God’s hands and feet

by John Hopkins

Julia Jones ’97

Despite her own strong faith (and the fact that her father is a Presbyterian minister), Julia Jones ’97 did not immediately dive into any religious group or activity when she arrived at Wooster.

“When your dad’s a pastor, that’s not what you want to do. My first two years were a chance to stay away from all that,” she explains.

In the spring of her sophomore year, Jones spent a semester studying in Bogota, Colombia. “I lived pretty comfortably with a middle-class family. And it awakened in me a curiosity about how other people are living in this country and if they’re not as well off, why? I learned about connections between the U.S. and Colombia that perpetuate poverty.”

It was the beginning of an interest in Latin America and issues of global poverty, economic development, and social justice that she has pursued ever since. Back in Wooster, Jones co-founded Pueblo de Esperanza, a group to promote awareness of peace and justice issues in Latin America. She joined Sisters in Spirit, a chapter of the National Network of Presbyterian College Women. A Spanish and political science major with a minor in women’s studies, Jones wrote about the human impact of World Bank economic reforms imposed on Nicaragua for her I.S.

After completing a master’s in Latin American Studies at Ohio University, Jones moved to Washington, D.C., and did an internship with a coalition of organizations, including the Presbyter-ian Church (USA), working to influence U.S. policy toward Latin America. From there it was on to New York and two years with the Presbyterian Church’s United Nations office. Jones coordinated seminar programs on women’s issues, the rights of children, AIDS in Africa, and a host of other topics.

“I got to enjoy listening to the speakers, too,” she says, “but I also saw people asking some of the same questions I had asked, like what does all this politics have to do with God and me?”

Her answer? “It has everything to do with God. Christians like to say, ‘I have a relationship with Christ.’ I say, great, that’s a first step, but what is God calling us to do? It’s important to read your Bible but also to read your newspaper and figure out where you can be God’s hands and feet.”

Jones has certainly followed that advice. She has helped monitor elections and rebuild communities following two devastating earthquakes in El Salvador, studied eco-theology in Nicaragua, and worked with the Presbyterian Peace-making Program in Louisville.

In 2002, she moved to Illinois to be closer to her family “and met a wonderful guy, Michael Mann, who is now my husband.” Mann is pastor of a Methodist church in downtown Rockford. (“He went into a Presbyterian seminary and came out a Methodist,” Jones says.)

Jones is an ordained elder at First Presbyterian Church of Rockford and manages the children’s section of a local Barnes & Noble. In 2004, Presbyterians Today named her one of the church’s emerging leaders — “young men and women, all under 40, whose energy, commitment and fresh ideas are already influencing the denomination.”

“I just know,” Jones says, “whether it’s something like travel and mission work abroad or being active in a local congregation and helping bring the world to them, this is something I’ll always be involved in.”