Biographies
Philip Darrow
Phil Darrow developed a close relationship with the Diocese of Renk while a member of the Renk Ministry Partnership at St. Michael’s in Barrington, IL, traveling to Renk and various other dioceses several times since 2008. Having headed past fundraising efforts both for Renk Theological College and for the Province of the ECSS, Phil has worked more recently in support of AFRECS’ current peacebuilding and education initiatives, and on strengthening our relationships with Episcopal Church leaders in the Sudans. Now a member of Church of the Ascension in Denver, CO, Phil is retired from a career as a lawyer in the homebuilding industry. He has been on the AFRECS Board since 2008 and has served as its President since 2016.
Steven Miles
Steven Miles is a retired Senior Counsel at the international law firm Baker Botts LLP in Washington, DC , and non-resident Fellow at the Baker Institute’s Center for Energy Studies, Rice University, focusing on international and energy matters. During his 35 years in legal practice, he focused on international and energy matters. Steven was resident in Saudi Arabia from 1992-94, where he opened a law office in Jeddah. He managed the Middle East practice for two law firms thereafter, and served as the lead outside counsel for the National U.S. Arab Chamber of Commerce for a decade. Steven graduated with a JD degree from Cornell Law School and an MBA degree from the Cornell Graduate School of Management in 1984, and with a Bachelor of Arts degree from Union College in 1980. Steven and his family attend St. Thomas Episcopal Church in McLean, Virginia. He has been a member of the AFRECS Board of Directors since approximately 2010.
Anita Sanborn
Anita Sanborn retired as President of the Colorado Episcopal Foundation in 2018 after serving in that capacity for 15 years. She has been actively engaged with the Sudanese community in Colorado since 2000. In 2004, she joined the Board of AFRECS. During her first season on the Board she traveled to Darfur and South Sudan many times . Following a hiatus, she rejoined the Board in 2019. She is currently a Trustee of the Iliff School of Theology and served as Chair of the Board of Trustees from (2017-2019). Anita is now engaged in the development of the Eco Justice Center at Iliff and is active with the Women’s Alliance. Her early career focused on community organizing, health planning, maternal and child health and long term care. Anita held senior management positions with the national Alzheimer s Association after more than a decade as the Executive Director of the Rocky Mountain Alzheimer’s Association. She earned a Master’s in Public Administration from the Andrew Young School of Public Policy at Georgia State University.
Lawrence Duffee
Beginning in 2010, Duffee, spent three years as a missionary from The Episcopal Church in the USA to the Episcopal Church of Sudan — initially intending to devote only four months to helping the Provincial Secretary’s office in Juba develop improved methods of financial management. Thereafter he worked for three years with IMA (Interchurch Medical Assistance) World Health, followed by four years with the British civil engineering firm Mott MacDonald in their program to encourage enrollment and retention of girls in school, all of it in South Sudan. Returning to the US in March 2020, he resumed working with IMA World Health (now under the umbrella of Corus International) as an international finance analyst. In this role he provides support to IMA’s office in South Sudan and remains engaged with developments in that country. Larry Duffee holds an MPA from the University of Virginia and an MBA from Wake Forest – Babcock Graduate School of Management. Duffee’s home parish is St George’s Episcopal Church in Fredericksburg, Virginia, where he and his wife live with their one young child.
The Rev. Susan Bentley
Susan E. Bentley retired after serving 23 years as rector of St. James Episcopal Church in Roanoke, Virginia, and pastor during the past 14 years for a “nesting” congregation of South Sudanese who share space with the English-speaking congregation. Born in Chicago in 1953, she graduated from Hollins University and served three parishes as Director of Christian Education, before attending Seabury-Western Theological Seminary and receiving her Master’s of Divinity in 1990. She has served as priest and pastor at parishes in Evanston, Illinois and throughout the Diocese of Southwestern Virginia. Meeting the American missionary Marc Nikkel on his visits to the U.S. ignited awareness and compassion for the people of Sudan. Two decades later when Sue actually met Sudanese refugees in Roanoke, Virginia, their friendship deepened her appreciation for the people of the Sudans and their faith in God. When the referendum on independence for South Sudan was held in 2011, Sue assisted members of the Sudanese diaspora in travelling to Alexandria, Virginia to vote. In 2022, Sue presented for ordination as an Episcopal priest Samson Mamour, a South Sudanese immigrant factory worker and proprietor of a cigarette shop in Roanoke, an Education for Ministry 4-year graduate, and a graduate of Virginia Theological Seminary, who had emerged as the spiritual leader of the South Sudanese congregation. Sue likes to quote Simon Sinek: “Leadership is not about being in charge. Leadership is about taking care of those in your charge.”
