Staff

Osagyefo Sekou (he/him)

Pastor for Theology and Arts

As the Pastor of Theology and Art at Valley and Mountain Fellowship. Rev. Osagyefo Sekou (he/him) has written two collections of essays.  Urbansouls: Meditations on Youth, Hip Hop, and Religion (Chalice Press 2016) and Gods, Gays, and Guns: Essays on Religion and the Future of Democracy (Chalice Press 2016). and the forthcoming Riot Music: Race, Hip Hop and the Meaning of the London Riots 2011 (Hamilton Books). He wrote, produced, and directed two musical documentary shorts, Exiles in the Promised Land (2007) and Mississippi: A Love Story (2018).  

With the Deep Abiding Love Project, he has helped train over thirteen thousand clergy and activists in militant nonviolent civil disobedience throughout the United States. He faced years in prison for his role in the Ferguson Uprising and spent six weeks on the ground in Charlottesville, VA training clergy in response to the Unite the Right rally. He is a founding national coordinator for Clergy and Laity Concerned about Iraq (CALC-I), which represents over 300 faith-based institutions and organizations working to end the war in Iraq. In 2006, CALC-I led a civil disobedience at the White House.

His music is a unique combination of Delta Blues, Memphis Soul, 1970s funk, and Gospel. His performances are one-part protest rally, one-part Pentecostal tent revival, and one-part late night juke joint.  He released three albums The Revolution Has Come; In Times Like These; and When We Fight, We Win: Live in Memphis. NPR’s Bob Boilen commented that Rev. Sekou delivered one of “the most rousing Tiny Desk performances”. His documentary short film, ‘Exiles in the Promised Land” is based on his visit to a Palestinian refugee camp and lecture in Beirut, Lebanon. It was selected for the Amnesty International Human Rights Film Festival (2009).  Rev. Sekou has lectured widely, including at Princeton University, Harvard Divinity School, the University of Virginia, University of Paris IV - La Sorbonne, and Vanderbilt University, and is a former Professor of Preaching in the Graduate Theological Urban Studies Program at the Seminary Consortium of Urban Pastoral Education, Chicago, IL. 

Reverend Sekou served as Pastor for Formation and Justice at First Baptist Church in Jamaica Plain, Boston. He was formerly Senior Pastor of Lemuel Haynes Congregational Church in Queens, served as Special Assistant on Social Justice to the Bishop for the Church of God in Christ, Senior Community Minister at New York’s Judson Memorial Church, and Social Justice Minister at Middle Collegiate Church, New York. He has been Fellow-in-Residence at the Brooklyn Society for Ethical Culture, and as Ella Baker Fellow at New York Theological Seminary's Micah Institute, he served as a strategist organizing clergy for economic justice in New York City. Rev. Sekou holds a Bachelor of Liberal Arts from The New School in New York where he concentrated in creative writing and continental philosophy.  Currently, is a MPhil/PhD candidate in Religious Studies at Goldsmiths, University of London.  His dissertation title is “Being and Somebodiness:  The Ferguson Uprising and the Making of Black Pentecostal Liberation Theology”.

DeAnza Spaulding Sekou (she/her)

Pastor for Congregational Care

Dr. DeAnza is the Pastor of Table Turning and Congregational Care.  She is the founder of  Renew Therapy & Consultation.  Dr. Spaulding is a trauma therapist whose practice centers the mental health services for the BIPOC LGBTQ community with a focus on domestic violence, internalized oppression and intergenerational trauma.  She holds a BS in Sociology from Central Washington University, a MA in Counseling Psychology, from the Seattle School of Theology and Psychology and a Phd in International Psychology from The Chicago School of Professional Psychology.  

Dr. DeAnza is a Dissertation Chair and Professor at The Chicago School of Professional Psychology, as well as an Adjunct Professor at The Seattle Institute of East Asian Medicine where she teaches courses on race, cultural competency and trauma informed care. 

For nearly a decade, Pastor DeAnza served as the Justice and Compassion Pastor at Quest Church in Seattle, where she founded the Q Cafe, outreach programs for the unhoused called To the Streets and The Bridge Care Center.  She was the director of Quest Community Development which provided resources and a venue space for local, national and international artists and musicians.  

