This page reflects the board of enfleshed during its final iteration, but our collective work is indebted to all of those who accompanied enfleshed on boards and our creative council along the way. This included: Andrés Herrera, Becca Gurney Powe, Joe Rajchel, abby mohaupt, Alicia Crosby, Jonathan Cintron, Nikkeya Berryhill, Torrianna Foster, Alaina Alexander, Julián Jamaica Soto, Cassidy Hall, Saunia Powell, Tyler Schwaller, James Howard Hill Jr., Mike Campos, KC Slack, El/yse Ambrose, DaSaint, Blyth Barnow, and Jessica Hagar.
Working Board
Rev. Jeanelle Nicolas Ablola is a pastor, faith-rooted activist, and grassroots community organizer. They are a Queer Trans Non-Binary child of immigrants – a Filipino/x born, raised, and living in the U.S. diaspora.
Grounded in the movement for democracy and a just, lasting peace in the Philippines, they have over 10 years of experience leading annual Pastoral and Solidarity Visits there, supporting delegates seeking to deepen and expand their praxis as people of faith and/or social justice. They plan, preach, and present on panels, studies, and mobilizations in the U.S.
For 15+ years, through anti-imperialist internationalist solidarity work, they’ve participated in legislative advocacy, political and theological education, organizing, and mobilizing people of faith to take action in the streets and among the masses. They are passionate about making liberative theological and political education accessible to all and in accompanying individuals in praxis and meaning-making towards our collective liberation.
They’re the Lead Pastor at Pine United Methodist Church (San Francisco, CA) and organize with the California-Nevada Philippine Solidarity Task Force of The UMC. They received their M. Div. at Pacific School of Religion (Berkeley, CA). Prior to this, they worked as a freelance graphic designer. Multi-passionate, they dabble in art, learning about ocean life, and in sporadic podcasting via “GomBurZa for the Masses.”
Allison grew up rooted in a culturally German UCC church in St. Louis that her family has attended for 140 years, and she is now an active member of a multi-ethnic, inclusive, open & affirming UCC congregation where she lives in Portland, OR. She studied Gender, Women, & Sexuality at Grinnell College, and earned a Master’s in Nonprofit Management from the University of Oregon. A strategic systems-thinker, Allison manages development operations at Ecotrust, a nonprofit working for an equitable, prosperous, climate-smart future. She is also a trained facilitator, with a focus on leading conversations about wealth redistribution, whiteness, and racial justice. Some things that nourish her are: morning walks with her gregarious pit bull; growing food in her backyard; queer community potlucks; holding hands with her wife, Becca; and homemade rhubarb crisp.
Rev. Shana Chivon finds home in their audacious, Black, queer, gender non-conforming, sacred body. They labor with love at the intersections of trauma-informed community care, anti-racism and creating thriving, inclusive, divine spaces. She is the founder of Chaplain for the Culture, an online spiritual care community, a writer, educator, doula and a voracious reader. Rev. Shana Chivon is a Reiki practitioner and teacher that advocates for non-linear approaches to wholeness that feature and reference a loving, affirming Creator, who they often refer to as their transformative non-binary bestie. Rev. Shana believes that practicing liberative living for themselves and those in their community means encouraging us all to lay into radical truth telling, radical rest, radical joy and radical wellness. She is the mother of a 16-year-old son that inspires her to fight to ensure that this world sees him as a treasure and not a threat and is planning a wedding to her best friend and fiancé, Ingrid, that will feature all the black cookout classics with a touch of classic soft rock at the reception.
delfin is a social worker, writer, activist theologian, and diversity educator. Orginally from Miami, FL, delfin is of both Cuban and Salvadoran heritage. delfin has a Master in Divinity from Yale University and a Master of Social Work from the University of Pennsylvania. A queer and trans Latinx diva of faith and spirit, delfin is passionate about intersectional justice and resilience, especially around the experiences of queer people of color. delfin currently serves as the Director of the Lionel Cantú Queer Resource Center at University of California – Santa Cruz and is involved in different ways with Campus Pride, Soulforce, DignityUSA, and Queer Christian Fellowship. Delfin enjoys writing, cooking, spoiling other people’s pets, eating, queerly scheming, watching cartoons, spending time with their beloved and familia, untraditional liturgizing, new found passion for gardening, and preaching on their blog “La Lucha, Mi Púlpito.”