Ellen Davis
Ellen Davis is the Amos Ragan Kearns Distinguished Professor of Bible and Practical Theology at Duke Divinity School. The author of eleven books and many articles, her research interests focus on how biblical interpretation bears on the life of faith communities and their response to urgent public issues, particularly the ecological crisis and interfaith relations. Scripture, Culture, and Agriculture: An Agrarian Reading of the Bible (Cambridge University Press, 2009), integrates biblical studies with a critique of industrial agriculture and food production. Biblical Prophecy: Perspectives for Christian Theology, Discipleship and Ministry (Westminster John Knox, 2014), explores the prophetic role and word across both Testaments of the Christian Bible. Her most recent books are Preaching the Luminous Word (Eerdmans, 2016), a collection of her sermons and essays, and Opening Israel’s Scriptures (Oxford University Press, 2019), a comprehensive theological reading of the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament. A lay Episcopalian, she has long been active as a theological consultant and teacher within the Anglican Communion, especially in East Africa. Her current work explores dance, poetry, and visual arts as modes of interpreting Scripture.
Frederick Gilbert
Independent consultant focused on Africa and working in the fields of economic development planning, program management and evaluation since retiring from U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) in 1994. USAID career spanned 30 years of which 22 were in African field assignments (Ghana, Nigeria, Cameroon, Tanzania, Sudan and Ivory Coast), 17 in positions of executive responsibility for large unit management and seven years as Director of two field missions (USAID Mission to Sudan, and the Regional Office for West and Central Africa in Ivory Coast) and one Washington geographic office (Sahel West Africa). After leaving USAID, served as the Director of the core staff of the USAID-funded Famine Early Warning System, 1998 – 2000. Educated at the University of Minnesota, B.A., cum laude, in 1961 (International Relations with minors in International Economics and German) and at Tufts University’s Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, M.A.L.D. in 1963 and Ph.D. in 1976 (Concentrations in International and Development Economics).
The Rev. Frederick Houghton
The Rev. Frederick L. Houghton (Rick) is a retired priest of the Diocese of Eastern Michigan. He taught at St. Mary’s Theological School, Odibo, Namibia and the General Theological Seminary and served congregations in New York City, the Detroit area and the Diocese of Eastern Michigan. He has a MA and an ABD in African history from Michigan State University. In 2000 he spent six weeks at Kakuma Refugee Camp in Northern Kenya teaching in the Malek Bible School and briefly visited South Sudan with Bishop Nathaniel Garang of the Diocese of Bor. His current interest is the Democratic Party.
The Rev. James Hubbard
James Alan Hubbard is a priest who lives in Amherst, Virginia, and has served Episcopal parishes in Tennessee, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Missouri, and New York, as well as in Virginia. The author of a Ph.D. dissertation on the socio-biology of Canada Geese (Branta canadensis), a Little Theatre producer, and former principal of a school for psychiatric youth, Fr. Hubbard was also a fellow student at Fuller Seminary with the late Marc R. Nikkel, a long-term American missionary in Sudan. He loves to sing, holds a Certificate in liturgy and history from the General Seminary in New York City, and has created a year-long lectionary for Bible reading and personal prayer. He is married to Mary Jane Schroeder, a painter at Sweet Briar College, and is the father (or stepfather) of three and grandfather of nine. He has completed an East-West and a North-South bicycle trek across the U.S. and served as a host during summer sessions at Chatauqua, New York.
