Speaker Biographies
Pastor Sam Leonor
La Sierra University
Pastor Sam Leonor was raised in Central America where his parents were part of developing health care missions. Among others, he attended Southern College in TN, where he earned a secondary education degree. He worked as a youth pastor in Asheville, NC before attending Andrews University where he earned a Master of Divinity. Sam has a passion for making church life meaningful. He wants to see people attach themselves to communities of faith that are healthy, growing and full of love. He believes that, like the Apostle Paul, people can experience dramatic personal change when they come in contact with the Gospel. This happens when Jesus the Christ and His teachings are lived out through the body of Christ.Pastor Chris Oberg
La Sierra University Church
Pastor Oberg first joined the Pastoral Team in 2000 as Pastor for Children and Families at La Sierra University Church. Five years later her family moved to the Calimesa Church where she would take the responsibility of Senior Pastor. In 2009, they were back at La Sierra University Church, the campus church of her alma mater. What brought them back? Largely the opportunity to work among the next generations with a conviction that the Christian life expressed through Adventist grace-driven priorities is worth pursuing and living. Pastor Oberg is double alumnus of La Sierra University, and she daily lives in a grateful awareness of how this University shapes her life. She is married to Kerby, a Physician-Scientist at Loma Linda University. There Kirby teaches, runs a research laboratory, and collaborates on all sorts of projects interested in congenital anomalies and birth defects. She has two daughters, Amanda and Alisa who are both college-age. Amanda recently graduated with her BS in Business, and Alisa is studying Psychology.Pablo Ariza
Calimesa SDA Church
Bio Coming Soon!
Craig Hadley
Redlands SDA Church
Craig Hadley is the Young Adult Pastor at the Redlands Church, where
he heads up Shadow Ministries (www.shadowministries.org). Since 2010,
he has been the leader of the SECC Jr/Sr Bible Conference music. He
lives at home with his wife, Kimi, who is way too good for him, and
his English retriever, who doesn't retrieve anything.Beverly Maravilla
La Sierra University Church
Bio Coming Soon!
Mark Scandrette
Compassion International
Mark Scandrette (MarkScandrette.com) has been married to his wife Lisa for 22 years and they have three children who are in high school and college. Fifteen years ago they moved into an inner city neighborhood in San Francisco to start a neighborhood church community. They bought and fixed up an old crack house and began developing relationships in their neighborhood, and organized projects that would relate the gospel to the arts and help them engage with their homeless neighbors. In 2000, along with a small group of partners, and with mentoring from Dr. Dallas Willard, Mark and his wife started an organization called ReIMAGINE, which is a Center for Integral Christian Practice. Since that time Mark has organized experiments that combine missional projects, spiritual formation and intentional community practices. Ten times a year, ReIMAGINE hosts urban learning intensives for college and universities students. Mark writes and teaches about the practical aspects of following Jesus in the 21st Century, and over the years his work has expanded to training churches and mentoring faith leaders.
Michael Malarek
La Sierra University
Michael Malarek was born in Ascot, England, while his dad was studying theology at Newbold college. Machael's father is Polish and his mother is from Switzerland. Michael moved to Canada when he was 10 and spent most of his life there. Dr. Malarek completed his undergrad work at Brandon University in Manitoba, Canada, and received his Ph.D. at the University of Melbourne, Australia. He has also completed post-doc work at both the University of Basel, Switzerland and CALTECH, Pasadena, CA. Dr. Malarek started teaching at La Sierra University in 2008 and loves every minute of it! This summer, 2013, Michael is getting married to an Austrian girl from Vienna.Shariliyn Horner
La Sierra University
Sharilyn has lived in Southern California most of her life, except for 10 years that she spent in Oklahoma & Arkansas. Mrs. Horner attended 3 different academies and 6 different college/universities, earning her undergraduate here at La Sierra University, and her master's at Cal State Fullerton. She has not yet obtained her formal doctorate doctorate, but has received an unofficial honorary doctorate from the chaplain's office. This is Mrs. Horner's 17th year teaching math at La Sierra University, and she is happy to be just part-time now, which allows her to spend more time with her toddler, Søren. When Sharilyn is not teaching, she can usually be found outdoors with her family, hiking, biking, or skiing.Ken_Narducci
La Sierra University
