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A Look at Indigenous Leadership
144 Plays8 months ago
Roslyn Hernández is joined by Carol Bremer-Bennett, the U.S. Executive Director of World Renew. Together, they discuss asset-based community development around the world, the process of connecting with their Indigenous heritage, and the importance of listening to the wisdom of elders. They also reflect on what shalom means in the lives of individuals and communities.
Learn more about the CCDA Conference and make plans to join us at ccda.org/conference. And learn more about CCDA’s Indigenous Peoples network at ccda.org/indigenous.
Carol Bremer-Bennett is World Renew's U.S. Executive Director. As director, she oversees their work in 30 countries around the globe in poverty & hunger alleviation as well as disaster response. Learn more about World Renew at worldrenew.net. She is born to the To’aheedliinii (Waters Flow Together) Clan and born for the Todich’iinii (Bitter Water) Clan of the Navajo Nation. Bremer-Bennett is an educator by training, with a B.A. from Calvin College and M.A. from Western New Mexico University. Her extensive experience in Christian ministry spans more than 25 years of organizational leadership, leadership development, and administration. Carol believes in the power of community and shares her passion and gifts with her church, school, and like-minded international organizations. She has served on multiple boards, including Calvin University, the Christian Alliance for Inclusive Development, Integral Alliance, and Growing Hope Globally.
Roslyn is a Latina public theologian, content producer, creative strategist, and spiritual director passionate about resourcing emerging adults as they navigate faith, identity, and justice. Her work integrates socio-cultural awareness, spirituality, and activism to decolonize and cultivate holistic healing, liberation, and formation. Roslyn’s content often explores the intersections of theology and culture, offering thought-provoking reflections with clarity and depth. She brings a multidisciplinary lens to everything she does, curating safe spaces where emerging generations can cultivate their development and faithfully engage the world around them. Roslyn’s creative practice is shaped by her lived experiences and a desire to hold space for the sacred in everyday life. When she’s not ideating or writing, you’ll likely find her in nature, immersed in ancestral stories and culinary traditions, or savoring moments of solitude with a cup of herbal tea.
Connect with CCDA on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn. Follow CCDA on YouTube.
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Transcript
Introduction and Guest Introduction
00:00:09
Speaker
Hello and welcome to the CCDA podcast.
00:00:12
Speaker
My name is Rosalyn Hernandez.
00:00:14
Speaker
I am the podcast producer at Chasing Justice, and I'm also helping lead the Indigenous Peoples Network at CCDA.
00:00:21
Speaker
Today, I am joined by a very special guest, Carol Bremer-Bennett.
00:00:27
Speaker
the U.S. Executive Director at World Renew.
00:00:30
Speaker
And World Renew is an organization that partners with local churches and organizations around the world to bring life-changing programs that transform communities in every area of need.
00:00:42
Speaker
Carol, thank you so much for being here.
00:00:45
Speaker
Hey, thank you.
00:00:46
Speaker
It's great to be here.
00:00:48
Speaker
So can you tell us a little bit about the work that you've done, how you have come to this position at World Renew?
Heritage and Gratitude
00:00:54
Speaker
Absolutely.
00:00:56
Speaker
First of all, let me introduce myself, She'e Carol Bramer-Bennett, Yenisei, To'atini Nishle, Todachitni Basis Chin.
00:01:03
Speaker
My clans are the Water Flows Together people and the Bitter Water people from the Diné people, which is the Navajo Nation of the great southwest of this country.
00:01:13
Speaker
And I'm coming to you today from the lands of the Three Fires Council in West Michigan, the Ottawa, the Ojibwe, and the Pottawatomie, as I live in Grand Rapids,
00:01:24
Speaker
Michigan as I serve as the U.S. Director for World Renew.
00:01:28
Speaker
And in that acknowledgement, I just always want to make sure that I pay respects to elders, both past and present, and also make sure that I acknowledge and praise our Creator God for how those people have stewarded this land throughout time and generations.
00:01:46
Speaker
And
00:01:47
Speaker
in all things, that we're aware of the beauty in the places that we're at, in the sacred spaces that are still visible today and thankful and come with hearts of gratitude for that.
World Renew's Mission and Approach
00:02:00
Speaker
So thank you for having me and having a conversation today.
00:02:04
Speaker
I hope that we can
00:02:06
Speaker
find places where our ancestors have intersected with one another and where our stories come together in conflict or in harmony.
00:02:14
Speaker
And that is God has called us that we are ambassadors and reconcilers throughout the work that we do.
00:02:21
Speaker
And I just pray for the Spirit of God to move in us and surround us in His beauty today.
00:02:27
Speaker
So World Renew, as you said, is a Christian organization that works in about 30 countries around the world, give or take, as we respond to disasters and work in the humanitarian sector, but also do work in that long-term community development work.
00:02:43
Speaker
And we are committed to living out a call to God's justice, to mercy, and to compassion.
00:02:49
Speaker
And our work calls us to partner with local communities and local churches in the various countries where we work so that we can address the issues of justice and disaster and crisis response and to address poverty and hunger around the world.
00:03:06
Speaker
Mm-hmm.
