Walk Talk Listen Podcast

In Episode 246 of Walk Talk Listen, Samantha Jack, an Indigenous youth leader, educator, and policy advocate from Nuu-chah-nulth and Yale First Nations is the guest. Samantha reflects on growing up between worlds, navigating adoption, discovering her identity through Indigenous Studies, and how understanding intergenerational trauma transformed both her life and her purpose. We explore belonging,...

Healing begins long before medicine is prescribed. In this episode, Dennis Cherian reflects on a remarkable journey from growing up between Singapore, India and Dubai, spending much of his childhood in boarding school, to becoming a physician, missionary doctor, and global health leader. Through deeply personal stories, from treating more than one hundred patients a day in a remote mission hospita...

Growing up on the slopes of Mount Kilimanjaro, surrounded by coffee farms, banana trees, faith, family, and a strong sense of community, Edwin Maleko learned early lessons about service, perseverance, and responsibility. In this episode of Walk Talk Listen, Edwin reflects on his journey from a curious young boy inspired by his father's work with refugees to becoming Program Manager for Sightsavers...

“Everyone you're looking at is also you.” That James Baldwin-inspired line sits at the heart of this conversation with flutist, composer, educator, and collaborator Anne Drummond.   In Episode 243 of Walk Talk Listen, Maurice Bloem speaks with Anne about music, creativity, improvisation, community, and the people who shape our lives. Raised in Seattle by music educators and profoundly influenced b...

In this episode of Walk Talk Listen, I speak with Jody Fry about the journey that led him from engineering and organizational leadership to becoming one of the leading voices on spiritual leadership and leadership for sustainability. We explore purpose, belonging, hope, sustainability, and the challenge of bridging competing worldviews in an increasingly polarized world. Along the way, Jody reflec...

David Beckmann returns to Walk Talk Listen for a third conversation. An economist, Lutheran pastor, World Food Prize laureate, and former President of Bread for the World, David has spent decades working to end hunger and poverty through advocacy, faith, and civic engagement. This time, we discuss his new book, Poverty Abolitionists: Faith, Activism, and Hope for Difficult Times, which argues that...

In this episode of Walk Talk Listen, Maurice Bloem speaks with Caterina Tino, ACT Alliance’s Representative to the United Nations. Growing up in Rome, Caterina was shaped by a family that lived their faith through service, a Scout movement that emphasized citizenship and responsibility, and an early encounter with the world of international development that sparked a lifelong calling. What followe...

In this episode of Walk Talk Listen, Maurice speaks with Krysten Vazquez, a holistic physician assistant, clinical herbalist and sound healer whose life journey bridges medicine, spirituality and connection to nature. Raised in Miami in a deeply outdoors-oriented Cuban family surrounded by horses and rescued animals, Krysten reflects on the experiences that shaped her understanding of healing, res...

Ignacio Packer’s journey is not defined by titles or roles, but by a thread connecting people, places, and moments. From early experiences shaped by the Cold War to a pivotal decision to leave a career in finance for humanitarian work, Ignacio reflects on what it means to live with purpose and passion. A simple but powerful moment—his mother telling him to “free yourself”—set him on a path that wo...

In this episode of Walk Talk Listen, Maurice Bloem speaks with Patrick Watt, CEO of Christian Aid, about what it means to lead in a time where poverty, climate, and inequality are deeply intertwined. Patrick reflects on his journey from a rural upbringing in England to leading one of the world’s most respected faith-based development organizations, sharing how his background in theology and develo...

In this deeply personal and courageous conversation, Suzie Greco shares a journey that moves from silence and survival to truth-telling and transformation. What begins as a story of trauma and fragmentation unfolds into something much larger: a reflection on how personal experience can illuminate systemic failure. Through the powerful metaphor of the “Stone Sphere,” Suzie describes how the structu...

Rev. Toni Kruger-Ayebazibwe takes us on a deeply personal journey from growing up as an outsider in apartheid South Africa to becoming an ordained minister and global advocate for SOGIE inclusion in faith spaces. Raised in an atheist household and navigating identity, belonging, and authenticity from a young age, Toni shares how embracing her truth as a lesbian shaped her path, even when it meant...

In this episode, Maurice sits down with David Elcott and Barney Aspray to explore the space where faith, policy, and lived experience meet. Rather than treating immigration as a purely technical or political issue, the conversation unpacks how religion shapes the moral imagination behind public debates—how we define belonging, responsibility, and community. Moving between practice and theory, Davi...

