Ron Ahnen serves this year as the intern minister (Sept 2024-June 2025), and is a student at Starr King School for the Ministry, located in Oakland, California. His interest in religious leadership started early in his youth as he grew up Catholic and wanted to be a Franciscan priest. Ron’s spiritual and theological reflections led him to discover Unitarian Universalism as his new spiritual home where he could both contribute to and find spiritual nourishment from his UU community. He notes, “As a religious humanist, I am still inspired by Franciscan simplicity, finding the holy and sacred reflected in each human being and their connection in love.” He studied Latin American politics in graduate school (PhD, Univ. of North Carolina) and lived for 11 years in the region including Brazil, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica. On sabbatical from his current job as a Politics Professor at a liberal arts college in California, Ron plans on moving into UU congregational ministry in the coming years.