Seamen’s Church Institute. An August 2012 article about Baldridge in Illinois Country Living described Baldridge and his ministry this way: “Kempton Baldridge doesn’t dress like most pastors. He doesn’t wear a formal robe or even a suit and tie. Instead, his attire includes steeltoed boots, a baseball cap and life vest. What Baldridge does isn’t what most pastors do, either. He’s not one to preach from a pulpit or deliver sermons from the front of a church. In fact, he doesn’t have a church building. He’s more likely to be found climbing gangways and riding on tugboats up and down the Mississippi, the Ohio, the Wabash, the Illinois and many of the other rivers of the Midwest.”
Caring for “the least of these” Jesus said, “I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me... Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these, my brethren, you did it to me.” YDS graduates are busy seeking out and ministering to the needy. For 24 years, Bonita Grubbs ’84 M.A.R. ’85 M.P.H. has headed Christian Community Action in New Haven, CT, an ecumenical nonprofit organization that provides “help, housing, and hope for those who are poor.” The agency, a mainstay of New Haven’s non-profit, faithbased social services infrastructure, operates an emergency shelter, transitional housing, and a food pantry, and also sponsors an advocacy and education project that promotes social change and justice by focusing on issues like empowerment, grass-roots organizing, leadership training and economic justice. In 2009, Grubbs was presented with the Lux et Veritas alumni award from YDS. In making the presentation, New Haven resident Allie Perry ’80 M.Div. said, “The vulnerable and powerless have a strong friend and advocate in you, whether they are poor, hungry, homeless, jobless, or without access to health care.... You have not only addressed people’s basic needs but have engaged in transforming systems that disadvantage people and in empowering people to organize, advocate, and speak out on their own behalf. You are a justice-seeker and a hopecreator.” David Wertheimer, M.Div. ’84, a deputy director at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in Seattle, is Board chair and president of Funders Together to End Homelessness, which is the national philanthropic sector affinity group addressing homelessness. In 2012, on behalf of Funders Together, he accepted the Private Sector Partner of the Year Award from the National Alliance to End
Homelessness during ceremonies at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. “Combining social justice with social work, I’ve spent the last 30 years working together with disenfranchised populations in the U.S.,” says Wertheimer. “ Work with the LGBT community evolved to working with people who are homeless. Frustration with fragmented systems of care led to systems transformation efforts, which led ultimately to my role at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, leading efforts to end family homelessness in the Pacific Northwest. “Is this a ministry? If ministry is defined as audaciously spreading the word of God, I think not. Perhaps the answer is different if ministry means focusing on the challenges faced by those most oppressed by inequities in the human condition.” And more . . .
The ministry of conversation Following retirement from librarianship at the age of 50, Judy Kessinger ’63 B.D., began what she calls a “ministry of conversation.” She joined the Creative Retirement Institute in Lynnwood, WA, one of more than 200 organizations in the Elderhostel Institute Network devoted to continuing education for older adults. “I began by taking many courses and from 1998 until 2012 was an instructor, leading small discussion classes on current issues, poetry, novels, favorite books, and individual books about social and ethical issues, such as Nickel and Dimed and Justice: What’s the Right Thing to Do? My style was to be a listener rather than a speaker, guiding and moderating the conversation so that we all learned from each other.”
Good Grief Joseph Primo ’06 M.Div. is associate executive director of Good Grief in New Jersey, which he describes as one of the largest and fastest-growing children’s bereavement centers in the country serving children who have experienced the death of a parent or sibling. Good Grief provides free support to more than 400 children a year from over 100 towns throughout New Jersey. Additionally, the agency advocates for grieving children in classrooms, churches, and communities through its educational programs, reaching more than 12,000 children in 2012. “After ministering at the Connecticut Hospice as a chaplain while a student at YDS, I was inspired by the lack of resources and support available to grieving children,” Primo recalls. “For me, the Sermon on the Mount is the pillar of my ministry . . . As a grief advocate and the
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