In this episode of Walk Talk Listen, Maurice sits down with Ben Olsen—technologist, philosopher, and pioneer in responsible AI—to explore what happens when data meets discernment. From his early days learning the hard edges of technology to helping shape some of the first responsible AI frameworks inside major tech companies, Ben shares a journey that is anything but linear. Rooted in a background...

In this episode of Walk Talk Listen our guest is Eleftheria (Ella) Egel, whose name literally means “freedom”, a theme that runs deeply through her life and work. Growing up in Greece in a family shaped by post-war values of hard work, security, and compliance, Ella shares how she followed a path that looked right on the outside, yet felt increasingly disconnected on the inside.   We explore her j...

In this episode of Walk Talk Listen, Maurice Bloem speaks with peacebuilding and humanitarian leader Amjad Saleem, whose work spans interfaith engagement, conflict resolution, and development across global contexts.   Amjad shares how growing up across Nigeria, Ethiopia, and the UK shaped his identity as a “third culture kid,” giving him an early appreciation for diversity, faith, and belonging. H...

In this episode of Walk Talk Listen, I speak with Jessica Roland, Senior Specialist for Inclusive Peace at the Network for Religious and Traditional Peacemakers, where she advances the leadership of women, youth, and marginalized groups through advocacy, training, and mediation work, and serves as Co-Chair of the Gender Working Group of the Multi-Faith Advisory Council to the UN. Growing up in a s...

In this episode of Walk Talk Listen, Maurice Bloem speaks with sociologist and qualitative research expert Dr. Elif Kuş Saillard, originally from Turkey and now based in France. Elif reflects on a life shaped by curiosity and questions. Growing up in central Anatolia, she developed an early habit of asking “why,” a habit that eventually led her to sociology and an academic career as a professor at...

In this episode of Walk Talk Listen, Maurice speaks with Dustin Wilson, Startup Community Manager at Nexcor in Rochester, New York. Dustin shares a deeply personal journey, from growing up between city and suburb, to working in the trades, nearly joining the military, pursuing music industry ambitions, and ultimately discovering entrepreneurship as a calling.   A first-generation college student,...

In this episode of the special series Crossing Thresholds, Maurice Bloem speaks with Hinauri Nehua-Jackson, a proud Māori–South Korean woman born in Aotearoa (New Zealand) and now based on Treaty 6 Territory in Canada. Hinauri introduces herself in her Indigenous language and shares the meaning of her spirit name, Kapiska Mahigan Isku Onitsigason — White Wolf Woman. From the beginning, it is clear...

In Episode 227 of Walk Talk Listen, Maurice talks with Jacco van Sterkenburg, Associate & Endowed Professor of Race, Inclusion & Communication at Erasmus University Rotterdam and newly appointed Chief Diversity Officer of the university. His research spans how media, sport, and gaming shape cultural narratives about race, ethnicity, gender, and leadership.   Jacco’s work draws on decades o...

Welcome to Episode 5 of Crossing Thresholds: Religion, Resilience & Migration, a special mini-series of Walk Talk Listen produced in connection with research by the Joint Learning Initiative on Faith & Local Communities (JLI) and Christian Aid on faith and climate migration.   In this episode, Maurice Bloem speaks with Biswash Chepang, an Indigenous rights advocate from Nepal, about what c...

Rich Havard is the Director of the Youth Mental Health Fund at the Decolonizing Wealth Project and in Episode 226, he shares his journey from growing up in a small town in rural Mississippi to becoming a leader at the intersection of spirituality, justice, and philanthropy. Reflecting on his upbringing, he speaks honestly about how experiences of difference, exclusion, and faith shaped his early s...

Welcome to Episode 4 of Crossing Thresholds: Religion, Resilience & Migration, a special mini-series of Walk Talk Listen produced in connection with new research by the Joint Learning Initiative on Faith & Local Communities (JLI) and Christian Aid on faith and climate migration. In this episode, Maurice Bloem speaks with Nidia Rosmery Bustillos Rodríguez, a Bolivian traditional healer and...

In this episode of Walk Talk Listen Filip Pedersen, senior political advisor at the Centre for Church-Based Development (CKU) in Denmark reflects on a life shaped by movement, service, and encounters across cultures — and how those experiences led him to work at the intersection of development, human rights, and freedom of religion or belief.   The conversation explores why freedom of belief is of...