Her research entitled Domestic Violence Disclosure Decisions of Latina Immigrants: A Phenomenological Study led her to become the research lead of the largest longitudinal domestic violence study in King County in partnership with Washington State Coalition for Domestic Violence and Michigan State University.  Dr. Spaulding has traveled to Turkey, China, Peru and Thailand to meet with internally displaced persons who are victims of domestic violence.  In 2015, she became the Fellow for the Center of Multicultural and Diversity Studies and was the research assistant on the disclosure decisions for the LGBTQ at the Bilgi University in Istanbul. 

Dr. DeAnza was inducted into the Edward Alexander Bouchet Graduate Society at Yale Graduate School in 2015.   She has been a member of Valley and Mountain for 7 years.  She served on the Board for 6 years and joined the staff in June of 2022.  Dr. Spaulding is currently working on a book entitled What if I Told You There was Nothing Wrong with You?: Racism and the Stigma of Mental Health.

Summer Diegel (any pronouns)

Pastor for Youth & Families

Summer Gail Diegel (any pronouns) is V&M's director for education and serves the community through leading our children, youth, and family ministry programs. Summer enjoys collaborating with people of all-ages in imagination, play, and exploring the Divine universe. Summer leads early childhood, elementary, and youth programs by designing inclusive curricula and leveraging technology to increase engagement. By guiding our volunteer teams, including providing safety and inclusion training they support the organization to foster trust and collaboration. Summer has also launched various community dialogues that encourage people to build understanding and create actionable change for uplifting youth leadership. Building on over a decade of their experience in the service of children, elders, & families with diverse needs, she embraces playfulness. They seek to care for people the way they have been cared for: with love and authentic action. In practice this means showing up alongside queer communities, growing relationships in churches, feeding their neighbors, participating in mutual aid, supporting overdose prevention programs, organizing healing & first aid support on the streets, and making zines, poetry, jewelry, art.

Summer is a full-spectrum care worker committed to teaching through modeling consent and compassion in learning, and practicing intergenerational community care. She does full spectrum support because it centers autonomy and choice. Summer has completed programs in full-spectrum care with Birth Advocacy Doula Trainings, Institute for Birth Breath Death, Faith Matters Network, Cornerstone, A Sacred Passing: Death Midwifery & Community Education, and others. The framework of full spectrum care is to provide non judgemental support in pregnancy, life, and end-of life regardless of a person’s chosen or unexpected outcome. Summer serves on the board of directors with A Sacred Passing where they offer community education in end-of-life preparation and care, including workshops on topics like children and teens grief, preparing advance directives and documents, and history of nonmedical death care. Summer graduated with a B.A. in comparative religion through the Theology & Religious Studies program at Seattle University in 2019, where they received the Sullivan Leadership Award. They are currently working towards a Masters in Divinity degree at Eden Theological Seminary. 

A student of earth-based and ecumenical Christian traditions, Summer leans into her Catholic and non-denominational family background. They have a love of scripture, rituals, stories, and especially seasonal festivals and feast days. Summer is connected to animist theologies, valuing stories of interconnectedness of God, earth, and earth’s creatures such as in Genesis and believes that “all that exists lives. All that lives is worthy of respect.” Their spirituality is informed by academic study and research as well as their lived experiences playing, growing plants from seeds, and imagining alternatives to the world as they know it as someone who has experienced interpersonal violence and poverty. In life so far Summer has grown beautiful faith relationships with change-makers, community organizers, and those who practice a variety of Christian traditions. Summer’s call toward care work began as a teenager, with her first role as a certified nursing assistant which they continued for six years. They have volunteered with grassroots and national organizations including Habitat for Humanity, Montana state’s Health Advisory Board, and as the National Region 5 Vice President SkillsUSA where they taught as a peer educator around the country, and met with senators and house officials in Washington, DC to discuss funding for career and technical education. They were awarded the National Volunteer Service Award by President Barack Obama in 2015. Summer worked providing assisted living support and home health care before moving to Seattle, Washington where Summer shifted to working a variety of outreach positions including at Plymouth Healing Communities, Lifelong, and Ventures, as well as seasonal roles nannying and providing elder care for Seattle families.