Two new district superintendents announced
Rev. Dawn M. Hand Rev. Eliezer Valentín-Castañón
Bishop Easterling names Rev. Dawn M. Hand new superintendent in Central Maryland
One thing people don’t know about the Rev. Dawn M. Hand?
She’s a certified steward for the National Park Service, caring for the Billy Goat Trail on the C&O Canal that hikers scramble over. The tendencies that guide her as she cares for people along their paths will serve her well as she begins a new journey of her own as the superintendent of the Central Maryland District.
Bishop LaTrelle Easterling named Hand to serve this district as its superintendent, beginning July 1.
“As the denomination is navigating the deep waters of theological difference, racial equity, and potential separation, we need leaders who can build bridges and shepherd conversation across diverse perspectives,” the bishop said. “Rev. Hand has demonstrated that gift throughout her ministry. Her strong communication skills also enable her to the tell the old, old story in new, innovative ways.
Hand’s journey has taken her from being “a cradle United Methodist” in North Carolina to serving as a religious communicator, a pastor, (including seven years as executive pastor at Foundry UMC in Washington) and into her current ministry as a superintendent in the Pittsburgh District in the Western Pennsylvania Annual Conference.
When Bishop Easterling invited her to serve on the Cabinet of the Baltimore-Washington Conference, Hand went into deep prayer. Prayer, she says, is vital to her life and she lives in awe of its power.
“Prayer is part of my DNA. It connects me more powerfully to God,” she said. “I’ve been stunned and stopped by prayer. … I pray, and God reveals God’s self through situations, through people, and through signs and wonders.”
Bishop Easterling knows the Cabinet will be blessed by her presence.
“She is creative, energetic, and has a wonderful sense of joy,” the bishop said. “Rev. Hand is first and foremost a deep disciple of Jesus Christ and committed to the mission of transformation. Her love of God leads her to embrace all of God’s creation, and her inclusive spirit inspires others to serve, work and love inclusively as well.”
Hand has been active in the church her whole life and was serving as a communicator in the Western North Carolina Annual Conference when she experienced a call to ordained ministry. She was named the denomination’s Communicator of the Year in 2004 by the United Methodist Association of Communicators.
But when she talked to a colleague about the stirrings of her heart, the colleague told her, “Listen, open up your heart for the voice of God, the action of God, the stirring of God. Then, you have to decide if you’re going to be obedient to that call.”
Hand wanted to be obedient, but she also believes in God as a partner and a miracle worker. She had just preached a sermon on Elijah and Elisha, which contained the words “double portion of blessing,” and was headed off to lead an Igniting Ministry training.
She prayed, telling God that if she heard the words “double portion,” she would enter the ordained ministry. Hand admits she often has conversations like this with God.
The weekend passed, the training was a success, and she had not heard the words. Then when the woman who dropped her off at the airport to go home prayed for Hand, she asked God to pour out a “double portion” of God’s Holy Spirit upon her.
“That had to be God,” Hand said. She didn’t look back.
In her ministry, Hand is a person who feels called to, and stands on, the side of justice.
“I’m not going to be silent,” she said. “I’m going to agitate, I’m going to help convict, I’m going to inspire and I’m going to encourage people to be their best God-given selves.”
She is proud to be a leader in a church she knows and deeply loves. But it is also a church that breaks her heart, she said. The denomination’s ordination prohibition against LGBTQIA people causes her to lift her voice against those who would be complicit in “picking and choosing who we want to be and serve in the church.” She is even more adamant about anti-racism and helping congregations – and not just leaders – speak out and act for change.
“My life’s trajectory has followed the call to justice,” she said. “This is who I am, and this is who I believe God called me to be.”
But Hand is also called to be connectional. In a way, she is the epitome of the connectional system, serving in many different ministries, and in many different areas in the Western North Carolina Conference.
United Methodism, she believes, is one of the world’s best hopes for connectionalism. It provides opportunities for people who are different and might disagree with one another to come together to work for a shared cause. Hand seeks out and delights in discovering the things people have in common that allow them to connect and move forward in ministry.
She learned about creating loving relationships from her parents and grandparents, and the congregation of St. Marks UMC in Charlotte, North Carolina, a place that “sutures her soul” when it feels like it may be torn. She is also deeply grateful for her professional coach and a close network of friends. Hand said what brings her sheer joy is being an aunt to her nieces and nephew whom she calls her “three heartbeats.”
She’s also excited about getting back on the trails at Great Falls and along the C&O Canal outside of D.C. Hand loves being in nature, and even takes regular injections to allow her to overcome allergies and hike and ride her bike.
She also loves shooting hoops. She received a basketball scholarship to Winston-Salem State University. Her love of sports and cheering for the Carolina Panthers brings her happiness.
Hand is excited about coming to the Central Maryland District to begin to form new relationships in this suburban region. She knows the potential for the churches in the district to make a stronger difference in their communities and the world is significant. She’s enthusiastic about building on the work of the current superintendent, the Rev. JW Park, and putting the shared prayers of the district into action.
