspective to pull together a number of programs across Virginia that relate the personal realities of the people of this place. The choices we make often affect people in places we don’t even think about. I feel the best way to be an advocate on behalf of the poor and vulnerable and on behalf of God’s Creation is to work with these people and in these places and carry their stories with me. I am thankful that the ELCA is sponsoring such a great opportunity for Lutherans to walk the walk in Latin America.
Kim Winchell – Freeland, Michigan
I am blessed to have resided on 38 country acres in Freeland, MI (near Saginaw, where I grew up) for the past 23 yrs, and where my husband and I have raised two daughters (now 22 and 24). We have three cats and a dog and yes, I love creatures of all kinds. I like to spend time outdoors and enjoy gardening, rock collecting, nature photography, hiking, birding, and just walking along lakeshores (especially Lake Superior). I am thrilled to be a part of this special study program in Nicaragua - it will help me to brush up on my Spanish, for one thing (I have an Ecuadorian son-in-law), but primarily I am interested in what we will see, and who we will talk to, about the impacts of climate change upon the people and landscapes of Nicaragua. Global warming is an issue that I have been concerned about for many years, and I have been engaged in various education and advocacy efforts around climate change and energy policy at state and national levels, since 1997. I am passionate about "earthkeeping ministry" and have been a diaconal minister since 2005, called to equip and empower other Lutherans in their caring for creation, both in my synod and beyond. I anticipate that the experiences on this trip will more deeply inform, and further enhance, my ministry work and outreach. I look forward to developing material for articles, presentations, and preaching opportunities among the faith communities and groups with whom I serve and network, to help move others to deeper awareness, action, and advocacy on this urgent issue.