00:03:07
Speaker
And so that's a lot of what we do.
00:03:10
Speaker
I think it's important in our work that we live into our theme verse at World Renew, which is Micah 6, verse 8, that I grew up with in the church, knowing that we need to love mercy, that we need to live justly, that we need to seek to walk humbly with God.
00:03:28
Speaker
And so when we enter communities,
00:03:30
Speaker
We try to arrive with questions, not with answers.
00:03:35
Speaker
In my Navajo heritage, there's a very common saying that the creator gave you two ears and one mouth for a very specific reason.
00:03:44
Speaker
And so use them in that ratio, in that proportionality that you're really seeking to listen.
00:03:49
Speaker
listen and to understand.
00:03:51
Speaker
And that's what I love about the posture of World Renew around the world, is that we try to go in with deep listening, with hearts that desire to connect, that we want to walk alongside and do with, not for, as we seek to live out those key aspects of asset-based community development.
00:04:12
Speaker
And then we ask those questions about, you know, what do you have?
00:04:15
Speaker
What's strong here?
00:04:16
Speaker
What are the dreams?
00:04:18
Speaker
And walk alongside people as they envision their own transformation.
00:04:22
Speaker
And we can help support that along the
Asset-Based Development Principles
00:04:24
Speaker
way.
00:04:24
Speaker
So you mentioned asset-based community development.
00:04:27
Speaker
Can you tell us a little bit more about what it is?
00:04:30
Speaker
How do you live into it?
00:04:33
Speaker
Not only as an organization, but even just as people who are living in communities.
00:04:38
Speaker
I work with young adults.
00:04:40
Speaker
through Chasing Justice, who are trying to live faithfully and justly in this world.
00:04:45
Speaker
And asset-based thinking and principles are really important, I think, for not just organizations, but individuals to also have that posture towards places, the communities that they live in, and even the work that they get to
00:05:00
Speaker
co-labor with other organizations.
00:05:03
Speaker
So can you tell us a little bit more about that?
00:05:05
Speaker
Yes, absolutely.
00:05:06
Speaker
Asset-based community development is a cornerstone for the work of World Renew, and I think it puts us in the correct space as we work to live out this call and this mission.
00:05:19
Speaker
I would say it's about starting with what's strong, not with what's wrong.
00:05:26
Speaker
And so you start in a completely different space.
00:05:29
Speaker
It's a way of seeing people and situations not as problems to be solved, but seeing people as image bearers of God who have that full dignity with gifts and wisdom and agency.
00:05:45
Speaker
And so in practice, when we live into asset-based community development, it means that we are helping communities identify their own assets, whether those be skills or relationships, the traditions and culture, especially the land.
00:06:03
Speaker
All of those things will support them and have supported them for hundreds and thousands of years to build solutions from within their own communities.
00:06:14
Speaker
So for me, what I love about it is that it's deeply respectful.
00:06:19
Speaker
It's intentionally relational.
00:06:24
Speaker
It's deeply rooted, I think, in faith and has that reciprocity that I think that connects Indigenous communities and cultures together.
00:06:35
Speaker
And so that being a basis really helps us to live out that work.
00:06:41
Speaker
I think it rightly places communities at the center of their own journey and destiny, and it doesn't come in with outside things.
00:06:53
Speaker
answers from a different place.
00:06:55
Speaker
And so I think that's really important as we live into asset-based community development.
00:07:00
Speaker
Thanks so much for, yeah, for explaining that.
00:07:02
Speaker
I think you mentioned something about, you know, like you come into a space or into a community and you see not what is wrong, but what is strong.
00:07:11
Speaker
And it just kind of reminds me of having a posture of abundance instead of lack.
00:07:17
Speaker
Yeah.
00:07:18
Speaker
And of seeing that there is, Creator has created communities and life and people with abundance, with cultural wealth, with so much wealth of not just...
00:07:33
Speaker
spiritual, but also like the faith and even the hardships that people have gone through have built and fostered strength in communities.
00:07:42
Speaker
And so a lot of the times in more Western systems or structures, when communities go through hardships and there is
00:07:54
Speaker
perceived lack, it can be seen as a negative.
00:07:58
Speaker
But I love that in Indigenous cultures and even in cultures that are a bit more close to their indigeneity, there is this idea of, hey, we have something to offer and we have
Challenges of Monocropping and Agricultural Solutions
00:08:10
Speaker
knowledge too.
00:08:10
Speaker
We have wisdom and we have
00:08:12
Speaker
strength and like cultural wealth and ideas that are interesting and that are helpful for us and that understand our context and our communities and that can be used to help us create a better place, community and a better world, not just for us, but for others as well.
00:08:29
Speaker
It is so true.
00:08:30
Speaker
There is such a richness and a beauty and a strength in communities around the world that sometimes Western ideas and constructs of what success or what life might look like fails to recognize.
00:08:48
Speaker
And so I think asset-based community development really
00:08:51
Speaker
takes the time to recognize the beauty that God has placed in different cultures and that you talk about that cultural wealth and I would add that cultural wisdom that's there.