The Rev. Richard Jones
Richard Jones is a priest of The Episcopal Church in the United States, canonically resident in the Diocese of Southwestern Virginia. Born in in Washington, D.C. in 1943, he studied history at Oberlin College, received the M. A. from the Johns Hopkins School of International Studies and the Ph.D. in theology from the University of St. Michael’s College, Toronto. He was the founding president of American Friends of the Episcopal Church of Sudan in 2005 and has been involved in Christian-Muslim relations for 30 years. After teaching Mission & World Religions at Virginia Theological Seminary from 1988 to 2009, he taught Muslim-Christian Studies in the Washington Theological Consortium 2009-2014. He is the author of How to Talk with your Muslim Neighbor (Forward Movement Publications, 2004) and a life of Jesus for young Muslim readers entitled Jesus, Son of Mary. With his wife Christine, he lives in Alexandria, Virginia, and serves as Parish Visitor at Christ Church.
Thomas Staal
Staal retired in 2019 as Counselor/Senior Advisor after a career with the United States Agency for International Development, starting as an Emergency Program Officer in Khartoum in the aftermath of the East Africa famine of the mid 80s, then as a Food for Peace officer covering Ethiopia, southern Sudan, Uganda, and Somalia. He held many other positions for USAID in Washington and in the field, including Mission Director in Ethiopia and Iraq. Born in Bahrain to missionary parents, raised in Iraq and Kuwait plus boarding school in southern India, he holds degrees from Hope College (Michigan), Columbia University, and the National Defense University. Prior to his work with USAID, Tom had been country representative for World Vision International in Sudan, 1985 -88 and government relations representative for Arabian American Oil Company (ARAMCO) in Saudi Arabia, 1977-83. Tom’s wife, Ann, formerly taught music at the Khartoum American School, obtained a Master’s in Theology at Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington, DC, and is ordained in the Mekane Jesus Ethiopian Evangelical Church.
Jacki Wilson
Jacqueline (Jacki) Wilson has extensive peacebuilding experience in Sudan, South Sudan, and around the world. She served over a decade with the U.S. Institute of Peace, conducting conflict resolution programs in over 25 countries including Sudan, South Sudan, Yemen, Niger, and Colombia. Her peacebuilding focus has included peace processes and peace agreements, and customary mechanisms of mediation and conflict resolution. A practitioner/scholar, she has published on religious actors in South Sudan, local peace processes, legitimacy in local peace processes, and about transitional justice in Darfur. She earned her doctorate from Georgetown University in 2014 focusing on the traditional restorative justice mechanism of blood money. She contributed to the Sudan Comprehensive Peace Agreement process and trained negotiators for the Darfur Doha Peace Process. She retired as a Lieutenant Colonel after serving an active and reserve career in the U.S. Air Force, and now works for the Department of the Interior’s Office of Collaborative Action and Dispute Resolution. She has served as an international election observer in Sudan and Kenya. She studied Arabic and lived in the Saudi Arabia and Kenya, and now resides in Arlington, Virginia, with her husband Mike and their daughter.
Executive Director Biography
Dane F. Smith Jr.
Dane Smith assumed the role on an interim basis in October 2019 and became Executive Director in June 2020. An AFRECS Board member since 2016, he has been a consultant and lecturer on international peacebuilding, with a recent focus on faith-inspired peacebuilding. He visited South Sudan for AFRECS in 2018 and both South Sudan and Sudan in 2020 and 2022. In 2014 and 2016 he was visiting professor at the Martin Luther King Jr. Evangelical University of Nicaragua, where he taught courses on “Christian Models of Peacebuilding.” In 2011 and 2012 he was Senior Advisor on Darfur in the Office of the U.S. Special Envoy to Sudan. From 2006 through 2009 he was a Senior Associate at the Center for Strategic & International Studies, Washington D.C., where he authored U.S. Peacefare: Organizing American Peace-Building Operations. From 1999 to 2003, he served as President of the National Peace Corps Association, the alumni group for former U.S. Peace Corps Volunteers. He was US Ambassador to Guinea 1990-1993 and to Senegal 1996-1999. Between those assignments he served as Special Presidential Envoy to Liberia 1995-1996. He was Deputy Chief of Mission at the US Embassy in Khartoum, Sudan, 1986-1989. He and wife Judy were Peace Corps Volunteers in Eritrea 1963-1965. He holds an A.B. from Harvard College and a PhD in international relations from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. He has studied at the Union Theological Seminary in New York and is a lay preacher in the United Methodist Church. He and Judy have three children and seven grandchildren.