Jenny Yang provides oversight for all advocacy initiatives and policy positions at World Relief. She has worked in the Resettlement section of World Relief as the Senior Case Manager and East Asia Program Officer, where she focused on advocacy for refugees in the East Asia region and managed the entire refugee caseload for World Relief. Prior to World Relief, she worked at one of the largest political fundraising firms in Maryland managing fundraising and campaigning for local politicians. She is co-author of Welcoming the Stranger: Justice, Compassion and Truth in the Immigration Debate, serves as Chair of the Refugee Council USA (RCUSA) Africa Work Group, and was named one of the “50 Women to Watch” by Christianity Today.

Alejandra Ortiz is a Regional director for Compa (Christian university ministry) in México, serving communities of staff and students in the Northwest of the country. She encourages the formation of communities of disciples who share and live out the gospel and kingdom values in their universities. She is passionate in helping students live out their faith in the whole of life, and use their studies to serve their communities.

For the past 6 years Ale has been leading students from México and the U.S. in learning and exposure projects to understand more about life in the border, and immigration issues. She is a bridge builder between churches, students and local NGO's. She and her husband are active in a church that serves a shelter for migrants and refugees. and they are alsoa part of a small intentional Christian community.

Some of the most important events in her life have happened in border cities. She was born in San Diego; USA, grew and got married in Tijuana,México- her hometown- and her daughter was born in Vancouver, Canada (while she finished her MA in Theology and Church HIstory at Regent College). Ale loves to have coffee, chai, travelling, walking and writing in her blog about theology and life.

Rev. Alexia Salvatierra is the author with Dr. Peter Heltzel of “Faith-Rooted Organizing: Mobilizing the Church in Service to the World” (Intervarsity Press) and the founder of the Faith-Rooted Organizing UnNetwork. She is a Lutheran Pastor with over 40 years of experience in congregational (English and Spanish) and community ministry, including church-based service and community development programs, congregational/community organizing and legislative advocacy. She serves as Affiliate Faculty for the Centro Latino and School of Intercultural Studies for Fuller Theological Seminary and ongoing Adjunct Faculty for the Masters in Urban Studies at Eastern University and Masters in Urban Transformational Leadership program at Azusa Pacific University, and has served as adjunct faculty for a number of other colleges and seminaries in the US and overseas. In addition to coordinating the Welcoming Congregations Network/Guardian Angels Project and assisting at Hope Lutheran Church, she serves as a consultant (training, facilitating, organizing and leading strategic planning) for a variety of national/international organizations, including World Vision, Intervarsity Christian Fellowship and the Christian Community Development Association. She has been a national leader in the areas of working poverty and immigration for over 20 years, including co-founding the national Evangelical Immigration Table, the 2007 New Sanctuary Movement, the Guardian Angels project, and the Matthew 25 Movement. From 2011-2014, she served as the Director of Justice for the Southwest California Synod of the ELCA under Bishop Nelson. From 2000 to 2011, she was the Executive Director of Clergy and Laity United for Economic Justice—beginning as the director of CLUE in Los Angeles and then as the first CLUE-CA director. CLUE-CA is a statewide alliance of organizations of religious leaders who come together to respond to the crisis of working poverty by joining low-wage workers in their struggle for a living wage, health insurance, fair working conditions and a voice in the decisions that affect them. Under Alexia’s leadership, CLUE-CA became known for its young leaders’ project, the New Sanctuary Movement and the “Our Children” project in Orange County which engages immigrant and non-immigrant evangelical congregations in joint ministry to immigrant youth facing deportation.
Before CLUE-CA, Rev. Salvatierra founded multiple programs and organizations, in the US and overseas. These included a gang prevention program for at-risk immigrant youth, a community computer center and an intergenerational community garden where the elderly taught at-risk youth to grow produce for sale as well as a collaborative of UC students, homeless leaders and congregation members providing emergency services in the streets of Santa Cruz and the migrant farmworker camps in Watsonville. She was founding director of the Berkeley Ecumenical Chaplaincy to the Homeless, a program that integrated social services, community organizing, pastoral care, and economic development for the homeless that was replicated in six US cities. In the Philippines, she trained urban poor women in Manila to serve as chaplains to their neighbors. She has been awarded the Changemaker award from the Liberty Hill Foundation, the Stanton Fellowship from the Durfee Foundation, the Amos Award from Sojourners, the Giants of Justice award from CLUE LA and the Prime Mover fellowship from the Hunt Alternatives Fund.

Karen Gonzalez is a native of Guatemala. She is a speaker, writer, and immigrant advocate, who lives in Baltimore, MD. Karen works for World Relief and attended Fuller Theological Seminary, where she studied theology and missiology. Her first book for Herald Press will be released in May 2019: The God Who Sees: Immigrants, the Bible, and the Journey to Belong. You can connect with her on Twitter and Instagram: @_karenjgonzalez where you’ll find her musing about theology, baseball, and her passion for tacos.