Alumni News
Reverend Dr. John F. Edwin, Jr. (STH’71,’87)
This obituary was originally published on Brooklawn Funeral Home.
John F. Edwin was born on May 29, 1926, in Agona Bobikuma, in Ghana. His was the eldest of eight sons and two daughters born to John Fuaya Edwin Sr. and his wife Mary Acheampongmaa.
Dr. Edwin came to the United States in 1966 with his first wife, Comfort Janet Edwin (deceased on May 19, 2021). In 1968, they were joined by their four children, having been sponsored by the United Methodist Church. Dr. Edwin and his family served in various pastorates in Massachusetts and Connecticut.
Dr. Edwin earned his Master of Education from Hartford University (1969), his Doctor of Divinity from Boston University and a Doctor of Education from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst (1972).
From 1969-1974, he was the Assistant Professor of Education for Providence College.
From 1976-1979 he served as the General Superintendent of Schools for the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church in Ghana where he managed 96 schools.
From 1981-1983, he was the Consultant to the Ministry of Education for the Kingdom of Eswatini (formerly Swaziland) for the US Agency of International Development.
On May 5, 1974, Dr. Edwin received the Legion of Honor Award in Philadelphia, PA in recognition of outstanding service to all people.
On November 28, 1987, Dr. Edwin was consecrated, first Bishop of the Calvary Methodist Episcopal Church (the Indigenous African Christian Church) in Winneba, Ghana.
On March 27, 2005, Governor Jodi Rell of the State of Connecticut gave Dr. Edwin, the Outstanding Citizen Award for commitment and dedication to the Community.
Dr. Edwin’s deeds, accolades, and titles, are too numerous to list. He is most proud to be the husband of Rita Bafoa Edwin, father to Kweku Fuaya Edwin (Ghana); Abena Acheampongmaa Edwin (Ghana);Mercy Edwin (Maine); Acheampongmaa Edwin (husband, David Clark) New Jersey; Emmanuel Edwin (London, England); Augusta Edwin (New York); and Rose Edwin (California). He leaves behind several grandchildren including Seidron Snipe and Dyron Snipe II; and numerous great grandchildren including Asomdwee Dickson.
He is survived by his younger siblings; Araba Edwin (Ghana); Anamin Edwin (Ghana); and Paul Edwin (South Africa).
Friends may call Friday June 4th from
12:00 noon to 1:00pm at
Brooklawn Funeral Home
511 Brook Street
Rocky Hill, With
at service at 1pm
Internment will be held at
Rose Hill Cemetery, Rocky Hill
A Poem Celebrating Pride by Rev. Johanna Hattendorf (STH’84)
Rev. Johanna Hattendorf (STH’84) [formerly Amy Bridgeman] celebrates Pride month with a poem based on a true story.
Remember This: You Must Say Yes
By Johanna Hattendorf
6/7/21
The place to start is the dream,
No, not a dream,
Not even a vision,
Just a voice.
Yes, a voice.
Speaking in the night.
“In 2 weeks you will receive a call
from a church you do not know. . .
Remember this, you must say yes.”
10 days—almost long enough to forget--
A phone call from a stranger
With a strange question:
“Are you still interested in the job?
Preparing to say No,
I remember—“You must say yes.”
“Yes”—I say—
“Yes”, I guess I am.
Then, the Interviews,
Questions,
Concerns.
I am “Out”, you see.
They want me to come—will I?
Yes,
I will come.
Yes,
I will serve you.
Yes,
even when families leave.
Yes,
even when the hate mail begins,
Yes,
even when the police do nothing.
Yes.
I stay with who I am.
I stay trembling with fear.
I stay, waking in the night unable to breathe.
Yes.
I stay.
I sign up for martial arts,
Leaning into my power
Determined to be strong.
And Tai Chi
To manage the stress
Calming my nerves.
And therapy,
With someone who will not judge.
Yes, I stay.
5 years of staying,
5 years living into the yes.
5 years of knowing--something important was happening—
important enough to wake me from sleep,
important enough to insist—You must say yes.
And then, it happened—
A monumental decision—
the legal right to marry.
So we did.
We stood in that church
Surrounded by the people who loved us,
And the people who stayed--
The people who believed—
in me,
In us,
In who we ALL could be.
I said Yes to my love
She said Yes to me.
They said Yes to us,
And in the end
They said Yes to themselves.
We ALL said Yes.
