Lisa Mason

As we continue to grow our mission of bringing educational resources to Metro Detroit in order to foster better understanding between religious communities, educate the Metro Detroit community about the spiritual and religious practices of our neighbors in order to build a more beloved and resilient community, the Detroit Interfaith Leadership Council welcomes four noteable members to its board: 

• Rev. Gerald Cardwell is an Ordained Itinerant Elder in the African Methodist Episcopal Church and is an Associate Minister at Oak Grove A.M.E. Church in Detroit.  He is the former pastor of Community A.M.E. Church in Ecorse; St. John A.M.E. Church in River Rouge; and Quinn Chapel A.M.E. Church in Flint.  He served as Chair of the Metropolitan Christian Council of Detroit and Windsor Advisory Board and served on the board of the International Christian Education Association of Michigan.  He is the former Director of Clergy Relations for Michigan Faith in Action, a social justice organization headquartered in Flint. Rev. Cardwell is also a Retired Major serving in the United States Army Reserves.  He is a former accountant, field service manager and national dealer auditor for the Cadillac Division of General Motors and has worked as a new and used sales and leasing consultant for Detroit Area Cadillac Dealerships. Rev. Cardwell lives in Southfield, Michigan and has been married to his wife Betty for forty-nine years. Together they a son and a daughter and three grandchildren.
• Venkatesh Hollabbi is a community leader and a long-term resident of Canton Michigan. He has been a Balavihar Teacher (Sunday School for children) for over 25 years for
  Hindu culture and Self Unfoldment for high schoolers in Michigan. He holds several adult study groups in SE Michigan. He is a founder member of Canton
  Balavihar (Sunday School for children). He is well known in the Hindu community in Michigan and with many temples and religious faith communities.
   Hollabbi holds a Bachelor Degree in Mechanical/Aerospace engineering and an MBA. He has held various Managerial positions for 25 years in the areas of Product Planning and program
  Management, Product Development in Ford Motor Company and the Boeing Company. Recently, Hollabbi completed a two-year Residential Vedanta course (detailed study of
  Hindu philosophy) at Sandeepany Sadhanalaya in India and in the Himalayas. Venk and his wife Veena left a lucrative career at the Boeing Company and Public Library jobs to
  pursue Vedic studies full time.
• Asim Khan is a board member of Michigan Muslim Community Council (MMCC). Khan is originally from India and did his MSEE and MBA from Wayne State. He is involved in Diversity and Inclusion efforts in Farmington Area Interfaith Group and also at Ford Interfaith Network. He is the founding member of Tawheed Center Mosque and Chair of the Outreach Committee there. He has also served on the board for MCM/ICA – Michigan Community Mosque/Islamic Cultural Association in Farmington Hills and has also served on the board of Islamic Huda School in Franklin, Michigan. A cost engineer at the Ford Motor Company, he lives with his wife and three children in Farmington Hills.  
• Lisa Mason is Vice President of Program Partnerships at Greater Detroit Area Health Council. With over a decade in healthcare management, Mason serves as head of IFLC’s healthcare committee, informing clergy about mental and physical healthcare resources for them and their congregants. Lisa enjoys contributing her time and talents to the community, currently serving as a board member of Common Ground, an Oakland County crisis intervention and support services agency and Partners for Health, a product of Neighborhood Services Organization aimed at helping the most vulnerable patients with complex medical needs.  Lisa is a long-time volunteer at the Detroit Institute of Arts, where she has served in a number of leadership positions, and at Manna Meal, a soup kitchen in Detroit. Lisa resides in Royal Oak with her husband; they have three adult children and three teen-age grandsons.

IFLC welcomes Imaan Singh to its staff. Singh’s primary role will help bolster IFLC’s grants and sponsorship funding. 

Singh is a public health major and global health and social medicine minor at Wayne State University. She serves as the  State Lead for Khalsa Aid International Michigan Chapter. Established 21 years ago, Khalsa Aid International strives to provide direct and immediate humanitarian relief around the world to refugees as well as victims of natural and manmade disaster and conflict areas. Khalsa Aid International’s mission is based upon the Sikh principle of “Recognise the whole human race as one.”

