Community Rising Collective brings people of faith and conscience together for a year-long journey to cultivate the relationships, embodied practices, and collective capacity needed for meaningful and sustainable personal and social transformation.

Angie Walker and Bethany Renata Loberg share community roots in the Pacific Northwest and love cultivating community, justice, and reading fantasy books that open our imaginations to other worlds possible. They bring extensive training and experience in peacebuilding, trauma awareness, and community and faith/interfaith based social movement learning, organizing, and action. They both hold masters in Conflict Transformation from EMU’s Center for Justice and Peacebuilding.

Bethany Renata also holds a degree in Peace, Justice, and Conflict studies and has trained as a yoga teacher and systemic constellations facilitator. She attended her first protest, of U.S. military involvement in Latin America at nine days old. Her community and professional work has focused on immigrant rights, racial justice, U.S.-Latin America solidarity, and addressing human rights violations, particularly disappearances. She grew up in Mennonite and UCC churches, and a family and social movement groups such as Word and World, in which faith calls us to active commitments to peace, justice, and community.

Angie also has degrees in psychology and counseling and has always had in interest in human rights and justice. Her other vocations have included being a crime victim advocate, teaching abroad (ESL) as well as community building (especially across various faith communities).