Molly Beck Dean serves as Director of the ELCA Youth Gathering. She has been working in youth ministry in congregational, camping, synodical and national settings since she was 18 years old.

Fun fact: She and her daughter run a big pet event in their hometown with the goal of getting rescue animals adopted and promoting pet themed small businesses in the community.

“Ben Pearthree serves as the Leadership Initiative Coordinator for the Churchwide office in Chicago. Currently, he works in a project management capacity for Journi, the ELCA’s first leadership app. In this role Ben has been working to help develop a comprehensive solution to address the need for entrepreneurial leaders of all kinds across the ELCA and has had the privilege of serving as one of the ELCAs external liaisons for the project.

Ben’s specialty lies in political and religious communications. Prior to the ELCA Ben worked with the Archdioceses of Saint Louis Peace & Justice Commission as well as the USCCB to launch the first speaker series on race in the Catholic Church in 50 years. He has also worked to educate communities on predatory lending, the rights of immigrants, and in Saint Louis how to establish dialogue post-Ferguson. He has also had opportunities to work on campaigns with brands such as Toms, ModCloth, and OLLY.

In his spare time, he continues his research on fake news and media literacy, as well as enjoys time training youth as a swim coach. Recently he has worked to help launch a new swim club with the objective of reducing drowning deaths on the southside of Chicago.”

Living some of her childhood years at the very southern tip of Madagascar as a Lutheran missionary kid, Pr. Jennifer Shimota learned early on that the world God loves is a big, big place. When her family moved back to the U.S. she was in third grade, and her dad began serving congregations. Throughout her childhood, he served in Arizona and varies places in California, ultimately putting down some sort of roots in Southern California. She earned a B.A. in English from California Lutheran University, after which she was a church musician for a decade before earning her teaching credential from Chapman University. Jennifer was a high school English teacher at a funky public high school called Construction Tech Academy, where the learning was project based, and she had the very best students in the world. She loved teaching so much that she resisted for years as God began calling her to be a pastor. In 2007, she stopped resisting, sold her home, and moved her family across the country to South Carolina to attend Lutheran Theological Southern Seminary (LTSS), where she earned a Master of Divinity degree. She was then called to be the pastor of Emmanuel Lutheran Church in High Point, NC, where she served for six years until the summer of 2019, when she accepted the call to be the Coordinator of Seminary Enrollment at her beloved seminary, LTSS. She lives on campus with her Siberian Husky, Eleanor Rigby.

Savanna Sullivan (she/her/hers) serves as the Program Director for ELCA Young Adult Ministries in Chicago, IL. She is passionate about helping young people connect to their own spirituality and pushing the church to equip, amplify, and respect the voices of young leaders. Savanna was a main stage speaker at the 2018 ELCA Youth Gathering in Houston, TX and loves banana pudding, the Clemson tigers, and memorizing poems.

Samantha Pfab

Samantha (she/her) currently serves as the Accelerated Ministry Program Associate at Wartburg College. She also works within the Student Life office at the college helping with campus programming as well as advising the student organization Entertainment ToKnight. Sam graduated from Wartburg in May of 2020 with a major in religion and minors in Spanish, Leadership, and Public Relations. Outside of her involvements at Wartburg, Sam spends most of her time nose-deep in a book, watching Frozen 2, or spending quality time with her friends.

“Ashlei Cramer (she/her), after finishing her bachelors at University of Wisconsin—Eau Claire in religious studies, packed her bags and headed off to St. Paul, MN! In St. Paul, she studied at Luther Seminary, where she acted as a leader in her LGBTQIA+ organization, Emmaus, as well as in Proclaim’s Seminary Outreach Team. In May of 2018, Ashlei graduated with her Master of Arts in Christian Ministry. As part of God’s call in her life, she lives into her work at ReconcilingWorks as the Reconciling in Christ Program Coordinator, to serve her fellow LGBTQIA+ community where faith and sexual orientation, gender identity and expression intersect. During your time with Ashlei, you will get the chance to hear more about the work of ReconcilingWorks as it pertains to the welcome, inclusion, and celebration of LGBTQIA+ people, ways you and your faith community can extend radical hospitality and invitation to those a part of the queer community, take, a look into Ashlei’s person journey as a queer woman, and action map next steps as you leave the summit today. When Ashlei is relaxing and enjoying her time outside of work, she enjoys trying out Minnesota’s many state trails, long boarding and exploring the outdoors with her wife, dog, and cat!”

Grace Hoening is a world hunger advocate who believes ending hunger is not only about providing food, it is about providing justice. She has been involved with ELCA World Hunger since she attended the ELCA World Hunger Leadership gathering back in 2018.
As a first year student, Grace studies music therapy at the University of Evansville. In high school, she was recognized as a peer minister in both the synod and conference levels. Grace enjoys playing in her church worship band. She served as youth representative for her synod council. One year, Grace had a competition with her friend to see who could take the most pictures with rostered ministers (she won.)
For her outstanding work towards ending hunger, Grace was awarded the DAR Good Citizenship Award and Peace Builder Youth Award.
Grace takes initiative to follow her passions and invites others to come along. She co-created, planned and participated in the first-ever Northern Illinois Synod’s “Cycle to Synod” an awareness- and fund-raising tour across the synod in support of ELCA World Hunger. Through this annual event, she has biked over 300 miles. Not only did Grace work locally to mobilize support, she actively shares her ideas and stories to amplify the message.
When Grace is not working on schoolwork or obsessing over cows, she works to reduce food waste with her job at MEANS Database, an online platform that makes it just as easy for businesses to give food to non-profits as it would be to throw away.

Living some of her childhood years at the very southern tip of Madagascar as a Lutheran missionary kid, Pr. Jennifer Shimota learned early on that the world God loves is a big, big place. When her family moved back to the U.S. she was in third grade, and her dad began serving congregations. Throughout her childhood, he served in Arizona and varies places in California, ultimately putting down some sort of roots in Southern California. She earned a B.A. in English from California Lutheran University, after which she was a church musician for a decade before earning her teaching credential from Chapman University. Jennifer was a high school English teacher at a funky public high school called Construction Tech Academy, where the learning was project based, and she had the very best students in the world. She loved teaching so much that she resisted for years as God began calling her to be a pastor. In 2007, she stopped resisting, sold her home, and moved her family across the country to South Carolina to attend Lutheran Theological Southern Seminary (LTSS), where she earned a Master of Divinity degree. She was then called to be the pastor of Emmanuel Lutheran Church in High Point, NC, where she served for six years until the summer of 2019, when she accepted the call to be the Coordinator of Seminary Enrollment at her beloved seminary, LTSS. She lives on campus with her Siberian Husky, Eleanor Rigby.