Singh said she is greatful for her work with Khalsa, which has given her the opportunity to work with people from all different backgrounds to develop her communications skills.

“I wanted to take what I learned from Khalsa Aid and apply it to my work at IFLC,” said Singh. “I hope to create more awareness about the diverse cultures and religions throughout Metropolitan Detroit. I am a strong believer in giving back to the community and would like my career to reflect that.”

Outside of her professional pursuits, Singh, who grew up in West Bloomfield, enjoys playing the Dilruba, an Indian classical instrument, for 11 years. She’s also an avid Detroit Pistons fan

Like many faith leaders in Metro Detroit, IFLC board members Stancy Adams, Robert Bruttell and  Raman Singh hoped to change hearts and minds

as they attended faith-based protests and vigils over the past week on Woodward Avenue in Detroit and on the grounds of the Muslim Unity Center to speak out and reflect upon the racial profiling and police brutality that most recently led to the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Minn.

“There was a positive presence and a prayerful nature at these events,” said IFLC President Singh, who has marched many times in her life for civil rights. “There is a time for marching and yelling, but there is also a time to reflect and be prayerful.  What I learned from this past weekend is you don’t become an activist overnight. But you can be mindful. You can make changes on an individual basis and examine your own biases and behavior.”

Singh said after the marches, protesters can return to their faith communities and congregations and begin to have the conversations to “root out racism wherever it is found.”  Another way faith communities can help to affect change is to partner with other civic organizations that are helping with voter registration and making sure there is ease of access to voting this November.

Singh said that the purpose of being part of a religious community is to provide human services wherever they are needed. Right now, Singh said, religious groups can stand with the protesters and service can include providing food and water.  For example, the Sikh community in New York City and elsewhere came out and prepared huge, portable feasts for the protesters. Locally, Michigan Gurdwaras served meals to protesters in Detroit through Aasra Food Pantry , Seva Truck , and Khalsa Aid grocery distribution. This coming weekend, the community will be partnering  Saturday with New Era Detroit to support the activists.

As a woman in her 50’s with aging parents in town, Singh is aware that partaking in these civil rights protests during a pandemic comes with risks.  To minimize exposure, she said she and other IFLC members hung back from the crowds and stayed across the street from those marching on Woodward Ave. Most activists wore masks, she said.

The gathering at the Muslim Unity Center in Bloomfield Hills on Sunday, June 7 was limited to 100 people. Singh, who is Sikh, spoke as a representative of the Mata Tripta Ji Gurdwara Sahib. (see photograph at right).

“Over and over again in the holy scripture of the Sikhs it says that God does not recognize race, gender, ethnicity or caste,” she said. “God only recognizes the oneness of your soul.  It asks Sikhs to follow this teaching and stand up for justice. Therefore, Sikhs are automatically for Black lives.”

Other religious and civic leaders who spoke included:

Mark Crain -Dream of Detroit Executive Director and senior advisor at MoveOn

Imam Mika’il Stewart – Muslim Center Detroit Associate Imam

Imam Al-Masmari, Muslim Unity Center

Rabbi Sam Englander, Community Outreach Manager of AJC/JCRC Detroit

Pastor Aramis D. Hinds, Breakers Covenant Church International

Speaking again about taking chances by coming to speak out against social injustices amid a pandemic, Singh referred back to Crain’s words, who described the founders of the world’s great religions were “risk-takers and disrupters.”

“Whatever faith you follow, there are teachings and texts in your religion that compel us to face injustice. And sometimes, doing what is just comes with taking a risk.”

We are living in a scary reality, which is an exhibition of the foundational racist threads that permeates and supports the fabric of America’s soul. The insatiable thread of racial hate seeks to steal, kill, and destroy the essence of black lives by blatantly murdering a black man on the world-wide screen in broad daylight. And that hateful, murderous, racist, xenophobic, misogynist, and evil thread put a knee of the neck of George Floyd to feed the destructive racist thread that exposes the DNA of white superiority. Since 1619, Black men and women have suffered the rising and ebbing of an American spirit that finds satisfaction in killing those who gave precious blood, sweat, and tears for the development and accumulation of wealth.

