Grant Project
Together in Difference
Peace. Justice. Compassion.
These are not just values but ways of living, parenting, and growing in faith together. We explore them as we consider how to nurture the beloved community, starting at home.
Hosts Anita and Jodi-beth open the series by sharing their journey of listening deeply to children—to their joy and hope, their longing for fairness, their spiritual insights. With stories and reflections from their experience of accompanying children in their deep ponderings of big questions, they invite us into conversations at the crossroads of parenting, faith, and the church’s history of othering.
Podcast Episodes
Episode 1: Doctrine of Discovery Happening Now
Jodi-beth and Anita have a conversation with Sarah Augustine about the fundamental injustice and indignity contained in these texts created by Christians more than 400 years ago.
Project Leader: Jodi-beth McCain
As a beloved adopted child, Jodi-beth grew up White while always imagining she could be related to anyone. She knew herself as God’s child, studied Christian ethics at Duke University, then spent nearly a decade working with organizations in Bolivia rooted in the love and justice of Jesus.
After becoming a mother herself, Jodi-beth found part of her birth family in Puerto Rico. Today she proudly identifies as Latine—speaking only Spanish at home with her daughters.
For the past 20 years, Jodi-beth has lived on the ancestral lands of the Piscataway people,and accompanied children as they journey with the Good Shepherd, seeking together to nurture the beloved community.
Project Leader: Anita Vincent
Born in India, Anita grew up in a vibrant home where the constant hum of family activity centered around entertaining guests from many backgrounds. In the quieter corners of her childhood, she found joy in science and the solace of books, sparking early passions for microbiology and community advocacy.
After years of biomedical research focused on malaria vaccine development, Anita encountered the Montessori method and Catechesis of the Good Shepherd—and found a new calling. She pursued Montessori training and earned a master’s degree in pastoral studies from the Aquinas Institute with a focus on CGS, later completing her doctorate in theology at La Salle University.
Anita brings this rich academic and spiritual background to her work as a guide to both children and adults.A central thread in Anita’s work is the call to build the Beloved Community—a vision shaped by the Beatitudes and the prophetic dream of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., where justice, dignity, and unity prevail. Her teaching and advocacy are rooted in the conviction that faith formation must be communal, inclusive, and transformative.