Meet Our Staff

Sarah Augustine profile photo

Sarah Augustine

Co-Founder and Executive Director

Sarah Augustine, who is a Pueblo (Tewa) descendant, is co- founder and Executive Director of the Coalition to Dismantle the Doctrine of Discovery. She is also the co-founder of Suriname Indigenous Health Fund (SIHF), where she has worked in relationship with vulnerable Indigenous Peoples since 2005. She has represented the interests of Indigenous community partners to their own governments, the Inter-American development bank, the United Nations, the Organization of American States Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, the World Health Organization, and a host of other international actors including corporate interests. She is a columnist for Anabaptist World, and co-hosts the Dismantling the Doctrine of Discovery podcast with Sheri Hostetler. She has taught at Heritage University, Central Washington University, and Goshen College. In Washington State, where she lives, she serves in a leadership role on multiple boards and commissions to enable vulnerable peoples to speak for themselves in advocating for structural change.  She is author of the book The Land Is Not Empty: Following Jesus in Dismantling the Doctrine of Discovery (Herald Press 2021), and co-author, with Sheri Hostetler, of  So We and Our Children May Live: Following Jesus in Confronting the Climate Crisis (Herald Press 2023).

Sheri Hostetler

Co-Founder

Sheri Hostetler is co-founder of the Coalition to Dismantle the Doctrine of Discovery and is currently the Administrative Leadership/Advancement Director.  With Sarah, she co-authored the book So We and Our Children May Live: Following Jesus in Confronting the Climate Crisis (Herald Press 2023) and co-hosts the Dismantling the Doctrine of Discovery Podcast.  She has been the Lead Pastor at First Mennonite Church of San Francisco since 2000.  She was also one of the founders of what is now called Inclusive Mennonite Pastors, a coalition of pastoral leaders seeking LGBTQ+ justice in the church. A poet and writer, her work has appeared in A Cappella: Mennonite Voices in Poetry. She is trained as a spiritual director and a permaculturist, and lives with her husband, Jerome Baggett, and their son, Patrick, on an island in the San Francisco Bay.

 

 

Amanda Pittman

Episcopal Organizer

Amanda Pittman is an Episcopal Organizer with the Coalition to Dismantle the Doctrine of Discovery, where she facilitates the Episcopal Indigenous Justice Roundtable.  Amanda is a Pueblo (Tewa) descendant through her mother’s family, who came to southern Wyoming as part of a larger diaspora from Northern New Mexico. She still lives and works in Wyoming on Cheyenne, Arapaho, and Lakota lands.

Raised Catholic, she has found a spiritual home in the Episcopal Church. She hears Jesus’ call to love one another as an imperative to seek justice and liberation alongside the oppressed and vulnerable. Amanda holds a BA in Anthropology, and she has been a long-time grassroots organizer in her local community. Throughout all her work, she weaves art, craft, and a reverence for the Earth.  

Joe Hubbard

Episcopal Organizer

Joe is an Episcopal priest in North Dakota. He serves as the Convener of the Episcopal Indigenous Justice Roundtable, a network of Episcopal communities, congregations, and diocese committed to joining Indigenous land and water protectors in the struggle for liberation and justice.  Joe was ordained to the priesthood on Standing Rock Reservation in North Dakota, and he spent the first two years of his ministry learning alongside the Diné of Navajoland.  Joe served as the Vicar of St. Christopher’s Mission and the Ministry Developer and Priest-in-Charge of the Utah Region of the Episcopal Church on Navajoland.  Joe is originally from Montgomery, AL, where he founded a regional Civil Rights and Litigation law firm and served in the Alabama House of Representatives. 

Joe is compelled by a vision for uniting members of diverse communities together in mutual listening and learning as they work to weave their stories together in a shared narrative rooted in the reconciling love of Jesus.

molly block

Kohenet

molly finds home in fallen, crinkling leaves, bodies of water, and the breath of a cooling breeze on a hot Sonoran Desert day. Born and raised in Chicago, IL (lands where Očhéthi Šakówiŋ, Myaamia, Ho-Chunk, Potawatomi, Kickapoo, Peoria, and Kaskaskia peoples moved through for centuries), she now twirls and whirls her mindbodyspirit (ir)reverently on occupied Tohono O’odham and Pascua Yaqui lands, also known as Tucson, AZ. As a Kohenet, a Jewish community-minded ritualist, she spends her time kissing the earth, singing songs the winds inspire, and imagining and practicing ever-refined ways of relating to and with each other. This Work, together, builds the interconnected power we all crave, a power outside of structures of domination that has upheld and propelled the country falsely claiming to be the land of the free.

Reach out to molly@dismantlediscovery.org if you want to create new pathways+rituals for connection in your community, troubleshoot weaving networks across political ideology, or are in the Southwest and want to frolic and grieve and dream together!

Phoebe Chatfield

Development Organizer

Phoebe Chatfield is the Development Organizer for the Coalition to Dismantle the Doctrine of Discovery. She lives in Somerville, MA, on the land of the Massachusetts, Wampanoag, and Pawtucket peoples, between the Charles river and the Mystic river. A longtime organizer and network-weaver, Phoebe is passionate about climate and environmental justice and funding social change.
 