Yes
To This wild crazy journey of believing
Yes
to Believing in the impossible,
Yes,
To Believing in the power of saying yes..
Not just for me,
Not just for us
But for Everyone.
No, it’s not just a dream,
Or a vision,
It’s just a voice.
Remember this—you must say yes.
Johanna Hattendorf
6/7/21
Dr. Fernando Ona, (STH’20) Receives Inaugural Wink Fellowship
The content of this article is provided through the courtesy of Dr. Ona and FOR-USA.
Dr. Fernando Ona (CAS'92, SSW'15, STH'20), a public health professional of Filipino heritage engaging the landscape of health disparities and social justice, receives the inaugural Walter Wink and June Keener Wink Fellowship from the Fellowship of Reconciliation.
Following years of trauma-centered work with survivors of torture, Dr. Ona is now pursuing a Doctorate of Ministry.
Reverend R. Preston Price (STH’70) Awarded Distinguished Clergy at the California-Pacific Conference
The California-Pacific Conference is a regional body of The United Methodist Church, made up of some 50,000 members in almost 350 local churches throughout Southern California, parts of Central California, Hawaii, the Pacific Islands, Guam and Saipan.
Every year, the Bishop, Grant Hagiya, awards eight distinguished persons (four clergy and four laypersons) who devoted their life of extraordinary service to the California-Pacific Conference. STH alum Reverend R. Preston Price (STH'70) receives this year's award.
Rev. R. Preston Price has been married to Jean Price for 54 years. Jean is retired from teaching and being a professional organist. They have two sons. Robert is Dean of the Episcopal Cathedral in Dallas; John is Superintendent of Schools in the city of North Chicago. The family includes two wonderful daughters-in-law and five grandchildren.
BUSTH Alum Christina Rathbone (STH’09) Has Helped People Excluded from Society Share Their Stories
This article was originally published in focus magazine, the annual scholarly publication of the BU School of Theology, in May 2021. The full magazine is posted here and this article can be found on page 27.
On the Margins: As a Reporter, then a Priest, Christina Rathbone (STH'09) Has Helped People Excluded from Society Share Their Stories
By Andrew Thurston
Cristina Rathbone doesn’t normally wear a clerical collar, but the asylum seekers at the US border needed all the help they could get. If her collar helped nudge a border agent into waving them across, it was worth the effort.
A priest in the Episcopal Church in Boston, Rathbone (’09) spent six months in 2019 working with asylum seekers fleeing violence and persecution in Central America and hoping for sanctuary in the United States. Like many of the people she met, Rathbone ended up in Juárez. The northern Mexican city sits shoulder to shoulder with El Paso, Texas—border cities split by the Rio Grande, but tied together by four bridges that carry thousands of migrants every year.
“I would put my collar on only to go up to the checkpoint and seek to lend a bit of my privilege as a US citizen and an ordained member of the clergy,” says Rathbone, “to try to encourage border patrol to uphold the laws as they stand—that anybody asking for asylum should be allowed straight into the country to pursue that case.” Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn’t.
In recent years, it’s become harder than ever to claim shelter in the United States. During his four years in office, former President Donald Trump consistently reduced the cap on the number of refugees the country would admit. In October 2020, he set the limit at just 15,000; in 2016, the US had welcomed 85,000. According to the Washington Post, the courts have a backlog of more than 1 million pending asylum claims. “My mother’s Cuban,” says Rathbone, “so I have always had a particular interest in stories of immigration, especially from Latin America.”
In the Heart of Suffering
Born in America, Rathbone spent her formative years in the United Kingdom—her father’s homeland—before returning to the States for college. After starting, but not finishing, a degree in documentary filmmaking in New York, Rathbone became an investigative journalist, publishing articles in a range of papers and magazines, including the Miami Herald and the New York Daily News. It wasn’t until she was in her forties that she switched paths and joined the church. “The kind of journalist I was and the kind of priest I am are so similar,” says Rathbone. The people Rathbone wrote about— particularly in her two books, On the Outside Looking in: Stories from an Inner-City High School and A World Apart: Women, Prison, and Life Behind Bars—were on society’s frayed edges. “My home lay out on the margins,” she says.
“The homeless folks in Boston taught me everything I know about how to pastor to people even as they are in the heart of suffering. They taught me that mostly all I really need to do is listen and learn, and then I’ll be given the skills that I need, as I need them, from the community on the ground.”
