Expanding Horizons in Spiritual Direction and Companionship in Times of Adversity
February 20, 2025 @ 9:00 AM – 10:30 AM PST
Canada (Eastern Time – ET): 12:00 PM – 1:30 PM
New Zealand (NZDT): 6:00 AM – 7:30 AM (February 21)
London (GMT): 5:00 PM – 6:30 PM
Kenya (EAT): 8:00 PM – 9:30 PM
We are proud and eager to introduce our inaugural Global Outreach session, launching on February 20th. This special event, focused on our theme of the year, will feature an engaging and impactful panel discussion with an international lineup of SDI board members including: Joan Alexander, Wanjîkū J. Kîarîe, Kate Keefe, Agnes Hermans, and Rev. SeiFu. By joining, you can directly contribute to a strong global SDI community that supports spiritual companionship without borders.
SDI Global Outreach Session
February 20 @ 9:00 am - 10:30 am PST
An event every month that begins at 9:00 am on day Third of the month, happening 12 times
Panel Members
Joan Alexander
Lloydminster, Saskatchewan (Canada)
Joan (she/her) is a spiritual director, supervisor and educator who lives in Saskatchewan, Canada. She serves on the faculty of several formation programs and collaborates with other spiritual companions to offer presentations, workshops and webinars on topics of interest including Spiritual Trauma and (2S)LGBTQIA+ Allyship.
Joan has a large practice that welcomes seekers from Canada, the USA and the UK. She is currently responding to a call to engage more Canadian spiritual directors in continuing education and collaboration opportunities.
Wanjîkū J. Kîarîe, M.Div, SD, SEP
Nairobi, Kenya (East Africa, Africa)
Wanjîkū M.Div, SD is a Trauma-Informed Teacher, Spiritual Director and Integrated Healer. She is the Founder and Lead at Integrated Living.
Wanjîkū has been formally offering Integrated Well-Being Services to Individuals, Groups and Organizations since 2008. Wanjîkū works with Children, Youth and Adults in their quest for Emotional, Mental, Spiritual, Social and Physical wholeness. She combines Trauma-Informed Somatic Experiencing, Spiritual Companionship, Ancestral Healing, Art and Nature Healing modalities in her work.
Wanjîkū holds a Masters of Divinity in Biblical Studies from Africa International University, Kenya and is a Spiritual Director Trained in the Holy Conversations, Spiritual Formation Program by the Anglican Diocese in New England, Massachusetts. She is a Somatic Experiencing ® Practitioner (SEP). . Wanjîkū is a student of Thomas Hubl since 2020, under whom she has and continues to be trained in Integrated ways of Healing Ancestral, Individual and Collective Trauma.
Wanjîkū is a Mother of five, Two of them are with the Ancestors and Three are with her. She currently lives in Nairobi, Kenya with her family. Wanjîkū enjoys being with and in nature, reading, writing, travelling and making new friends. She is a published author, a blogger and a liturgy writer
Kate Keefe
Oxfordshire, England (UK)
Kate is a voluntary project manager with the Centre for Applied Carmelite Spirituality in Oxford, UK. Under the director of CACS, Fr. Alexander Ezechkwu OCD and alongside a team of friars and lay volunteers she has led several projects to support a strong foundation for the centre.
This has included the foundation and development of the CACS international safeguarding policy; the Alumni community for post-graduate students of CACS Spritual Direction Formation Programme; the establishment of the Sacred Encounter Ministry, an online CACS ministry of spiritual direction, supervision of pastoral workers/spiritual directors and one to one guided retreats.
Future projects for January 2025 include her establishing an online supervision course shaped by Carmelite Spirituality and current thinking of excellence in the supervision of Spiritual directors.
Kate is a lifelong lover of learning; she was trained as a supervisor of spiritual directors by the Jesuits in London; as a spiritual director by the Carmelites in Oxford and the One Spirit Inter-faith community in the UK. She practices within the Contemplative Christian tradition of Catholicism and sits with a White Tara Buddhist group in Oxford monthly. She is committed to inter-faith dialogue and belongs to several inter-faith groups.
Kate has always been in active as a volunteer in civil society being involved in establishing a homeless centre in London and anti-racial work in her early years in teaching. Professionally Kate has worked in university lecturing, as a high school principal, as an assistant director for the Catholic Church in England and Wales. In church ministry she has worked from church cleaning to facilitating her parish Synod discussion group. She is married to Brian, and they are parents to their adult son Levi who joined their family at 6 years of age. She currently lives in Oxfordshire on the River Thames in England.
Agnes Hermans
Aotearoa New Zealand
Agnes Hermans (she/her) is a spiritual companion, supervisor, and serves as a hospice spiritual care coordinator. She is one of the founding coordinators of the Contemplative Network Aotearoa New Zealand.
Agnes has a background in social work, community development, health service management as well as governance roles in community organisations. Across these roles she has worked to improve equity of access to services and outcomes for Māori and raise awareness of the effects of colonisation. She has compiled two books with stories about her community.
Agnes lives on the Whangārei harbour in the north of Aotearoa New Zealand, with her husband Peter. They have three children and three grandchildren.
Rev. SeiFu Anil Singh-Molares, MTS (Ex officio)
Seattle, Washington (USA)
Rev. Seifu is the Executive Director of SDI and an ordained Zen Buddhist priest, as well as a practicing spiritual director/companion and motivational speaker. He is a veteran of numerous interfaith and interspiritual efforts over the years, including Seeds of Compassion in Seattle in 2008, where he was one of the chairs, and as founder and executive director of the Compassionate Action Network. He has a Master’s in Theological Studies from Harvard University.
Rev. Seifu is an accomplished speaker and university lecturer and is a key contributor for the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation. In a previous life, he was also an executive at Microsoft, where he successfully grew international groups and divisions and provided leadership to multi-cultural teams around the world.
