wfn.org | [PCUSANEWS] Campaign's first hires announced

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Note #8397 from PCUSA NEWS to PRESBYNEWS:

Campaign's first hires announced
GA04104
July 1, 2004

Campaign's first hires announced

3 international missionaries are first fruits of fund-raising drive

by Jerry Van Marter

RICHMOND, July 1  The Presbyterian Church (USA)'s campaign to raise $40
million for domestic and international missions has funded the hiring of its
first three missionaries.

Officials of the Mission Initiative: Joining Hearts and Hands (MIJHH)  a
five-year campaign to raise money for overseas missions and new-church
developments in the United States, especially racial-ethnic and new-immigrant
congregations announced the drive's "first fruits" during the General
Assembly Thursday night.

Bill Saul, a co-chair of the campaign, said more than $8 million has been
raised so far. "This is a campaign for the whole church," he said. "In 2007,
we'll be asking every Presbyterian to participate."

In the meantime, he added, the campaign is cultivating major "lead" gifts.

Saul, of Long Beach, CA, and MIJHH Director Jan Opdyke, of Redlands, CA, have
been traveling extensively in promoting the campaign. Saul said the drive's
tag line "a campaign to renew the church for mission" is "being welcomed
enthusiastically wherever we go."

Assembly commissioners viewed a campaign video about Presbyterian mission
efforts in Guatemala, Malawi, Kenya and Mexico, as well as new-church
development efforts in Laguna Niguel, CA; Minneapolis, MN; Charlotte, NC; and
Sterling, VA.

The first three MIJHH hires:

*Marcia Towers as coordinator for mission delegations and site coordinator
for young adult volunteers in Guatemala.

Towers will plan educational programs for and coordinating the visits of
Presbyterian delegations visiting the Evangelical National Presbyterian
Church of Guatemala. Towers also will be preparing Guatemalans for exchange
visits to the United States, and working to expand and strengthen
partnerships between the PC(USA) and the Guatemalan church.

She has worked as a PC(USA) international mission volunteer in Presbyterian
border ministries in Reynoso, Mexico, and McAllen, TX, and has coordinated
and translated for "outreach" teams hosted by the border ministry "Puentes de
Cristo."

Towers has a master's degree in public and international affairs from the
University of Pittsburgh. She is a member of Highland Presbyterian Church in
Lancaster, PA.

*Dusty Ellington as a professor of New Testament and church history at the
Evangelical Theological Seminary in Cairo, Egypt. He will be accompanied by
his wife, Sherri.

Ellington has degrees from Stanford University, Princeton Theological
Seminary and Duke University. He has taught at Duke University and at its
Divinity School.

*Scott Smith as a consultant for community organizing and organizational
development for the Emmanuel Hospital Association in northern India. The
association, founded in 1970, treats more than 500,000 patients a year in
some of India's most impoverished areas.

Smith has worked for the association before, training 97 people to work in
community-based health projects. Emmanuel has asked the PC(USA) to send him
back to continue his work as a trainer.

This story and many others may have photos, media, video clips that can be
found at http://www.pcusa.org/ga216/.

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