00:09:04
Speaker
And a lot of times what I have seen as I've traveled around the world is that when a community is given a solution that really comes from external sources,
00:09:19
Speaker
as the solution for hunger or creating wealth and income, that has often backfired on the community.
00:09:31
Speaker
So, for example, we work a lot in agriculture in World Renew, and so many people were given this idea of becoming, you know, buying into monocrop
00:09:43
Speaker
agriculture where you farm your fields with maize to have a big cash crop.
00:09:52
Speaker
And the idea is that if you can sell that and have a lot of cash, well, cash is the solution to getting out of poverty.
00:10:00
Speaker
But that has proved to not be the case.
00:10:04
Speaker
you know, we all know how capitalism works.
00:10:06
Speaker
And if everybody suddenly is growing maize, the prices will drop out.
00:10:11
Speaker
Or if you have disease or insect infestation, it also, of course, goes against indigenous wisdom of traditional planting and our knowledge of
00:10:22
Speaker
how the land works and how nutrition works.
00:10:25
Speaker
And we've never been a monocropping society as indigenous people.
00:10:29
Speaker
We've always known that the three sisters, corn, beans, and squash, and beyond that, is really how the soil needs to regenerate itself.
00:10:39
Speaker
And so-
00:10:41
Speaker
World Renew goes back into those ideas of that traditional wisdom and those heirloom crops and seeds to look at how can we get away from ideas that came from the outside that were supposed to be this quick fix solution, but they're really not.
00:10:57
Speaker
They're hurting the community.
00:10:59
Speaker
And of course, the other thing that's happened in monocropping societies, again, with maize, is that if that's all that the farmers and families are growing, then that's what they end up feeding their own families.
00:11:10
Speaker
which doesn't have high nutrition value for children.
00:11:14
Speaker
And so we're working to bring back the songs and bring back the wisdom about what traditionally has been grown in those areas so that the nutrition can be complete for children as well.
00:11:26
Speaker
Yeah, and with monoculture, like in that example they gave with the maize, if you keep subtracting those nutrients from the land because you keep planting the same crop, you're depleting the earth from nutrients.
00:11:43
Speaker
And so after several years, even the earth, even the soil is not healthy enough to keep producing and then you get droughts or like you get, you know, it creates other problems.
00:11:56
Speaker
that are harder to fix.
00:11:58
Speaker
It absolutely does.
00:12:00
Speaker
It absolutely does.
00:12:01
Speaker
And so, you know, going back to the wisdom of the elders to look at how do you rotate crops?
00:12:08
Speaker
How do you use green manure cover crops?
00:12:12
Speaker
How do you use composting and other aspects and find those heirloom seeds and go back to things that were seen as not, you know, that were staples of the society, but they were
00:12:25
Speaker
somehow, you know, told, well, growing millet is not good, you know, it's not something you should be eating or whatever, you know, and going back and really looking at that and reviving the recipes for the families and the mothers to recognize how they can increase the nutrition of their children with diversity within the nutrition.
00:12:46
Speaker
So it's a very holistic approach.
00:12:49
Speaker
And that's just, you know, one example from agriculture, but there's many other areas too that World Renew works that takes on that holistic approach so that you can go back into what was some of the wisdom of the community that may have been lost over time and diluted or even, you know, told, well, this is the wrong way to
Carol's Leadership Journey
00:13:08
Speaker
do it.
00:13:08
Speaker
You've got to do it this way if you really want to develop, if you really want to, you know,
00:13:13
Speaker
work your way out of poverty or address the hunger that's in your community.
00:13:18
Speaker
Thanks.
00:13:19
Speaker
Thanks so much for sharing those examples.
00:13:21
Speaker
I'm wondering about your journey as an Indigenous woman.
00:13:26
Speaker
Can you share a little bit about your leadership journey, how you have come to do the work that you do, but also just how has it been, not just being a woman, which is, as we know, already more difficult than if a man was a leader, but like being an Indigenous woman, how has that been for you?
00:13:43
Speaker
Yeah, thank you for that.
00:13:46
Speaker
It's an honored and a sacred space for me.
00:13:49
Speaker
We can also be lonely and isolating because there's not in the global community where I work as a leader of an international NGO.
00:14:01
Speaker
In the humanitarian and development sector, I don't meet a lot of true peers who are also Indigenous women.
00:14:10
Speaker
And so that can be a bit isolating.
00:14:13
Speaker
In my own journey, I didn't start out in this sector.
00:14:16
Speaker
I certainly studied this when I was in university.
00:14:20
Speaker
And I majored in political science and I minored in economics and theology.
00:14:24
Speaker
I had my heart and eye on working in some kind of international development work.
00:14:31
Speaker
But God took me on a bit of a detour to reconnect with my Navajo heritage.
00:14:36
Speaker
And so I ended up after university here in West Michigan, going to the Navajo Nation and volunteering for the first little bit.
00:14:44
Speaker
but then working at a Christian school in Gallup, New Mexico, and became a teacher.
00:14:52
Speaker
And such a joy.
00:14:53
Speaker
I found my special niche in working with middle school students and still have a great big place in my heart for middle school boys.
