Welcoming Back an Old Colleague

We’re excited to announce that as of May 1, Rev. Kenya Thompson has rejoined Emmaus House as the Director of Leadership Development and Education. She is no stranger to the work that we do. As far back as 2013, she was consulting on what was then a new program called Youth on the Move. 

Her neighbor and former Executive Director of Emmaus House, Joseph Mole, first convinced her to get involved. From 2015 to 2017, Kenya served as the Director of Leadership Development, overseeing Youth on the Move and the Road Episcopal Service Corps. As an ordained Episcopal priest, she has even served as a deacon at the Emmaus House Chapel.

In addition to her work at Emmaus House, Kenya serves on a number of committees with the Episcopal Diocese of Atlanta and chairs the advisory committee at the Church of the Common Ground. These roles connect her to the needs of Atlanta and the world at large, although what excites Kenya most is distilling these insights into her work with specific communities. “We are called to be Jesus’s hands and feet in the world,” she says. To accomplish this she believes we must do as He did and meet people where they are. 

Kenya’s favorite part of working at Emmaus House is the fact that she gets to engage with neighbors every day. Drawing on her experience as an educator and her passion for communities of people, the role fulfills both her hands and her heart. “The opportunity,” she says, “was an answered prayer.”

In her personal time, Kenya finds inspiration in music: attending concerts, festivals, and rummaging through record store bins to add to her growing collection of vinyl. Anything that brings people together. She says that her greatest joys come from loving her neighbors and being there when people take care of one another.