Prior to joining the Coalition, Phoebe served as the Staff Officer for climate change and environmental justice (creation care) for the Episcopal Church. She has a dual degree from Yale College in Environmental Studies and Ethnicity, Race, and Migration. Phoebe has settler roots in Turtle Island and in Aotearoa New Zealand, which inform her call to the work of truth and reckoning and dismantling systems of oppression. As Development Organizer she will support the Fundraising Committee, Land Justice Working Group, and Repair Network.

Alicia Maldonado-Zahra

Goshen College Scholar-Activist

Alicia Maldonado-Zahra is a descendent of Puerto Rican ancestors and the child of Madeline and David Maldonado. Alicia was born and raised in Fort Myers, Florida but left her hometown in her early 20s to pursue higher education. She attended Hesston College and then Eastern Mennonite University. During these years, she began to study various aspects of history that continue to shape our current contexts and methods of peacebuilding, such as Restorative Justice and Social Movements.

In 2019 Alicia moved to Northwestern Indiana, to the lands of the Potawatomi, with her spouse. Here her desire to grow deeper in awareness of Scripture’s stance on peace and justice led to studying theology at Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary, where she was further encouraged to act for what is right. The Scholar-Activist position drew her attention as it relies on both the theoretical / educational aspects of harm and conflict and the practical and actionable gathering as individuals and communities to make things right. To make this position happen, GC has collaborated with the Coalition to Dismantle the Doctrine of Discovery that uplifts Indigenous leaders, sovereignty and rights. The role of the Scholar-Activist is to teach students about these complex issues, peacebuilding frameworks, support students in their peacebuilding work, and engage the broader community to join. Alicia works with the Goshen Repair Network with the hopes of expanding membership and engaging in systemic and policy change in the state of Indiana.

Rev. Dr. B. Cayce Ramey

Training Coordinator

The Rev. Dr. B. Cayce Ramey (he/him) is the Coalition Training Coordinator. He co-founded Racial Heresy with the Rev. Jabriel Ballentine, a ministry and podcast that challenges white supremacy and helps communities step into truth-telling and repair. Living on the homelands of the Piscataway people in Northern Virginia, Cayce leads pilgrimages to Ghana’s enslaver castles, where his own journey was transformed, and works with leaders across the U.S. to grow as change-makers for racial justice in the Church.

An Episcopal priest, Cayce was charged with heresy for his public work on reparations and racial justice—an experience that deepened his commitment to embodying the Gospel’s call to justice. Before his ordination, he served as a Marine Corps officer, deploying in Operation Iraqi Freedom. He holds degrees from MIT, Virginia Theological Seminary, and Virginia Union University, where he earned a DMin studying sacramental theology and transatlantic slavery.

Cayce is a writer, teacher, photographer, cyclist, husband, father, son, godfather, and friend. He co-hosts a podcast on racism and the Church and helps leaders use systems-focused tools to guide change in their own communities.

Rev. Canon Deborah J. Royals

Chaplain

Debbie is Pascua Yaqui from Tucson, AZ, a sister, mother to two wonderful young men and grandmother to four. She is an Episcopal priest, author, retreat leader and educator. Debbie earned a diploma in Nursing, a B.A. in Native American Spirituality and Theology from Prescott College, an M.Div. from the Church Divinity School of the Pacific and a M.A. in Religion and Society from the Graduate Theological Union. She is developing a “new church community” called Four Winds serving Indigenous people. After 13 years of service as the Canon for Native American Ministry in the Episcopal Diocese of Arizona, Debbie retired recently. She served for 19 years as Faculty for the Church Pension Group leading clergy wellness conferences in Physical Health and Spirituality, designing curriculum and developing the worship materials for all conferences. Debbie has served as Native Ministry Coordinator for Province VIII, Missioner for Native Ministry in the Dioceses of Northern California and Los Angeles, as chair of the Standing Commission on Mission & Evangelism and on the Executive Council’s Committee on Indigenous Ministry. She also participated in Lambeth 2008 as a presenter and writer for the Listening Process. Debbie led the Indigenous Theological Training Institute for 10 years and published several journals with Indigenous theologians, has published in books on prayer and daily meditations. Debbie has navigated the divide of being Native and Christian by forming a bridge as a Native American spiritual leader and Episcopal priest. Her passion for restorative justice and binding community is evident in every aspect of her life.

Deborah Yoder

Communications Manager

Deborah Yoder is a ’23 Bluffton University graduate with a degree in English and a minor in Peace and Conflict Studies. Deborah spent 14 of her formative years outside the U.S. as the daughter of missionaries in the countries of Benin and Burkina Faso. Growing up outside the U.S., Deborah witnessed the effects and continual harm that colonization has caused. She now partners her passion for justice and decolonization work into her role as the Communications Manager for The Coalition to Dismantle the Doctrine of Discovery. Deborah currently lives in Newport, KY, on the ancestral lands of the Osage Nation and the Shawnee.

Bekah Wilson

Administrator

Bekah Wilson is an enrolled member of the Confederated Tribes and Bands of the Yakama Nation. Her upbringing as an Episcopal “PK” (priest’s kid) and as a descendant of forced displacement has inspired her own journey of healing, knowledge, and discovery of her Yakama heritage. Bekah is devoted to advocacy and community-centered efforts. Her work is grounded in values of integrity, truth, resilience, and love. She brings a relational, people-first approach to everything she does, believing in the power of connection, listening, and collective growth. Outside of her professional role, Bekah is a wife and the mother of four spirited boys who keep her life busy and filled with love and joy.