00:15:04
Speaker
And just really loved that work and then also grew into administration and then ended up becoming an executive director and superintendent of a school in New Mexico that served primarily Navajo students and Zuni, as well as some other indigenous students of New Mexico and Arizona.
00:15:24
Speaker
And of course, others in the community, too, as well as Hispanics and Anglo students.
00:15:30
Speaker
So that's where my love of education really grew.
00:15:35
Speaker
And a lot of what Worldly New does is walking alongside people in their knowledge journey and gathering new wisdom and insight and transforming their lives.
00:15:44
Speaker
So I got to do that with students.
00:15:46
Speaker
But when you work in an area like New Mexico and the Navajo Nation, which is one of the areas in our country where
00:15:54
Speaker
that experiences incredibly high rates of unemployment, has many people who are living below the national poverty levels who are working to address generational trauma and historic oppression and systems that were exported from outside that still reign and rule quite a bit as we exist as sovereign nations within a larger nation.
00:16:21
Speaker
You find that you don't end up just working with the students.
00:16:24
Speaker
You end up working with the parents and with the grandmothers and the aunties and the uncles.
00:16:28
Speaker
And it becomes a true community endeavor.
00:16:32
Speaker
And so I think that's where my connection and love for the power of community really took root.
00:16:40
Speaker
And I saw how much you can't just say, you know, here's school, it happens from 8 a.m.
00:16:47
Speaker
to 3 p.m.
00:16:48
Speaker
and then you're done.
00:16:50
Speaker
I had a favorite saying when I was a superintendent and a middle school principal and so forth to say, you know, my school goes home at night.
00:16:58
Speaker
School is not a building or an institution.
00:17:01
Speaker
It's a community.
00:17:02
Speaker
And they go home at night.
00:17:04
Speaker
And they're not just students.
00:17:05
Speaker
They're children.
00:17:07
Speaker
They're grandchildren.
00:17:08
Speaker
They're cousins.
00:17:09
Speaker
And so you need to make sure that you continue to see and love and meet each person where they're at along the way.
00:17:17
Speaker
And I think that's the beauty of what I get to do now in World Renew as I lead this organization.
00:17:23
Speaker
which I made that jump almost 10 years ago now, in a few weeks, it'll be 10 years that I've been leading World Renew, that that kind of participatory education where you place the learner at the center, where you recognize that it takes an entire community to transform even one person within the community, that continues on.
00:17:46
Speaker
And so it's been a real pleasure to make that switch in my career, but to see how much
00:17:52
Speaker
similarity there is in what I did as an educator and what I do now as an executive director of an international NGO.
00:18:00
Speaker
I think the other great joy that I have in my work
00:18:05
Speaker
is certainly the fact that it's a Christian organization.
00:18:09
Speaker
I continue to be able to give testimony to the goodness of God and His creation to address the brokenness and the way it's not supposed to be, and to work for that.
00:18:22
Speaker
But also the fact that so much of the work that we do in World Renew is with indigenous communities, with communities that within their own country contexts have been
00:18:35
Speaker
and marginalized and who show such great strength.
00:18:40
Speaker
I have an unrealized dream to connect with
00:18:46
Speaker
people from the Navajo Nation with, you know, indigenous groups in Guatemala or Honduras or the Rohingya in Bangladesh, you know, to have them learn from one another.
00:19:00
Speaker
I think as I go forward and perhaps, you know, change and have another chapter in my career, that might be something that I really work towards is to gather information
00:19:10
Speaker
indigenous people together.
00:19:12
Speaker
There's so much that can be learned and inspired from one another.
00:19:16
Speaker
I also have left some places around the world.
00:19:20
Speaker
I remember flying out of Kilimanjaro on one of my earliest trips to Tanzania, and I wept.
00:19:27
Speaker
I wept because I saw such incredible power in the transformation in the communities that I had visited, but I wept because I saw more happening there than I did in my own
00:19:39
Speaker
Navajo Nation.
00:19:41
Speaker
And I thought, you know, I've struggled over the years with thinking, you know, how can that be?
00:19:46
Speaker
Here sits the Navajo Nation within one of the wealthiest, most powerful nations in the world.
00:19:53
Speaker
And yet they're not experiencing the kind of transformation that I'm seeing in a very remote environment.
00:19:58
Speaker
community in Tanzania or Western Zambia.
00:20:02
Speaker
And so I've struggled with that.
00:20:03
Speaker
And what's my role as a Navajo leader in that?
Cultural Identity and Integration
00:20:08
Speaker
And what can I do to affect that change?
00:20:11
Speaker
Yeah.
00:20:12
Speaker
Thanks so much for naming those tensions.
00:20:14
Speaker
Your detour was reconnecting with your Dine culture and working within the Navajo Nation as a teacher.
00:20:24
Speaker
I identify as someone who's reconnecting with her indigenous roots.
00:20:28
Speaker
My parents are from Puebla, Mexico, and
00:20:31
Speaker
We have ancestry from Mixteco and Nahua peoples in Mexico.
00:20:36
Speaker
And so for someone like me who was second generation, born in the United States, lived in Mexico for a while, came back to the U.S., I, first of all, didn't have much connection to my grandparents, to like elders in my immediate family.
