Staff

Rev. Dr. Cheni Khonje is our new Pastor and Head of Staff. The meaning of her first full name, Cheni being her family’s abridged version of the name, is “Mother of the Nation” and her middle name means “peacemaker”. Born in Blantyre, Malawi, Rev. Cheni’s family became political refugees when she was 28 days old. Cheni and her siblings grew up speaking four different languages, and now speak many more. Growing up in Lusaka, her parents nurtured their hearts for mission and ministry:  the family visited the people in the leprosarium at Liteta, a suburb of Kabwe. Mum and Dad took them to meet the blind boys who were in a school that taught Braile; they wanted the trio to learn how to communicate with and minister to other kids, some of whom had been abandoned by their families. Mission work did not always take the family far from church: they would harvest the first fruits, maize (corn), and vegetables from Cheni’s grandparents’ farm and take them to the church as a thanksgiving offering to God. Whenever she and her siblings and cousins played “house”, Cheni often had two jobs in the town: to be a pilot or pediatrician, and the second job was always the preacher. While living in The Netherlands, she experienced her first call dream to the ministry. Being a cheeky teenager, she thanked God for the dream and declined the invitation to work for God. When the family moved to the United States, they became members of Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church in New York City. Cheni participated in ministry with the Homeless, led mission trips, wrote prayer cards for the congregation, Bible study guides, and served as a deacon and Stephen Minister. There was a deep yearning for more, and so she pursued an education in the sciences that led to a master’s degree in medical microbiology. In discerning what the emptiness was, Cheni had two more call dreams and then went to Princeton Theological Seminary. Cheni thanks God for God’s patience with her, and for calling her to collaborate with the people of God.

With a deep passion for Christ and commitment to serve others, Eileen is excited to use her professional social work training to enable FPCG to be a place that provides holistic support to church and community members alike. She has participated in ministry at First Church in Germantown for more than 22 years.

As Director of Urban Ministry her responsibilities include leading programs and activities that engage the church in outreach to our immediate community. A significant part of that work is in her role as Director of the Germantown Avenue Crisis Ministry housed in the church. Eileen is a graduate of Temple University with a Masters in Social Work degree.

Christian Heyer-Rivera came to The First Presbyterian Church in Germantown at the beginning of the summer of 2004.  Christian is a graduate of Bethel College in St. Paul, MN and Palmer Theological Seminary.  He is currently working toward Certification as a Christian Educator and is an inquirer for ordination as a Ministry of Word and Sacrament within the Presbytery of Philadelphia.

Prior to coming to The First Presbyterian Church in Germantown, Christian served in a variety of ministries.  He has been the Director of Youth Programs in both staff and volunteer roles at churches in Pennsylvania and Minnesota, served as an Assistant Site Director of a YouthWorks! mission site on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, and provided leadership on staff and as a volunteer for Jr. High outreach ministry with Young Life.

John Walthausen has served churches as a musician since he was a teenager and has been Director of Music Ministry at The First Presbyterian Church in Germantown since 2021. At FPCG, John directs the Adult Choir, the Youth Choir, and the Oratorio Choir. He also presides over “the Germantown Giant,” the largest organ in a church in Philadelphia. 

Accomplished as a recitalist, John Walthausen has been heard in concert throughout Europe in Paris, Chartres, Poitiers, Toulouse, Hamburg, Milan, Treviso, Innsbruck, Basel, and Zurich. From 2015 to 2016, he served as Organist in Residence at Sapporo Concert Hall in Hokkaido, where he performed and recorded on the Hall’s four-manual organ by Alfred Kern and in cities across Japan. Recent projects have taken him to New York, Boston, Washington D.C., New Orleans, Victoria (British Columbia), Cincinnati, and Bogotá. 

In 2019, he co-founded the ensemble Filament, a Philadelphia based ensemble dedicated to exploring the rich chamber music repertoire of 17th century Northern Europe, with violinist Evan Few and viola da gamba player Elena Smith. 

A native Californian, Cari moved to Philadelphia from Arizona in late 2019. They are currently a master of divinity student at United Lutheran Seminary, seeking ordination in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.

Denominationally flexible, Cari has previously worked in Episcopal and Lutheran churches, as well as worked with a variety of Christian faith communities.

Tony Nixon, CJ Cotton, and Robert Patterson
Sextons

Cindy Osborne
Bookkeeper
[email protected]