MGLSS (Maasae Girls Lutheran Secondary School) and OBA (Operation Bootstrap Africa)
Sunday, August 18, 2024 | 9:00 am | Fellowship Hall North
Briana (Bri) Engh, Operations and Communications Specialist at OBA, will be visiting Saint Andrew’s on Sunday, August 18.
She will speak in the 9:00 am Discipleship Hour Forum about the forced movement of the Maasai off of traditional lands, the current trends around arranged female child marriages and early pregnancy, and a sponsorship update for Witness Edward, the young woman currently being sponsored by Saint Andrew’s.
She will also be available for more conversation after the service.
Bri grew up in rural Minnesota. She loved fishing with her grandpa, exploring nature with her friends, and participating in sports, drama, and speech. Her parents worked in the foster care system her whole life, so there were always many children around her and her sister. Due to the unique nature of her upbringing and her exposure to the foster care system, Bri became interested in social justice, human rights, and advocacy. She graduated from the University of Minnesota-Duluth with a Bachelor’s Degree in Sociology and a Minor in Psychology. She then became an intern at First Witness Child Advocacy Center, a child-focused, non-profit agency offering hope, healing, and justice for alleged victims of child abuse and their families. After that experience she knew that non-profit advocacy was her true vocation and calling forevermore. Bri moved to the Twin Cities from Duluth in 2018 and worked at 3M to steady herself and get some professional experience, but it was not a job that filled her heart. She met her fiancé, Ryan (to whom she marries in October), during this time and he urged her to follow her heart and apply for non-profit jobs to use her passion and skills to make a difference. In February of 2020, just as the pandemic started, Bri was interviewed at OBA. The day the shelter-in-place order was issued, she was hired. Briana wears many hats: she manages sponsor/student relationships and communications, is the direct contact for the project partners in Tanzania, writes the “Dignity” newsletter, manages OBA’s social media and website content, travels to Tanzania with Discovery Tour groups, and coordinates OBA’s yearly event.
Discipleship Forums start with coffee and socializing at 8:45 am and the program begins at 9:00 am.
Forums are in-person only. With permission of the presenter, they will be recorded and posted online for later viewing.
Contact Communications Specialist Susan Hegedus, susan@salc.church or 425-746-2529, for more information.