00:20:54
Speaker
So I didn't really grow up knowing the history of our people or of our family.
00:20:59
Speaker
So it's been a lot of work to learn about not just my family, but also where we come from, like the places, the cultures, and so many of those things that have been villainized or have been demonized by people.
00:21:14
Speaker
a Christianity that comes from a Western posture and stance that sees Indigenous spirituality or even just Indigenous thought as not correct or out of orthodoxy.
00:21:29
Speaker
Can you name a little bit about what was it like for you to do that work of reconnecting?
00:21:36
Speaker
You obviously went to a place where the culture was strong.
00:21:42
Speaker
What maybe advice do you have for people like me who don't have that kind of connection or whose roots are very far and are trying to do the work of reconnecting or even just decolonizing the way that we have grown up or in even our faith?
00:21:56
Speaker
It takes courage to go into those spaces and
00:22:00
Speaker
Because people and just the busyness of life will try to stand and put up obstacles and all the reasons why not to.
00:22:09
Speaker
And our own personal fears and discomfort, you know, can play into that.
00:22:14
Speaker
But I applaud you starting that journey and encourage you and anyone else to go for it.
00:22:22
Speaker
It's a hard space, but it's so important to understand your God-given identity.
00:22:30
Speaker
I think it's answering really the call of God to...
00:22:37
Speaker
Not just be still and know that I am God, but know that I've created you as a beloved daughter of mine.
00:22:47
Speaker
Go forth, child.
00:22:48
Speaker
Find that out.
00:22:49
Speaker
Celebrate that.
00:22:50
Speaker
I think God smiles and takes such delight in the incredible diversity that the Creator has put into this world and that we're denying that.
00:23:00
Speaker
the creator some delight if we are not paying attention and connecting to it.
00:23:07
Speaker
So I would just simply encourage people to take that step.
00:23:12
Speaker
It is a step of courage and it's not easy.
00:23:15
Speaker
You know, I...
00:23:17
Speaker
spent many times walking the red hills in New Mexico, trying to figure out who am I and how do I fit here?
00:23:27
Speaker
I feel called, but I feel the obstacles.
00:23:31
Speaker
And when you've been cut off from your elders and those connections, you
00:23:38
Speaker
Getting to know what your clan connections are, getting to understand parts of the culture that you were never taught.
00:23:45
Speaker
And if you have the Christianity in the mix, sometimes Christianity has said, you know, those things are no longer okay to teach or to talk about and trying to understand what can we redeem?
00:23:58
Speaker
Where can we find God's beautiful revelation through creation in culture?
00:24:05
Speaker
And how can we redeem that?
00:24:07
Speaker
I think that Jesus opens up and tore the curtain, not just access just for us to access Jesus as our Savior and Redeemer, but to say all peoples, you know, all peoples now have access.
00:24:25
Speaker
And it's not just for one people group.
00:24:27
Speaker
And it doesn't have to be just in one way.
00:24:30
Speaker
I think the beauty of the Creator is that there's so many cultures that
00:24:34
Speaker
that have been part of God's creation.
00:24:39
Speaker
But I spent many, many times in that wandering space, in that wandering space, and with tears rolling down my face, sometimes alone, sometimes with others, trying to figure out identity, believing that if I choose one part of my identity that somehow I have to look away and walk away from another part of my identity.
00:25:03
Speaker
And I think a lot of times the Western world and Christianity can put us in that dualistic space where it's either or.
00:25:12
Speaker
You don't get both ands.
00:25:13
Speaker
You don't get the circle.
00:25:15
Speaker
There's lines drawn rather than circles created.
00:25:19
Speaker
And I think you have to do some hard work to say, no, actually, look at God.
00:25:24
Speaker
Look at how the Creator is so complex that so many things can be true all at once.
00:25:32
Speaker
and to really embrace your fullness of self just as God takes you and embraces that.
00:25:40
Speaker
So I guess that would be my encouragement.
00:25:43
Speaker
I think at one point I thought that I had to deny part of my
00:25:47
Speaker
identity in order to embrace my indigenous identity.
00:25:51
Speaker
And then I realized that no, actually, God pulls it all together and puts my identity as His beloved daughter first.
00:26:02
Speaker
And then I used to say, well, then the other identities fell away, but they didn't actually fall away because they fell into place.
Leadership Philosophy and Practices
00:26:12
Speaker
And I felt whole and complete in knowing that.
00:26:17
Speaker
Thanks so much for sharing that.
00:26:18
Speaker
I feel like
00:26:19
Speaker
you've expressed so much of what I have been kind of coming to realize.
00:26:24
Speaker
Definitely for me, this part of the journey for me has felt like becoming whole again.
00:26:30
Speaker
And like you mentioned, and there might be stages and different aspects of the journey that people might experience as they go through this.
00:26:39
Speaker
But certainly, yes, there's a lot of emotions that come up.
00:26:43
Speaker
There is
00:26:44
Speaker
There is sadness, there is anger, there is isolation, and there is like a yearning for a community and even reaching out for a community and ancestry and heritage.