It still does. After studying theology at STH, Rathbone joined the Cathedral Church of St. Paul in Boston, serving as a canon missioner and pastor to people experiencing homelessness. “The homeless folks in Boston taught me everything I know about how to pastor to people even as they are in the heart of suffering,” she says. “They taught me that mostly all I really need to do is listen and learn, and then I’ll be given the skills that I need, as I need them, from the community on the ground.”
On the Border
When Rathbone arrived in Juárez in August 2019, she joined with the Episcopal Diocese of the Rio Grande in El Paso to do what she describes as small things: provide water, food, blankets, and clothing; later, she helped start a class for children and began walking with families to the border.
“I’m a great believer in small things,” says Rathbone. “Once we get sidetracked by trying to create big things, we spend more time thinking about the big thing than the actual work the big thing is supposed to contain and represent. “Having said that, it’s really hard doing small things in the face of such dire and multiple suffering.”
She says the resilience of the people she met—groups of moms and kids who’d banded together for the journey, parents whose children had been tortured and murdered by narcos—“enlarged and transformed my heart.” But caring for them required caring for herself too. Rathbone says she relied on encouragement— spiritual and financial—from the institutional church, as well as from friends and family. “When one’s operating very much out on the edge of things,” says Rathbone, “it becomes very important, at least for me, to feel tethered to the center.”
In November 2020, Rathbone started a new program to train and guide others in the church who want to help those seeking safe harbor in the United States. Neighbor to Neighbor connects asylum seekers with local Episcopal churches to help them adjust to life in the country. “I went to the border thinking it was the place where I needed to be in order to be of the most use in this immigration quagmire,” says Rathbone, who is leading the organization in collaboration with Episcopal Migration Ministries. “I’ve realized that the border is everywhere in this country already: people who cross the border go to literally every town and city. We can be of service wherever we are.”
Having spent so much of her life hearing and telling the stories of those excluded from society, Rathbone hopes Neighbor to Neighbor—which launched in the Episcopal Dioceses of Massachusetts, Southeast Florida, the Rio Grande, and New Jersey—will enable others in the church to spend more time with them too.
“We, the church, need to be in relationship with the people who are most suffering, because they have the most to teach us about love.”
“We, the church, need to be in relationship with the people who are most suffering, because they have the most to teach us about love,” she says. “Those of us in the church tend to be particularly good at pretending we’re not broken. Being with people who can no longer pretend liberates us to confess our own brokenness; once we do that, the healing has already begun.”
Dr. Arvid W. Adell (GRS’70, STH’70)
This obituary was originally published at Olson Funeral and Cremation Services.
Arvid W. Adell, 85, of Roscoe, died on Thursday, May 13, 2021. Born September 30, 1935, in Osage City, KS, the son of Arvid and Vivian (Udd) Adell. Arvid married Karen Akerlund on November 24, 1961 in Rockford. He received his Bachelor’s degree from Augustana and his PhD in Philosophy from Boston University. He was also a graduate of North Park Theological Seminary in Chicago and attended a year of Seminary school at the University of Edinburgh. Arvid completed his Seminary internship at Bethesda Covenant Church in Rockford. Arvid was the chairman of the Philosophy Department at Millikin University where he coached basketball and golf before his full retirement in 2013 and the Pastor of Bethlehem Presbyterian Church in Decatur, IL until 2000. He also taught Business Ethics at Carnegie Mellon University, Qatar Campus in 2008. He attended First Congregational Church in Beloit, WI. He was a published writer and avid reader. Arvid enjoyed to bike, hike, and travel and was an avid golfer who occasionally tee’d it up in the fairway. As a trumpeter and singer himself, he had a passion for music.
Survived by his wife, Karen; children, Jani (Mark) Duffy of Scottsdale, AZ, Diane (Kendall) Boone of Rockford, and Mike (Deanna) Adell of Lemont, IL; grandchildren, Nils, Annika, Marta, Lauren, and Lizzy; sister, Eileen Thorpe of Chicago; brother, Rev. Willis (Mona) Adell of Seattle, WA; and sister-in-law, Beverly Adell of Sterling, IL. Predeceased by his parents; brother, Wallis Adell; and brother-in-law, Dr. Roger Thorpe. The family would like to thank the staff at Swedish American Hospital, PEAK Medical Home Care, Northern Illinois Hospice and many others for their care.
