wfn.org | Duncan Hanson leaving PC(USA) 'family'

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Note #7394 from PCUSA NEWS to PRESBYNEWS:

21-August-2002
02311

Duncan Hanson leaving PC(USA) 'family'

Europe coordinator takes job with Reformed Church in America

by Evan Silverstein

LOUISVILLE - The Rev. Duncan Hanson, the Presbyterian Church (USA)'s longtime area coordinator for Europe and the former Soviet Union, has submitted his resignation, effective Oct. 1.  

Hanson is leaving his current post in the Worldwide Ministries Division to serve as Europe coordinator and coordinator for long-term mission personnel for the Reformed Church in America (RCA), a "full-communion" partner of the PC(USA).

Hanson's duties will include interpreting RCA's mission for its congregations in parts of New York state. He will work in the denomination's offices on Riverside Drive in New York City.

He said the decision to leave the PC(USA) was a painful one. 

"The Presbyterian Church (USA) has been for me like family," Hanson wrote in an email announcing his resignation. "I have treasured the friendships and relationships that I have had with church partners and mission workers and colleagues in Louisville and across the PC(USA). As I write these words, with a lump in my throat and tears in my eyes, I think of all that they taught me. ... I will be forever richer for having had the privilege of knowing them."

Hanson's responsibilities for the PC(USA) included supervision of the activities of about 130 mission workers in 51countries in Europe and the Soviet Union and cultivation of about 45 partner-church relationships.

The former Soviet bloc opened for mission work about the same time Hanson became area coordinator for Europe in June 1993. The number of Presbyterian missionaries there steadily increased from four people in three countries to about 80 in 13 countries. 

As the scope of his work broadened, Hanson developed a network of regional facilitators, mostly volunteers, to help coordinate PC(USA) work in 51 nations. He addressed issues ranging from the needs of European churches to human-rights abuses of the Roma (also known as Gypsies).
Prior to joining the PC(USA) national staff, Hanson served three congregations as pastor: First Presbyterian Church, in Lakeview, OR; Woodland Park Presbyterian Church, in Seattle, WA; and St. Andrew Presbyterian Church, in Aptos, CA. He has degrees from Oberlin College, Yale University and San Francisco Theological Seminary.
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