00:26:54
Speaker
And in all of that, you do reach a point of what I would call integration, that we don't deny parts of ourselves that
00:27:02
Speaker
That as we become whole, we learn to see how they all fit together.
00:27:07
Speaker
Thank you so much for making that space, for sharing about it with us.
00:27:11
Speaker
Has there been any change in your leadership as you have stepped more into this kind of posture that you're having already?
00:27:21
Speaker
any change or experience that has changed you in your leadership?
00:27:25
Speaker
You know, as you become a seasoned leader, and I can say that I've got my own gray hairs and I have the privilege of being a grandmother now, that it's essential that you learn and that you adjust.
00:27:40
Speaker
And so some of the things that I might have done as a brazen person,
00:27:45
Speaker
naive young leader.
00:27:47
Speaker
Some of those things worked out well for me and some of them had to be deep learning experiences where I had to realize that wasn't the way to handle a certain situation or a conversation.
00:27:58
Speaker
And so I certainly have learned and I'm still learning.
00:28:02
Speaker
And then you've got to embrace that constant learning.
00:28:05
Speaker
humility that you haven't arrived.
00:28:09
Speaker
God's still working in you and you're still working and surround yourself with a variety of elder voices, younger voices, people who hold a different perspective in a different place and keep those people tight around you in your circle of people who influence and inspire you.
00:28:29
Speaker
So certainly I have had to go through those times and I think
00:28:35
Speaker
I've learned how essential relationships are and how essential trust and connection is in leadership.
00:28:44
Speaker
I am blessed in World Renew to have amazing leaders alongside me.
00:28:49
Speaker
We actually have a co-directorship model.
00:28:52
Speaker
So I'm the director in the U.S. I have a co-director in Canada, and together we co-direct the work of World Renew around the world.
00:29:01
Speaker
And I
00:29:02
Speaker
I think leaders can become quite isolated and that's hard on the soul, but it's also harder to become a good leader if you become isolated.
00:29:12
Speaker
So I live with great joy having both a co-director, but also a great global executive team with me at World Renew, where we've really worked on sharing stories, our stories with one another, knowing each other's story paths and understanding how we
00:29:32
Speaker
have intersected and how we have joys and sorrows and experiences in common draw us together, but also realizing how very different our lives have been.
00:29:43
Speaker
And so we truly have taken work to understand that God's given us these different experiences so that we can bring those into the world and into the ministry of
00:29:54
Speaker
so that we challenge each other.
00:29:57
Speaker
We work on productive conflict and making sure that we're looking and even mining for conflict and for different ideas so that we can really achieve great results together.
00:30:10
Speaker
And I think as a leader, I sometimes skip those early steps of taking time to hear each other's stories and to build up that trust relationship as the base of
00:30:22
Speaker
And I've learned that those steps can never be skipped.
00:30:26
Speaker
And so I think that's one of my greatest developments.
00:30:31
Speaker
I also have learned how to apologize and own my own errors and missteps, but also own ones that perhaps I didn't directly cause.
00:30:42
Speaker
But as the leader of an organization, you are responsible for everything that happens within the organization.
00:30:51
Speaker
I am honest with my staff when mistakes have been made and I am not above apologizing and committing over and over again to learning and to being better and to showing up more for the staff, for the partners and communities that we work with along the way.
Community Engagement in Grand Rapids
00:31:15
Speaker
It's a model of leadership that is not very common, but it's
00:31:21
Speaker
I hope that we can have more of leadership like that.
00:31:25
Speaker
You mentioned you're in Grand Rapids and you have a co-director in Canada.
00:31:30
Speaker
Can you tell us, you know, the conference that's coming up for CCDA is in Grand Rapids in November.
00:31:37
Speaker
What do you wish people knew about Grand Rapids as we're getting ready to head over there with you?
00:31:43
Speaker
Yeah, well, we are ready and will receive you with welcome arms.
00:31:48
Speaker
We're so excited and honored that the CCDA conference is coming to Grown Appids in November.
00:31:56
Speaker
You're going to find it to be a lovely place.
00:31:59
Speaker
The conference will be downtown along our river.
00:32:03
Speaker
which is why, of course, we're named Grand Rapids.
00:32:06
Speaker
And I think that cities that have rivers flowing through them are some of the most beautiful and delightful cities around the world.
00:32:15
Speaker
And so we're ready to have you here.
00:32:18
Speaker
Grand Rapids is a place that has often hit different lists and charts of great places to visit and to tour and enjoy.
00:32:30
Speaker
We hit some great charts as far as places to live and to work and to raise a family.
00:32:38
Speaker
And it's interesting to me because I lived here for a long time to see your hometown in a way because I did grow up in Grand Rapids, even though I lived in New Mexico for 25 years.
00:32:50
Speaker
To see it on that list and you're like, oh, that's an interesting perspective because sometimes when it's your own backyard, you forget the beauty that's there.
00:32:59
Speaker
So there's a lot of beauty around Grand Rapids.
00:33:04
Speaker
We have a great amount of community and business, I would say, investment into the community and the place that we desire to be.