Ken Narducci joined the La Sierra University music faculty in 2006 as Director of Wind and Percussion Studies. He directs the Wind Ensemble and Big Band, and teaches courses in conducting, counterpoint, orchestration, composition, music education, and coaches the wood-wind and brass quintets. He grew up in Hayward, California, attending public schools and graduating valedictorian from Hayward High. In 1980, he graduated from Pacific Union College with a BMus in trumpet performance, and was awarded a graduate teaching fellowship at the University of Oregon. There he played with the faculty brass quintet, wind ensemble and orchestra, taught undergraduate trumpet majors and brass methods courses, but gradually shifted emphasis to music theory and literature, earning a DMA in Music Theory in 1989. He was hired on at PUC in 1982 where for 25 years he taught theory and analysis, counterpoint, orchestration, composition, conducting, applied brass, methods courses, and directed the Symphonic Wind Ensemble, Jazz Band, and chamber wind groups. In 1990, Dr. Narducci received the local and national Zapara Excellence in Teaching Awards in the humanities, the Educator of the Year award in 1995, and was honored as chair of faculty senate in 2005. He played trumpet regularly with the Napa Valley Symphony, but has more recently taken up the horn and currently plays with the Moreno Valley Wind Symphony and La Sierra University based chamber groups. He is happily married to Julie, an elementary music education specialist and fellow Zapara recipient, and who is La Sierra University’s Director of Alumni Relations. The Narduccis cannot imagine life without cats and are currently owned by three—Sukho, Kiji, and Latte.Alexia Salvatierra
Southwest California Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church
Rev. Alexia Salvatierra is currently the Director of Justice Ministries for the Southwest California Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. She also serves as a consultant (training, facilitating, organizing and leading strategic planning) for a variety of national/international organizations. Her clients include World Vision USA/World Vision International/Women of Vision, the Womens’ Donor Network, Auburn Theological Seminary, Interfaith Worker Justice, PICO, Sojourner’s, Intervarsity Christian Fellowship and the Christian Community Development Association. She is adjunct faculty at the New York Theological Seminary and Biola University, and has lectured at Fuller Seminary, University of Southern California and UCLA. She is currently under contract with Intervarsity Press for a book on Faith-Rooted Organizing.
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. CLUE-CA’s mission is to build a faith-rooted movement for economic justice throughout California, utilizing an original “faith-rooted” organizing model which integrates insights from the civil rights movement, Latin America and the Philippines to equip faith leaders to contribute their unique gifts and resources to larger movements for economic and social justice. Under Alexia’s leadership, CLUE-CA became known for its leadership development program for young leaders of all faith traditions and its work with immigrant evangelical congregations. CLUE-CA was the initial lead agency for the New Sanctuary Movement, in which congregations in 37 cities around the country accompany and support immigrant workers and their families facing deportation. CLUE-CA also coordinates the “Our Children”/Loving the Stranger project which engages immigrant and non-immigrant evangelical congregations in joint ministry to immigrant youth facing deportation, carries out congregational education about immigration and organizes pastoral and congregational dialogues. In 2011, Rev. Salvatierra helped to catalyze and organize the national Evangelical Immigration Table (the broadest coalition of moderate and conservative faith organizations to ever support immigration reform.)
Before coming to 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 in Fresno, a community computer center and an intergenerational community garden where the elderly taught at-risk youth to grow produce in Oakland 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.Jesse Seibel
Hawaii Conference
Jesse Seibel is the Youth Director for the Hawaii Conference. As an alumnus of La Sierra University and Andrews Theological Seminary, he considers himself a life-long student of the teachings of Jesus.Jesse enjoys surfing, the outdoors, good books and film, and sharing the gospel with people, especially those who think they heard it all before. He is married to Shilhi Seibel, who owns and operates Passion Roots, an wedding and event design company. They have 3 children: Noah, Liya, and Isaac.
Linda Tambunan
La Sierra University
I am currently a second year student in the Masters of Divinity program. I graduated from UCLA in 2010 with a degree in psychology and education. I took a year off from school, in order to build up my resume for graduate school in counseling, but God has lead me down this exciting journey and I am blessed to be a part of this program. I attend and serve at the Loma Linda Indonesian Church.
Lauren Lopez
La Sierra University
I was born in Keene, Texas and grew up there. I went to Keene Adventist Elementary School and Chisholm Trail Academy, then I spent my freshman year of college at Southwestern Adventist University. I lived in Keene for 19 years and then the summer before last year, my family and I moved here to California and I transferred to La Sierra University. Now, I have been here for two years and I am a religious studies major, pre-seminary in my 3rd year of college.
Derrick Cruz
La Sierra University
I am a 29 year old NuYorican (which is a person Puerto Rican born and raised in New York City). Who just before moving to California worked as an Alcohol Substance abuse counselor at an organization called "Project Renewal." Most of his work in the that field was done at a crisis center in Lower Manhattan. I've seen all walks of life and have learned that change is a process that happens a heart beat at a time.
Mario Perez
Escondido SDA Church
Mario graduated from Pacific Union College with a degree in Theology and Spanish and later awarded a diploma of forgiveness by La Sierra University. He is currently pastoring at Escondido SDA Church where he serves as associate pastor and special advisor to Gerald Penick (jk in case he reads this). Mario believes he has the greatest job in the world: To teach, preach, and uplift Jesus!
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