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Authors

Helen Yip

Helen is a Canadian-born Chinese woman who was born to two immigrant parents and raised on Treaty 6 territory, amiskwacîwâskahikan | ᐊᒥᐢᑲᐧᒋᐋᐧᐢᑲᐦᐃᑲᐣ, also known as Edmonton, Alberta. She is a biologist by training, having earned her Masters of Biology with a focus on marine biology in Los Angeles. Helen currently works at a university where her focus is to increase equity, diversity and inclusion in science, engineering and technology fields. Helen previously interned at A Rocha Canada as a conservation science intern and lived in community with others at the Brooksdale campus. She strives to weave narratives of social and environmental justice into her life work.

Faye Yu

Faye Yu is a Taiwan born American living in Malawi working with World Renew. Her introduction to God’s heart for justice and those living in poverty stem from her time interning for International Justice Mission and a campaign to end Sexual Trafficking. Through exploring what God had to say about justice and poverty, she realized that if she really believed that was what God’s heart ached for, her life needed to reflect a bit of that as well.  This led her to work with the homeless population in northern Virginia and with those living in poverty and disability in Malawi, Sierra Leone and India. When not working, she loves being outdoors and eating good food.

Melody Zhang

Melody serves as the Climate Justice Campaign Coordinator at Sojourners, a role she hopes to honor by lifting up the stories of people who bear the brunt of climate change (and who contribute the least to it) and cultivating leadership on earthkeeping within the Church. She is compelled to advocate for urban sustainability and climate justice because of Jesus' calling to love the least of these and His invitation to love her neighbor as herself. As Jesus draws himself nearest to the people most oppressed and ostracized in society, so she seeks to do the same.  She believes deeply that although the Church is historically late to this conversation, it can and must play a critical role as the people of God through embodied practice of environmental justice.

Melody was born in Anhui, China and was raised in metro-Detroit, where she grew up in Asian American community and fellowship. She holds a BA in Environmental Studies and Philosophy from the University of Michigan, and serves as Co-Chair at Young Evangelicals for Climate Action. Upon graduating, she traveled and volunteered through Rome, Zurich, and Copenhagen on an independent study and worked as an urban design assistant in the Netherlands out of a passion for understanding how the distinct culture and values of local people spell out its city infrastructure. In the past, she has led creation care conversations at her church, apprenticed on a small organic farm, helped start the first sustainable living community at U-M, and worked as a graphic designer.

In her free time, Melody loves exploring parks of all shapes and sizes, reading, jamming out to indie rock, and listening to the smooth, velvety voice of Krista Tippett on On Being. She looks forward to making ugly pottery to provide a home for her indoor plants.

Hope Zigterman

Hope Zigterman is the Mobilizing and Advocacy Fellow for 2019-20 for the Office of Social Justice. She spent the last three years teaching English to fourth and fifth graders at American Academy Jordan in Zarqa, Jordan. While there she took the opportunity to participate in a local symphonic band playing the flute and assist coaching little league baseball teams. She studied Political Science and History with a minor in Biblical Studies at Gordon College, and is interested in the intersection of faith and politics.

Peter Zigterman

Peter Zigterman is a member of Loop CRC and its Welcoming the Stranger missional community, which is focused on refugee and immigrant issues. He works in the refugee resettlement department of World Relief Chicago and also with the CRC Office of Social Justice as a Regional Organizer for the Chicago area.

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