Puanani Calvillo: Moving Toward Possibility

12/16/22 • 27 min

In this special episode, Rose J. Percy speaks with Puanani Rosario Poti Calvillo from a live recording at FTE’s Christian Leadership Forum. Puanani talks about her identity as a partner, teacher, mother, and spiritual director and how wearing a lot of different hats helps her connect with people. She lives out her call and ministry by creating spaces for BIPOC folx to lean into the wisdom of their own bodies.

Puanani is a proud Samoan Ilocana from Southern California. She is a spiritual director, facilitator, educator and weight lifter. She is a former elementary school teacher and co-led El Puente Community Church with her husband Jonathan in their beloved city of Santa Ana, a bilingual neighborhood ministry centered on healing, mentorship, accompaniment and community care. You can find out more about Puanani’s spiritual practice at puananirosario.com.

Rose J. Percy is a womanist theopoet whose work engages theologies of imagination, critical pedagogy, and Black literature to birth spaces for rest, belonging, and community care. She is the creator and host of the podcast, Dear Soft Black Woman.

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This week, Dr. Reyes talks to Rev. Dr. K. Monet Rice-Jalloh about her early call as a young girl in a context that did not affirm women in ministry. She recounts tales of skipping school to go to church and then later to audit classes in religion and theology at the local college. Her fascination with deep questions and her compassion are a natural fit for ministering to and with students and the academic community she serves.

K. Monet is an associate university chaplain at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, NC. She is also vice president of the Association for Chaplaincy and Spiritual Life in Higher Education (ACSLHE) and an ordained minister in the Baptist tradition.

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Music by: @siryalibeats

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Sound of the Genuine - Puanani Calvillo: Moving Toward Possibility

Transcript

Patrick: Hey, it's Dr. Reyes here from the Sound of the Genuine. If you enjoy this podcast, do us a favor and leave a five-star review.

This week's episode, we have a special guest host, Rose J Percy from Dear Soft Black Woman, another podcast that you should definitely check out. Rose will be joined by a close friend and colleague to many of us here at FTE, Nani Calvillo, who is a spiritual director, facilitator, educator, and weightlifter. She is passionate about acce