Have no fear! Just love!' invites FAN's new executive director

By Kaye Hult

The new executive director of Faith Action Network (FAN), Joyce del Rosario, recently reflected on her path into and the substance of this position.

"When the opening at FAN came up, it just felt right. It intersected with what I teach, practice and believe," said Joyce, who has always been about families and folks who are oppressed.

Since starting this position three months ago, she found that many of her family members were already involved with FAN. They filled four tables at FAN's Nov. 17 Annual Dinner in Renton.

FAN is Washington's state-wide, multifaith, nonprofit through which thousands of people and more than 160 faith communities partner in work for the common good.

FAN seeks to organize people to become "powerful voices of faith and conscience advocating for a more just, peaceful and sustainable world."

That effort includes calling people of faith to communicate with elected officials about social issues and to advocate for a just, sustainable world.

"I'm in learning mode. I love the staff I work with, the volunteers and the board. I am traveling around the state to meet our constituency," said Joyce during a recent visit in Spokane.

"I'm glad to meet the people who have been doing the work and to see resistance to oppression happening," she continued. "We have to keep in touch with each other."

Joyce left college at the University of Washington in 1996, expecting to be a journalist or be involved in communications in some manner.

Along the way communication came to include other skills, such as public speaking related to ministry and nonprofits.

While growing up in Seattle, she and her extended Filipino family were active with United Methodist congregations and Filipino activities through which she learned about Filipino culture and issues.

From 1996 to 2000, she attended Princeton Seminary, where she earned a master of divinity degree.

"I knew I was called to be in ministry, not so much in church, but in the community," she affirmed.

When Joyce returned to Seattle, she worked with World Vision's domestic youth program and with Young Life's urban training in the Beacon Hill area. There her involvement was with the interfaith community and with many Filipino churches.

When funding went dry in 2006 in Seattle, Joyce moved to Daly City, Calif., to continue her outreach with youth in a community that was more than 50 percent Filipino.

Joyce became a counselor at a private school and took a weekend job with young mothers on subsidies. That job led to her being executive director of New Creation Homes for mothers aged 15 to 22 years. She learned about their needs and coordinated services for them.

 New Creation Homes provided the young mothers with a home and 24/7 care. It was supported by Silicon Valley churches. Joyce began to focus on the intersection of those who could afford to live in the area and those who had little.

Joyce next earned a doctoral degree in intercultural studies at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, continuing to seek how best to bring together those with privileges and vulnerable folk, and how to advocate for and with vulnerable people.

From 2019 through 2022, she taught Christian practice at Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley, training students to go into nonprofit or church jobs.

Returning to Seattle in 2022 as director of multi-ethnic programs at Seattle Pacific University, she served students of color.

Since starting Nov. 1 at FAN, she has met with people in different faith communities and congregations, connecting with the rich and the poor.

"This is so right for me now to be here," she said. "It's encouraging to me that my own family and community is already involved."

Joyce is one of three full-time staff along with Kristin Ang, the policy engagement director, and Elizabeth Dickinson, partnership coordinator. Other staff are Jess Ingman, North Central Washington regional organizer, Blake Alford, operations coordinator, and Brianna Dilts, Eastern Washington regional organizer.

Joyce's goals include increasing the capabilities and capacity of the staff.

"We need more folk," she said. "I hope to add more hours for our part-time community organizers so they can better mobilize our faith communities for just action."

Pleased that FAN surpassed its fundraising goal at the Annual Dinner, Joyce said her priority is developing the scope of funding for sustainability and growth.

"FAN has a stable base, and is needed in these times," she said.

"I am inviting people from different cultures in different parts of the state to work together. My idea is that we all be in solidarity across culture and geography," she continued. "We can't just BE. We want to broaden, diversify and multiply our base.

"We seek to develop and inspire high school- and college-aged students to mobilize their already passionate and educated generation toward justice," she said, as part of a call to expand diversity in FAN throughout the state.

"In my studies of scripture and the sacred texts, I have come to believe that God has a special love and compassion for the poor, the vulnerable and the oppressed," she said at the dinner.

"Because that is my understanding, I know we should spend our time and resources loving the most vulnerable among us," said Joyce, who, as a brown Filipino woman, is aware of the vulnerabilities people in her own family experience.

She quoted her pastor, Gilson Bantam at Quest Church in Seattle, "Faith is not the absence of struggle but the strength to stand upright against it in the face of it."

"We seek to create a Faith Action Network that is equipped to answer the inevitable harmful and violent actions planned for the most vulnerable among us," she said.

"Dream with me," Joyce invited dinner attendees. "As we take action, we need to have faith that we, as the beloved community, can resist and create change for the common good."

She also invited FAN partners to help "educate our faith communities about local and state initiatives."

During January, FAN announced the legislative priorities they shaped along with their coalition partners, statewide network, the FAN policy committee and the FAN governing board.

FAN's priorities include advocating for and implementing policies that advance shared values grounded in faith and spirituality. Those values are belonging and human dignity, justice and equity, interconnectedness, collaboration and pluralism.

The agenda calls for strengthening climate justice and environmental stewardship; advancing immigrant and refugee rights; fostering community safety, democracy and civil rights; increasing safe affordable housing and preventing homelessness, and expanding access to health care.

Joyce shared the concluding words of her address to the Annual Dinner.

"I am honored to be part of the Faith Action Network," she said. "I am honored to join you in the resistance. Friends, I encourage you today: Have no fear, just love, and as the young people say, 'Let's go!' I'm here in this place. I'm ready! Let's go!"

For information, call 206-624-9790, email joyce@fanwa.org or visit fanwa.org.