A memorial visitation will be from 4:00 to 6:00 on Thursday, May 20, 2021 at Olson’s North Main Chapel, 2811 North Main St., Rockford. Private family burial in Scandinavian Cemetery. In lieu of flowers, the family prefers memorials made to Doctors without Borders USA, PO BOX 5030, Hagerstown, MD 21741-5030 / www.doctorswithoutborders.org
BUSTH PhD Student Shaunesse’ A. Jacobs Awarded Rappaport Summer Public Policy Fellowship
June 4, 2021 – Boston University School of Theology PhD student in constructive theology and ethics Shaunesse' A. Jacobs has been named a Rappaport Public Policy Fellow by Harvard’s Rappaport Institute for Greater Boston. Ms. Jacobs is one of 20 selected fellows out of a field of nearly 200 applicants from nearby institutions, including Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Boston College, and Harvard Medical School. She will spend this summer working in Massachusetts government agencies and meeting with other Rappaport fellows to discuss key issues in the Massachusetts region, including public policy and implementation. Her fellowship will focus on creating a bridge curriculum between home health aides and certified nursing assistants, and the resulting research will inform a policy strategy to increase entry into nursing professions.
For a full list of fellows, please visit the Rappaport Institute for Greater Boston.
A Funny Thing Happened While Researching Algorithms
Carrington Moore (STH'14) signed up for a dating app to better understand user preferences for a start-up business. Then he came across Schnelle Shelby’s profile.
This article was originally published by The New York Times, on May 27 2021, by Tammy La Gorce. It can be found here.
Carrington Moore never liked the idea of online dating. In the summer of 2014, though, joining Match all of a sudden became a professional obligation.
Mr. Moore, 34, of Cambridge, Mass., was starting a business, Go Break Bread, with a pair of friends that year. Liftoff of the project, meant to be like Meetup except for building religious communities online, depended on them getting a grip on how algorithms work. “We had figured out that dating apps were the best place to research algorithms, but one of my friends was in a relationship, and the other one was like, ‘I’m married,’” he said. Mr. Moore, being single, was singled out. “They were like, ‘Carrington, you’ve got to do it.’”
But his mission to research, and research only, was thwarted instantly when Schnelle Shelby’s picture popped up. “Schnelle came up wearing this zebra print dress,” he said. “She seemed really interesting and really pretty. I stalked her for like 30 minutes.”
Baptist News Global names STH student Laura Ellis (STH’21) as Clemons Fellows
This article was originally published by the Baptist News Global, on May 19, 2021, and the full press release can be found here.
Laura Ellis and Rick Pidcock have been named BNG’s first Clemons Fellows and will serve 10 weeks this summer in a structured program of writing, dialogue and reflection. They will learn in weekly seminars with other notable writers in the religion market while also researching and writing in a variety of styles for BNG.
Ellis is a spring graduate of Boston University School of Theology, where she has been a writing fellow in the Educational Resource Center while working on a master of divinity degree. She previously served as a writer in Bali, Indonesia, through the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship’s Global Missions program.
Rebecca Hardcastle Wright, Ph.D. (STH’76) published “Exoconscious Humans: Will Free Will Survive in an Increasingly Non-Human World?”
Exoconscious Humans: Will Free Will Survive in an Increasingly Non-Human World? by Rebecca Hardcastle Wright, Ph.D., examines a future that includes public disclosure of UFOs and extraterrestrials within advancing non-human artificial reality.
Hardcastle Wright emphasizes Exoconsciousness, an ancient and innate human ability to connect, communicate, and co-create with extraterrestrials and multidimensional beings.
As founder and director of the nonprofit Institute for Exoconsciousness, I-EXO, she participates in an international community of contactees who interact with off-world beings, resulting in heightened psychic intelligence and cosmic consciousness. Their Exoconscious psychic experience creates an expansion of human identity and abilities.
Hardcastle Wright’s book contrasts the natural psychic intelligence of Exoconscious Humans with Transhumans' engineered biology and artificial intelligence and proposes common ground.
Humans face imminent decisions about the advancement of their species. Will humans freely claim natural Exoconsciousness or accede to engineered transhumanism? Hardcastle Wright
presents an even-handed analysis, exploring alternatives and possible common ground to
navigate the reality of UFOs, ETs, and Transhumans.
Click here to purchase your copy of Exoconscious Humans: Will Free Will Survive in an Increasingly Non-Human World? on Amazon. Watch Book Trailer here.