wfn.org | [PCUSANEWS] Advocate for migrants to run for moderator

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Note #8117 from PCUSA NEWS to PRESBYNEWS:

Advocate for migrants to run for moderator
04077
February 12, 2004

Advocate for migrants to run for moderator

Rick Ufford-Chase rejects 'me-first' ethic of global economy

by Alexa Smith

LOUISVILLE - A 39-year-old mission volunteer and advocate for migrant workers
and others who suffer in an unfair global economy is the third candidate for
moderator of the 216th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA).

	Elder Rick Ufford-Chase, a co-founder and co-director of BorderLinks,
a cross-border (U.S.-Mexico) organization supported by the PC(USA)'s
Worldwide Ministries Division (WMD), was endorsed unanimously by the
Presbytery of de Cristo on Jan. 23 during a meeting in Tucson, AZ.

	The other candidates are the Rev. David McKechnie of Houston, TX, and
the Rev. K.C. Ptomey of Nashville, TN.

	"I want to get the message out that there is a world out there that
most of us are unaware of," Ufford-Chase told the Presbyterian News Service
in a telephone interview. "And the church has a special responsibility to
figure out how to create a global community that matches the global economy."

	Ufford-Chase said there must be an alternative to displacement and
despair for impoverished workers and families. He said he believes part of
the solution lies in creating links between poor communities and those of
wealth and privilege. And he believes Presbyterians are called to support
marginalized church partners around the world.

	"I believe that we are called to live as Jesus lived, to risk as
Jesus risked, and to care as deeply as Jesus cared," Ufford-Chase proclaims
at his Web site,  http://www.rickuffordchase.com/, where he details his
platform and goals, describes his faith journey and reflects on the
challenges the church faces.

	Ufford-Chase has been active in support of besieged communities in
Nicaragua, Guatemala and Mexico, and of Palestinian Christians living in
Bethlehem and Hebron on the West Bank. He is a co-moderator of the
Presbyterian Peace Fellowship, and also is active in Christian Peacemaker
Teams, a pacifist group that sends Christians to live in communities plagued
by violence.

	Ufford-Chase, who is fluent in Spanish, is a member and elder at
Tucson's Southside Presbyterian Church, whose pastor is former PC(USA)
Moderator John Fife, and serves as a member of the Presbytery of de Cristo's
committee for long-range planning and funds development.

	He has been active since 1986 in a number of refugee-support groups
in Tucson, including Humane Borders, a faith-based organization that
maintains water stations in the desert for migrants; The Samaritans, a desert
search-and-rescue group; and the Maquila Organizing Project, which trains
labor leaders to work with Mexican factory workers.

	Ufford-Chase is a Presbyterian "preacher's kid" who earned a
bachelor's degree in psychology from the Colorado College in Colorado Springs
and spent a semester at Princeton Seminary before leaving in 1986 to become a
mission volunteer.

	Ufford-Chase said he realized that he was called to run for moderator
while he was leading a group of seminarians in the desert and hearing
migrants' stories: of a couple who'd left a 3-year-old daughter behind to
seek work in Kansas; a 16-year-old boy who hoped to find a job in North
Carolina; a man trying desperately to get to New York to find out what
happened to a brother and son who worked in the World Trade Center and
haven't been heard from since Sept. 11, 2001.

	He said he wants to tell their stories, and countless others like
them, to the church.

	Taking responsibility for building a more humane global economy isn't
easy, he said, "but it is no more scary than it was for people in Jesus' time
... to hear his message. To take down barriers. And to step out and be with
one another. "

	He told PNS: "I see this as an opportunity for our church to be
re-invigorated" and to energize people willing to "stand against the
'me-first' message of the first world."

	Ufford-Chase and his wife of 12 years, Kitty Ufford, live in Tucson
and have one son, Teo.

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