00:33:16
Speaker
It's an innovative entrepreneurial city with just some really great people who are leaders in our community, from our mayor, who is a friend of mine, to different business owners that I highly respect and have worked with in the
00:33:35
Speaker
Grand Rapids Chamber of Commerce to our other politicians.
00:33:40
Speaker
My own senator from the state of Michigan lives across the street from me.
00:33:44
Speaker
So it's a city that is still small enough that there's lots of overlap and connections.
00:33:50
Speaker
And so I think people are going to really delight in that.
00:33:53
Speaker
And
00:33:53
Speaker
And we have some things that we're well known for, including the Frederick Meyer Gardens, which is once again gotten, I think, the top sculpture park award for the nation, if not beyond our nation.
00:34:05
Speaker
And so there's some great things to visit.
00:34:08
Speaker
But like all cities, there's the hard stories too.
00:34:12
Speaker
In all the things that you celebrate, it's important not to forget the history.
00:34:16
Speaker
We have, I have a friend who's working in small effort to make sure that we're documenting.
00:34:23
Speaker
the African-American story of Grand Rapids.
00:34:26
Speaker
And there's a very small museum that has started to try to tell that story.
00:34:32
Speaker
The African-Americans within our community are certainly still living out the reality of the redlining that happened and the discrimination and the injustices and the lack of access to be business owners, to be homeowners.
00:34:52
Speaker
to have the same full rights and privileges as others in the community.
00:34:57
Speaker
And then if you go back even further,
00:35:00
Speaker
the very beautiful river that has lots of the downtown development around, you can go to the park that is right next to the Gerald R. Ford Museum downtown and learn a bit about the indigenous history there.
00:35:18
Speaker
And, you know, years ago when it was determined that that was important land to have for the furniture industry that built up Gun Rapids, we used to be known as Furniture City,
00:35:31
Speaker
that caused the displacement of indigenous people who relied on the river as their source of water and for agriculture, for connection, for fishing.
00:35:45
Speaker
And so, you know, there are parts of our history that we still need to face and tell and understand that there are still people groups that are affected by the way a city can grow up and displace and
00:35:59
Speaker
not pay attention to all of its people groups.
00:36:02
Speaker
Yeah, well, it's important that you name that.
00:36:05
Speaker
You know, there's work being done to recognize what has been done that wasn't good for indigenous peoples or other cultural or ethnic groups that have come in.
00:36:18
Speaker
And in that work of that's being done, you know, this the conference theme for this year is Shalom.
00:36:24
Speaker
So I see a little bit of Shalom work being done in there.
00:36:27
Speaker
But is there any other way that you see Shalom being done either in your work at World Renew or in the city of Grand Rapids?
00:36:35
Speaker
Absolutely.
00:36:37
Speaker
I think the other thing that Grand Rapids is known for is sort of having a church on every corner, which isn't literally true, but there are a lot of churches here.
00:36:47
Speaker
And the churches have found ways to come together.
00:36:53
Speaker
And CCDA is one of the places and organizations that has created space for churches and congregants to come together to say, what can we do differently here?
00:37:04
Speaker
What can we learn from each other here?
00:37:07
Speaker
And so I see that desire to have our faith walk out into the streets and become action for our local community is a great desire and something that many, many churches and citizens of Grand Rapids really desire.
00:37:28
Speaker
And so that gives me a lot of hope that there is an awareness that we need to
00:37:33
Speaker
to seek justice and seek reconciliation and be an active part of that.
00:37:40
Speaker
So I see that in lots of different ways in the community.
00:37:44
Speaker
There are scores of
00:37:47
Speaker
nonprofits and ministries that are addressing all the different range of areas that injustice and the brokenness of systems and the oppression of people can manifest itself.
00:38:01
Speaker
And I have women's groups and other network circles that pull people in so that we can support one another because as much as the great work is happening in
00:38:14
Speaker
and getting momentum and a footing and making transformation, it still can be a hard go.
00:38:20
Speaker
It still can be a hard go.
00:38:21
Speaker
And so we need each other.
00:38:23
Speaker
We need to encourage one another and find spaces where we can pray for one another and learn.
00:38:29
Speaker
Even if we're working in different areas of focus, there's still commonality that brings us together.
Theme of Shalom and CCDA Philosophy
00:38:36
Speaker
I love the fact that the
00:38:40
Speaker
the theme is shalom.
00:38:42
Speaker
I did have a little bit of like advocating for something about justice rolling like a river because I was thinking of our river.
00:38:49
Speaker
But when I heard that the conference theme was shalom, I said, okay, God, what are you trying to say to me?
00:38:56
Speaker
Because I am one of these people who does choose a word in January that I try to live into and that I say, okay, Lord, how are you going to use this word for me?
00:39:07
Speaker
And so last year, my word was hope.
00:39:10
Speaker
This year, my word is hojo, which is the Navajo word for balance and harmony and the most equivalent idea for the concept of hojo in Navajo that I could find in the Bible would be shalom.
00:39:29
Speaker
Hojo in the Navajo thinking is
00:39:33
Speaker
calls us into looking what is beautiful, what is beautiful before us, what is beautiful behind us, what is beautiful above and below us so that we can walk in that beauty.