Black Lives are valuable, but in this country, Black and brown lives suffer under the influence of small hateful minds who embrace visceral hate for Black lives.

 Our country is susceptible to the viruses of covid-19 and rabid racism, and both cause premature death in vulnerable people. What does it mean for citizens to live as an essential part of a society that consistently violates, hates, marginalizes, and murders them indiscriminately? Here we are protesting and declaring that “enough is enough” after centuries of systemic and structural relationships that offer fear, oppression, destruction, and death for Black folk. After 400 plus years of various forms of slavery, Black and brown people are experiencing degrees of devastating racism, hate, ignorance, and arrogance that the sovereign of the universe probably struggles to comprehend. In front of a church with a bible in hand, a divisive figure stood spouting empty words in search of the authority to demand order that would quiet the cries, moans, and disenchantment of a hurting populous. The protestors are requesting change not found in the sanctity of the second amendment, and the bold threat of military action is old school and not an incentive to get off the streets and behave orderly. Historic America is struggling to maintain a level of injustice that sanctions death by kneeling on the necks of Black and brown people. If America is to survive and prosper,  we must minimize and eradicate those destructive foundational threads of hate that hide in the DNA of the nation and fosters the desires to kill the truth that Black Lives Matter. Collectively, are we willing to witness the destruction of America so that the lie of white superiority might live another day? By faith, the superior power of LOVE is exposing and breaking the racist threads that permeate and support the fabric of America’s soul. My soul cries out that Black Lives Matter because I am Rev. Dr. Jimmie Talas Wafer, a Black citizen of America , but it matters most that the sovereign of the universe knows and loves me as a Black Man of justice, hope, love, joy, and peace! 

Rev. Dr. Jimmie Talas Wafer is Pastor of New Mt. Zion Missionary Baptist Church and Board member, Ecumenical Theological Seminary and IFLC

On April 22, teachers, IFLC volunteers and the Muslim Unity Center in Bloomfield Hills embarked on a pioneering effort in order to continue to teach its student ambassadors about the world’s major religions.

In our age of physical distancing to slow the spread of Coronavirus, our schoolchildren are feeling the brunt of the necessary isolation. They miss their routines as well as engaging with friends and different students in their classrooms, and especially special opportunities to learn through hands-on field trips such as the kind Religious Diversity Journey provides.

IFLC Staff and volunteers were not quite sure how the first RDJ Anywhere would turn out. But in the end, the virtual trip welcomed 108 students (with some of their parents joining on the Zoom call) representing 14 schools. That meant that six of the seven 2019-2020 cohorts for the RDJ program participated across six school districts and one Detroit Charter School.

RDJ Anywhere started with a welcoming presentation from Muslim Unity Center member and longtime RDJ volunteer Rouzana Hares and a thoughtful question and answer session between students and Imam Mohammed Almasmari, RDJ continues to fulfill its mission of teaching 7^th graders in metro Detroit about other faiths.

According to feedback following the event, here are some takeaways from students:

There are lots of similarities Islam has with other religions

I found it interesting that Muslims believe that Jesus was a prophet.

I learned that when you go to a service you are all together and they don’t care about what you look like skin color or culture you are the same to them so they have everyone stand shoulder to shoulder.

I learned that people of the Muslim community were brilliant inventors and that the things that they made we still use today.

One of the schools included the alma mater of Imam Almasmari. Students from Holbrook Elementary in Hamtramck gave a special thanks to Almasmari, and his teacher, Sheila Flowers, was so glad to see him and proud of him that he grew up to serve his religious community in adulthood.

Here are some reasons why students (and one parent) liked RDJ Anywhere:

I liked that RDJ is taking initiative to teach us about Islam even through these hard times.

I liked that we were together, even if it was virtual. I have felt so alone.

Even though we can’t be together, we can still learn new things.

I liked that we were able to ask questions in this meeting like we usually do in any RDJ journey but this time virtually.

 I could connect to the Muslim faith leaders and say hi to my classmates.

I liked how even in the middle of this crisis, RDJ still found a way to have this meeting the opportunity to immerse myself and family in different cultures from home.

As a parent, I am glad this opportunity was offered for the kids. We loved the real field trips, and I’m appreciative that the kids can at least do them virtually now.