wfn.org | [PCUSANEWS] Notes about people

[PCUSA NEWS <PCUSA.NEWS@ECUNET.ORG>]

Note #8277 from PCUSA NEWS to PRESBYNEWS:

04285
June 14, 2004

Notes about people

by Jerry L. Van Marter

	The Rev. Gary Cook, for the past 11 years the coordinator for the
Presbyterian Hunger Program, has been named associate director for global
service and witness in the Worldwide Ministries Division in Louisville. He
begins his new work June 21.

	Global Service and witness includes five programs with a combined
budget of $20 million and 40 staff members. The programs include
International Health Ministries, the Jinishian Memorial Program, Presbyterian
Disaster Assistance, Presbyterian Hunger Program and Self-Development of
People. Cook will also have a lead role in convening the Ecumenical Staff
Team and staffing the General Assembly's Committee on Ecumenical Relations.

	Cook served as a pastor in Florida before coming to the Presbyterian
Hunger Program.

		       # # #

	Erma Lawrence, 91, an elder of the Ketchikan Presbyterian Church, was
honored last month with a Doctor of Humane Letters degree from the University
of  Alaska Southeast.

	A graduate of PC(USA)-related Sheldon Jackson College in Sitka,
Lawrence was honored for efforts to preserve the Haida Native-Alaskan
language and culture. Alaska Presbytery executive Jay Olson said, "We join
with the University and statewide communities in celebration of her
invaluable contributions  and ask God's blessing on her for years to come."

			# # #

	The Episcopal Church has named Robert Williams, director of
communications for the Diocese of Los Angeles as the new director of
Episcopal News Service. He begins his new work July 1, succeeding Jim
Solheim, who retired earlier this year after directing the news service since
1989.

	Williams joined the diocese's communications staff in 1986. Last
year, he edited the daily newspaper of the church's General Convention in
Minneapolis, and in 1998 he edited the daily newspaper of the Lambeth
Conference, which brings together Anglican bishops from around the world
every 10 years.

		      # # #

	Beatriz Melano Couch, one of Latin America's first liberation
theologians and a lifelong human rights activist in that troubled region,
died May 22 in Montevideo, Uruguay. She was a Presbyterian Church (USA)
mission worker from 1990 to 1997 as professor of theology at Instituto
Superior Evangelico de Estudio in Argentina.

	According to Benjamin Gutierrez, former area coordinator for South
America in the Worldwide Ministries Division, Couch was one of the first
women in Latin America to earn a doctorate and "was a pioneer in analyzing
the role of women in the church there." Her 1973 book, La Mujer y la Iglesia
("The Woman and the Church"), was widely read throughout Latin America and
the Caribbean. She wrote two other influential books and many articles.

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