Rev. Nikkeya serves as an Associate Pastor at Christ the King Lutheran Church and a mission developer with the North Carolina Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America. She also serves as an ELCA Life and Grief Coach. She is a writer, creative arts practitioner, social-justice minded, dreamer, wonderer, questioner, analyzer, deep thinker, and deep laugher. She graduated with her BA from Carleton College and MA from Northern Illinois University both specializing in Media Theory and her MDiv. from Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary where she specialized in Mission Development, Environmental and Racial Justice, and Womanist Theology. Her passions include helping people envision their dreams, putting together creative rituals, writing liturgy, talking about God in unexpected ways, and helping people realize how connected they are to the divine.
Belén Morales is a non-profit strategist specializing in board management and community-centered resource development. They have ten+ years of experience in non-profit Board management, resource development, fundraising and communications strategies, individual donor programs, team building, and fundraising event planning.
In 2021, Belén started Root & Bloom Consulting to work with burgeoning non profits where she co-creates liberatory practices for non-profits and leaders to maximize their impact and advance their missions.
Belén holds a Bachelor of Arts in Biblical Studies from Patten University (Oakland, CA) and a Master of Arts in Systematic and Philosophical Theology from the Graduate Theological Union (Berkeley, CA). Their research focused on the intersection between theology, race, gender, and sexuality. Belén brings a similar intersectional lens to non-profit work, where she advocates for access to resources and uplifts the voices of those at the margins.
Belén is the child of immigrant parents from Oaxaca, Mexico and El Salvador. She is hella proud to hail from the great city of Oakland, California. They enjoy reading, dance parties, and spending time with their niblings.
Advisory Board
Julia Watts Belser is a rabbi, scholar, activist, and spiritual teacher. She is a professor of Jewish Studies at Georgetown University and core faculty in Georgetown’s Disability Studies program, where she brings Jewish texts into conversation with queer, disability, and feminist ethics. Her most recent scholarly book is Rabbinic Tales of Destruction: Gender, Sex, and Disability in the Ruins of Jerusalem. A passionate advocate for disability and gender justice, she co-authored the Health Handbook for Women with Disabilities, developed in collaboration with disability activists from 42 countries, to help challenge the root causes of poverty, gender violence, and disability discrimination. She currently directs a project on disability, climate change, and environmental justice – and when she’s not teaching or writing, she’s a passionate wheelchair hiker.
Grace Imathiu is a citizen of the world who was born in Kenya and educated in England, USA, Israel, and Kenya. Called into the preaching work early in life, Grace was among the first women ordained in the Methodist Church in Kenya, by her father who was her Presiding Bishop for 25 years! Grace is a founding member of Kenya Methodist University and has served as a short term missionary in Tanzania, a youth director in Washington, a circuit minister in rural Kenya, an associate pastor in Tennessee, a seminary professor in Kentucky and in Meru, a district superintendent in Nairobi, an interim pastor in Wisconsin, a Senior Pastor to large urban churches and a preacher in Australia, Malaysia, Brazil, Ireland, Denmark, Togo and Estonia. Grace is married to David and is mother to one teenage son.
Wonhee Anne Joh is Professor of Theology and Culture at Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary, the faculty Director of Asian American Ministry Center as well as Faculty Affiliate in the Departments of Religious Studies and Asian American Studies at Northwestern University and member of the research faculty cohort on Religion, Race and Global Politics of the Buffett Institute for Global Studies at Northwestern University. Joh’s research interests are at the intersection of constructive theology, transpacific Asian American studies/theologies, empire and post/decolonial studies, war, migration, militarism, carcerality, race, gender, sexuality, cold war, trauma studies, affect theory, global anti-colonial movements, internationalism and political theologies. Her publications include Heart of the Cross: A Postcolonial Christology and she is co- editor of Critical Theology Against US Militarism in Asia: Decolonization and Deimperialization, and Feminist Praxis Against US Militarism. Forthcoming from Fordham University Press is Trauma, Affect and Race as well as numerous other articles and chapters.