00:39:48
Speaker
And it talks about living in a manner that strives to create and maintain balance and
00:39:56
Speaker
and harmony, and order.
00:39:59
Speaker
So it's really about deep connection to yourself, to people, to the land, and to Creator and Redeemer and the Spirit, because we can't have that beauty if we don't have that connection.
00:40:15
Speaker
And so I think that the biblical idea of shalom is closely connected into that.
00:40:22
Speaker
It's an already but not yet idea.
00:40:26
Speaker
It's this original goodness that God, the Creator, put into this world that is there and yet is broken and is crying out to be redeemed.
00:40:38
Speaker
And so I love that the concept is shalom because I think it grounds us into the way God desires and created things to be, but it also inspires and is an aspiration of how more fully we could achieve that even in this day, that we're not waiting just for
00:41:02
Speaker
Jesus' return, although I pray for Jesus' return often, yet I know that I'm called to walk in this day and on this land and with these people and in this sacred space to work for Shalom, to work for Hozho, not just individually, but as a community.
00:41:20
Speaker
Thanks.
00:41:21
Speaker
And so the last question that we ask in every episode is, how do you see the CCDA philosophy at work in your community?
00:41:30
Speaker
There's such a richness to CCDA.
00:41:33
Speaker
I know that it started out with some basic concepts, reconciliation and redistribution, relocation.
00:41:42
Speaker
I think about it as this connection into all the parts.
00:41:46
Speaker
And so
00:41:48
Speaker
I think that the way that I see CCDA in Grand Rapids is people working to restore and reconcile things for the good of the community, recognizing that
00:42:03
Speaker
We are in relationships that demand connection and reciprocity and that just like the land, one aspect of our community that is not doing well is going to affect a greater field and affect the productivity and the harvest.
00:42:21
Speaker
of that.
00:42:22
Speaker
And so as a community, we're like an ecosystem that needs to come together.
00:42:28
Speaker
And so I celebrate the ways that the people in Grand Rapids are investing in affordable housing that are looking.
00:42:38
Speaker
I have friends who, in my own church, who are still, even in the
00:42:43
Speaker
current context, we're still very committed to welcoming the foreigner and housing and welcoming refugee families, organizing for food justice, helping people to become homeowners and stay in their communities that have rooted in grown-up generations.
00:43:06
Speaker
And so I see that happening in Grand Rapids.
00:43:09
Speaker
And I see that happening.
00:43:12
Speaker
I always believe that one of the beautiful things about working for an international NGO is that you can bring people into a different place around the world where they can see the power of transformation and the power of community, the power of working with asset-based community development.
00:43:30
Speaker
And they take that and they bring it back into their own communities.
00:43:34
Speaker
And so they rethink what
00:43:36
Speaker
okay, how do we rethink being a deacon in my congregation?
00:43:40
Speaker
How do we rethink Christmas baskets or food banks?
00:43:45
Speaker
How can we do that where we center the dignity of a person and a parent into that rather than centering ourselves, trying to dispel and to really acknowledge, where have I adopted a savior complex and in many cases, a white savior complex?
00:44:03
Speaker
And how can I
00:44:05
Speaker
further my understanding so that I'm not at the center of what feels good to do here, but actually center somebody else into this transformative journey.
00:44:16
Speaker
And so I love that that happens, that people who are attuned to doing that already in their communities often go globally and see something more fully and add to that conversation and wisdom, but they also perhaps come back into their community and see new ways to work on that locally.
00:44:35
Speaker
And that's beautiful.
00:44:36
Speaker
I think the CCD philosophy is rooted in proximity and presence.
00:44:44
Speaker
It's rooted in empowerment and reconciliation.
00:44:49
Speaker
And that's not just something for the United States.
00:44:53
Speaker
That's a kingdom vision.
00:44:55
Speaker
It's a global vision.
00:44:56
Speaker
And we're honored at World Renew to be a part of CCDA and to be a part of that transformative story.
Conclusion and Call to Action
00:45:04
Speaker
Oh, thank you so much for sharing your journey to leadership, your own journey and your identity, cultural and ethnic identity, and for sharing about your hometown, for sharing about your community.
00:45:16
Speaker
We're really looking forward to seeing you in Grand Rapids for anyone who's going.
00:45:23
Speaker
And yeah, thanks so much for sharing today.
00:45:25
Speaker
Absolutely.
00:45:27
Speaker
It's been an honor and a privilege, and we look forward to having you all join us in Grand Rapids in November.
00:45:32
Speaker
Awesome.
00:45:33
Speaker
Well, thank you for listening to the CCDA podcast, and thank you, Carol, for joining us today.
00:45:39
Speaker
If you want to learn more about World Renew, CCDA's Indigenous Network, or the CCDA Conference, check out the show notes of this episode.
00:45:46
Speaker
Don't forget to subscribe to this podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcast.
00:45:52
Speaker
This episode is produced by Sarah Callen in association with Christina Fore.
00:45:57
Speaker
We will be back soon with another episode featuring CCDA practitioners who are committed to seeing people and communities experience God's Shalom.
00:46:05
Speaker
We'll see you then.