Center for Continuous Learning

Rev. Dr. Marie Onwubuariri serves as the Director of Intercultural Ministries with the American Baptist Home Mission Societies in King of Prussia, PA. With a lifetime-worth of experiences and learning at the intersection of a multiplicity of cultures, Dr. Onwubuariri brings to this role a committed posture of cultural self-understanding and a cumulative approach to cross-cultural communication and competency; diversity, equity, and inclusion assessment and praxis; and racial justice and anti-racism commitment and action. Dr. Onwubuariri served as Director of Admissions at the Berkeley School of Theology (BST) from 2008-2014, where one of her greatest joys was walking alongside prospective and current students as they discerned God’s call on their lives. Her studies and experiences as an MDiv and DMin student at BST were also important in her own journey of vocational clarity and still informs her ministry today. She has also served as Associate General Secretary for Mission Resource Development with the American Baptist Churches USA, Regional Executive Minister of ABC Wisconsin, Pastor/staff at three America Baptist churches in the San Francisco Bay area, ecumenical cross-cultural competency trainer, volunteer roles throughout the America Baptist denomination and in her local communities, and an executive in the retail industry in New York City and San Francisco. She is an active American Baptist church member with the Upper Merion Baptist Church in King of Prussia, PA. Her educational training includes a BS in Business Management at Binghamton University (NY), and a Master of Divinity and Doctor of Ministry at BST (Berkeley, CA). She is author of “Reframing tension for transformation: bridge-crossing | bridge-making | bridge-being” (Review & Expositor, 118, April 2022), co-editor of Trouble the Water: A Christian Resource for the Work of Racial Justice (Nurturing Faith, 2017), and continues to develop her doctoral work focused on holistic intercultural transformational leaders through a character-forming spiritual practice of cultural self-knowing and negotiation.

The Rev. Abigaíl Medina-Betancourt is the National Coordinator for Intercultural Engagement at American Baptist Home Mission Societies. In this position, she encourages sensitivity to cultural awareness, supports ministries in multicultural and intercultural contexts and works to strengthen American Baptist leaders’ capacity to implement effective ministries. Previously, she served as the Puerto Rico Volunteer Coordinator for the American Baptist Home Mission Societies’ “Rebuilding, Restoring, Renewing Puerto Rico” initiative from 2018 to 2020. And from 2021-2022 she was called to serve as the full-time Intercultural Ministries strategist. She has served in short-term missions in Thailand, Haiti, and the Republic of Georgia in addition to speaking at theological ecumenical encounters in Tanzania and Brazil. Her passion for mission and social justice defines every aspect of her ministry. In 2018, she earned a Master of Divinity degree at Seminario Evangélico de Puerto Rico. In 2020, she became a certified Project Management Professional (PMP®). And in 2024, she completed a certificate on Leading Diversity-Oriented Ministries from the Berkeley School of Theology. She has been an ordained minister in Iglesias Bautistas de Puerto Rico since 2022.