Our Teachers
Paula has been a sister of St. Joseph since 1964. She entered the Baden Congregation from Hollidaysburg, PA where she grew up with six sisters and a brother. Paula served as novice director in the Baden Congregation for 12 years and served on the leadership team for 10 years. She taught grade school and was a principal prior to these leadership roles. During all of this she directed retreats, the Spiritual Exercises, and provided spiritual direction.
Paula has a Counseling degree from Duquesne University and has three certificates in Gestalt methods from the Cleveland Gestalt Institute. She studied spiritual direction and the Exercises at St. Meinrad’s Indiana and the Chicago Cenacle.
Presently, Paula does full-time spiritual direction and retreat work and serves on the staff for the Pneuma Institute. She has been involved with the Spiritual Direction and Leadership Program since it was a dream for Martha Robbins. Paula watched, listened, and conversed with Martha as this program was born and took shape. It has been a privilege and a delight to be part of the history and unfolding of this, what is now Pneuma Institute.
Kathy spent her career in social services. She began as a clinician, then moved into administration. She developed and ran programs that focused on individuals who were experiencing mental health and substance abuse issues. She grew her skills as a supervisor and mentor and enjoyed that role throughout her time within the agency, where she eventually led all the programs. Her career culminated with her managing the merger of her agency and another agency to form a new entity with a budget of $60 million. One of her last endeavors in her career was to advance the presence of trauma-informed programming throughout the agency. She was a primary trainer across the agency as they sought to develop a trauma-informed way of delivering services and developing the staff for their own well-being.
She was trained as a spiritual director through Pneuma Institute and has developed a ministry in spiritual direction that she has grown since her retirement. Kathy and her husband also lead the Bridges program in Pittsburgh. It is a program, sponsored by Christian Life Community (CLC), to offer the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius to individuals in the Pittsburgh area seeking to deepen their relationship with God. She has been a member of that program since 2003 and has been leading the program for several years.
Kathy has been married to her husband, Al, for 47 years and has two grown children and one grandson. Her life is full and blessed and filled with an awareness of God’s many gifts.
In 2020, Judith qualified as a spiritual director through Pneuma Institute. Since that time, she has created a small one-on-one spiritual direction practice and has co-directed a number of silent retreats. Judith has been involved in group discernment and preparation for the recent transition of Pneuma Institute into a nonprofit organization. She plans to qualify in 2025 as a supervisor of spiritual directors through Pneuma Institute’s newest certificate program.
Before joining Pneuma Institute, Judith participated in the Spiritual Formation Program at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, as a student and later as a volunteer host. She is an ordained elder in the PCUSA and has been active for many years in church lay leadership, including strategic, ad hoc roles in church ministry and vision efforts, small group Bible teaching, retreat and workshop leadership, prayer ministries, and missions.
Judith has a bachelor’s degree from Indiana University of Pennsylvania in English/Language Arts. Her interests include reading, creative writing, walking and photography. Judith is married with three grown children and two grandsons.
Rev. Joseph Hedden, Jr., a lifelong member of the United Church of Christ, was ordained in 1997. For 13 years, he served as a local pastor in Lebanon, Pennsylvania, where he chaired the Committee on Ministry and Committee on Church Partnerships. He served as a local pastor of a Evangelical church in Hennef, Germany
Christuskirche, 2003-2004. Since 2010, he has been the pastor of Emmanuel Reformed United Church of Christ in Export, Pennsylvania.
Joseph was a member of Pneuma Institute's Cohort 4, receiving a certificate in Spiritual Direction and Spiritual Leadership in 2020, and chaired the Pneuma Continuing Education Committee for three years. In addition to pastoring, Joseph does spiritual direction and serves as the Dean of the Penn West Academy of Ministry for his denomination. Joseph currently convenes the Pneuma Institute Book Club and serves as part of the Spiritual Direction and Leadership Program team for Cohort 6.
Joseph is married to Dr. Jennifer Hedden, and they have two daughters, Miriam and Elizabeth.