Tom Rockwell M.Div. ’24 and Jade Souza M.Div. ’25 met at the Earlham School of Religion as students with a shared goal of revitalizing Quakerism for younger generations and living out their faith. While Jade finishes her degree, she works for the Friends World Committee for Consultation. Tom has already completed his degree and works at Western Yearly Meeting in Indianapolis. The couple is putting their faith in action by helping Cubans during the ongoing refugee crisis by relocating to the U.S.
But none of that work could begin until they met.
“Our professor, Phil Baisley, who was the professor of pastoral ministry at the time, still likes to take credit that he introduced us,” says Jade. The couple took their first seminary class together, then the rest was history.
Important to them both is putting their faith in action. So when the opportunity came about to sponsor Cuban refugees to come to the U.S., they jumped on it. It dovetailed perfectly with Jade’s previous work in Cuba.
The start of the process was getting training for the humanitarian parole program through the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services. “We set up a sponsor circle, which was myself, Jade, my dad and two local Quakers who applied to be legal sponsors of the Cubans who were coming,” says Tom. The process also includes government paperwork, both on the U.S. side and the Cuban side. After that: nail-biting anxiety and tons of waiting.
With travel arrangements finalized, the group prepared for their stay at the couple’s new property, the former home of Earlham professor and Quaker historian Hugh Barbour. Things were happening. “We had three people come,” says Tom. “We housed one of them and then a local Quaker rented a room to the other two.”
The work wasn’t done, though. The refugees were in the U.S. but they needed to become familiar with the country and the refugee and welfare paperwork that entailed.
Exhausting, yes. But done with love and spiritual truth in mind.
“The seminary is a Christian Quaker seminary, and our life is one expansion of what that might look like in practice,” says Jade. “There’s lots of other ways that looks, too. Part of the nature of Friends theology is that individuals need to discern for themselves what is true and try to follow God in a way that feels truthful to who they are and to their own conscience. For every one version of that, there are lots of others. The way Quakers talk about their testimony, it’s like our lives are our testimony. And if what we say doesn’t line up with how we’re living, then what we’re saying isn’t really true.”
For Tom and Jade, that means putting themselves out there and embracing a theology of love, liberation, hope and revitalization — revitalization of Quakerism for younger generations, and liberation, hope and love for refugees and immigrants. “All of the work we do is interconnected,” says Jade.
“I think we’re primarily interested in the revitalization of the Religious Society of Friends and I think the refugee work fits in because there’s an inherent theological focus in Quakerism on our interconnection across the world,” says Tom. While the Rockwells have a particularly close tie to Cuban Friends, they also have ties in Richmond, in Kenya, in Latin America. Interconnection and the love found through that are crucial for them.
“The central focus is that there’s God in every person, and we should value each person in the way that God sees them,” says Tom. “In a time when it’s increasingly difficult to value your neighbor and their point of view, there’s a basis that’s founded on the idea of essential value of all people and taking everybody seriously, and trying to find ways to connect and love them seems like a very timely message.”
Gretchen Castle ’79, dean of the Earlham School of Religion, sees the couples’ work as timely and exceptional.
“They contribute to the betterment of the world in so many ways,” she says. “They each serve in Quaker positions that are inhabiting the ways Quakerism is changing. They build meeting engagement, encourage young adult leadership, and bring people together for collaboration. Together they pastor a local Quaker church, and they have been instrumental in supporting the growth of the Hispanic community in Richmond. May their leadership and ministry flourish as Quakers forge new ways forward in these changing times.” ■