As a people of faith, she said, “we pray, and then we act, we communicate, and then we act; we worship and then we act. Action follows everything we say. We read the Bible and then we act. We dream, and then, we act.”
Rev. Eliezer Valentín-Castañón appointed as Frederick DS
One of the Rev. Eliezer Valentín-Castañón’s spiritual gifts is curiosity.
“I’m sort of an explorer, always looking to find the connections and what’s next,” he said. He hopes this sense of discovery will serve him well in his new ministry as the Frederick District superintendent.
Valentín-Castañón traces his love of discovery back to when he was a boy growing up in Puerto Rico. It has accompanied him in his ministry at Trinity UMC in Frederick, where he currently serves, at the Monrovia Charge in the Central Maryland District, at churches in New York and New Jersey, and in his work at the General Board of Church and Society and later at the General Commission on Religion and Race.
Bishop LaTrelle Easterling appointed Valentín-Castañón as superintendent of the Frederick District, a position he will start on July 1.
“Rev. Dr. Eliezer Valentín-Castañón grounds his life and ministry in his own profound relationship with God through Jesus Christ. His worldview is mediated through that lens. That firm foundation will enable him to lead well through the liminal times ahead. He is a scholar, an advocate for justice and a deep listener,” the bishop said.
Bishop Easterling knows the Cabinet will be blessed by his presence.
“He knows the Frederick District intimately, which will enable him to hit the ground running. Likewise, the deep partnerships he has already established will be an asset in ecumenical and community collaborations,” the bishop said. In addition, “he has broad connectional experience, which will be an asset to the holistic work of the Cabinet. I look forward to welcoming him to our servant leadership team.”
Valentín-Castañón’s faith journey began in his homeland in Puerto Rico. When he was 14, he gave his life to Christ and, he said, “immediately wanted to serve God with my life from that moment on.” At 18, he was ordained as a pastor at an independent Pentecostal fundamentalist church and his gifts as a preacher were noted.
It was through the Bible that Valentín-Castañón connected with his faith.
“I was a very poor student, he said. “I wasn’t committed to school,” but “the Bible changed things.”
This is the book he read again and again. He claims that it was through the reading of the Bible that he really learned to read. The Bible became central to who he was and is today. “It gave me all these different stories of the work of God in the world. I felt God revealing God-self to me,” he said.
In 1984, after college, he went to Boston and, in 1985, to New York. In New York, he joined Fordham Road United Methodist Church Latino Ministry, one of the New York Annual Conference Churches in the South Bronx. He began preaching and people nudged him toward seminary. His love of the Bible has remained central to his journey. Then, he developed a passion for the writings of John Wesley, which he still holds to this day. These writings deeply affected Valentín-Castañón’s soul, as did the work of Samuel Silva-Gotay: “Pensamiento cristiano revolucionario de América Latina y el Caribe.”
His journey has allowed him to merge his knowledge of liberation theology with his earliest church foundations in the holiness movement which created a compelling Wesleyan vision of the world.
“When you open yourself to God and God’s leading, then anything is possible,” Valentín-Castañón said. “This is what I discovered many times. When you’re pastoring a church, you learn when it is time to convey the message that ‘yes, things may seem difficult and challenging, but that doesn’t mean they’re not possible.’ … If we trust God, we will see the hand of God at work.”
From serving his first church in 1990, through today, Valentín-Castañón believes a faithful church is a church of the neighborhood. Congregations need to be active in their communities and shaping people’s lives and helping neighborhoods to flourish.
At Trinity UMC, where he has served since 2013, Valentín-Castañón has watched as Frederick has grown in its cultural diversity. Today, he said, in some area schools, 80 languages are spoken.
“Diversity expands our understanding of who we are as a human race,” he said. He is looking forward to “taking advantage of this emerging reality and making it part of the wealth and blessing of the churches in the district.”
Caring for the people of the church fills Valentín-Castañón’s time. He has to prompt himself to take time off. But the passion that rivals his commitment to ministry is his family – his wife Magda and his grown sons Daniel and Eduardo.
As he begins to transition into his new ministry as superintendent, Valentín-Castañón has been thinking about the open heart, hands and doors of the church.
“I want to live that in every possible way. I hope I can be an instrument in the hands of God in everything I do in this new ministry,” he said.
When he thinks of the UMC’s moto: Open hearts. Open minds. Open doors., he is reminded of the words of the Spanish mystic Teresa of Avila:
“Christ has no body now but yours. No hands, no feet on earth but yours. Yours are the eyes through which He looks compassion on this world. Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good.… Christ has no body now on earth but yours.”
“We claim to be the body of Christ,” Valentín-Castañón said. “But the body of Christ doesn’t just sit down in the pews; the body of Christ goes out to change the world with the Good News of God’s Kingdom. I want to be a collaborator of God in everything I do.”