wfn.org | [PCUSANEWS] Twelve new mission co-workers leave for assignments

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

Note #8627 from PCUSA NEWS to PRESBYNEWS:

05053
January 31, 2005

Twelve new mission co-workers leave for assignments

Their destinations span several continents

by Pat Cole
Communications officer, Worldwide Ministries Division

LOUISVILLE - Twelve mission co-workers completed their orientation this month
prior to undertaking overseas assignments by the PC(USA)'s Worldwide
Ministries Division (WMD):

Joe Dyer - [www.pcusa.org/missionconnections/profiles/dyerj.htm], a member of
First Presbyterian Church in Lenoir, NC, will serve as a consultant with the
Presbyterian Church of Sudan (PCOS). He will work with the PCOS' Presbyterian
Relief and Development Association, which provides support for Sudanese
refugees in Kenya and in southern Sudan. He has six years of prior experience
working in Sudan with Sudanese refugees - working with Samaritan's Purse in
1998 and since 1999 with Servant's Heart, a small Christian development
agency. He has also worked with Voice of the Martyrs. Prior to hearing a call
to serve in mission, Joe worked in sales and marketing for 22 years.

Dusty and Sherri Ellington
-[www.pcusa.org/missionconnections/profiles/ellingtond.htm] will be working
with the Evangelical Theological Seminary in Cairo (ETSC), Egypt, where Dusty
Ellington will teach New Testament. Prior to this assignment, he was a Ph.D.
student at Duke University and visiting instructor at Duke Divinity School,
Durham, NC. Previously he was associate pastor for youth and young adults at
First Presbyterian Church in Visalia, CA. Sherri Ellington, now a homemaker,
is a member of Triangle Presbyterian Church in Durham, NC. She has elementary
education credentials and has taught in Visalia and other schools in
California.

Kyle Joachim - [www.pcusa.org/missionconnections/profiles/joachimk.htm], a
member of Westminster Presbyterian Church in Boardman, OH, was appointed to
serve for two years in Berlin, Germany. He will work with a team organized by
Berliner Missionwerk ministering among Kurdish people living in Germany. He
will coordinate the team's English-language activities, such as English
tutoring and an English camp. During his college years Joachim participated
in two evangelistic trips to the Czech Republic for Athletes in Action, and
in the New Wilmington Mission Conference's summer service program he served
two months doing experiential relationship-building mission work in Malawi.
He also was an English tutor and coordinated English-speaking activities at
the Technical University of Ilmenau in Germany during 2002 and 2003.

Jin Eun Kim - [www.pcusa.org/missionconnections/profiles/kimj.htm] has been
serving as a professor of practical theology at the Canaan Theological
Seminary in St. Petersburg, Russia, since 1993, although his WMD assignment
there begins this month. He is also pastor of the Light of Christ Church in
St. Petersburg. Prior to his studies at Princeton Theological Seminary and
his ordination in 1992, Kim was a visiting research professor at the Korean
Educational Development Institute in Seoul, Korea. Kim's wife, Young Ja Kim,
who currently works at the National Institute of Health in Bethesda, MD,
plans to join him soon.

Grant Lovellette -
[www.pcusa.org/missionconnections/profiles/lovelletteg.htm] has been
appointed to serve as facilitator of the "Roma-Gadje Dialogue," a project of
the General Synod of the Reformed Church in Hungary (RCH). This project is
part of the "Roma Initiative" of the European Council of Churches, which does
community service in Roma communities. Lovellette, a member of First
Presbyterian Church in Cookeville, TN, earlier served a year in the PC(USA)'s
Young Adult Volunteer program in Ukraine.

Pix Mahler - [www.pcusa.org/missionconnections/profiles/mahlerp.htm], after
serving as a Hunger Action Enabler (HAE) for 14 years in the Presbytery of
the Peaks (VA), has been appointed partnership facilitator for Haiti. As HAE
Mahler promoted and interpreted the Presbytery of the Peaks' relationship
with the Episcopal Diocese of Haiti, the PC(USA)'s partner in the country.
She now does the same for all churches and middle governing bodies interested
in doing ministry in Haiti. She is a member of Westminster Presbyterian
Church in Lynchburg, VA.

Todd and Tricia Reinschmidt -
[www.pcusa.org/missionconnections/profiles/reinschmidtt.htm], members of
First Presbyterian Church in Cartersville, GA, have been appointed to serve
with Pasos de Fe, one of seven mission projects of the Presbyterian Border
Ministries (PBM). PBM is a joint project of the National Presbyterian Church
of Mexico and the PC(USA). Pasos de Fe is located in El Paso, Texas, and
Juárez, Mexico. The Reinschmidts' responsibilities include hosting,
organizing, and facilitating the visits of "mission teams" that come to help
in various projects organized by Pasos de Fe.

Walt and Valerie Shepard -
[www.pcusa.org/missionconnections/profiles/shepardw.htm] will serve in
Kinshasa, the capital city of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Walt
Shepard is returning to the country of his youth - he is the son of Caroline
and Walter Shepard, who served there (then the Belgian Congo) from 1947 to
1961. He will divide his time between the pastorate of the International
Protestant Church of Kinshasa and the Booth Superior Institute of Theology
(ISTB). For Valerie Shepard also this is a return to the mission field. She
is the child of Jim and Elisabeth Elliot, missionaries to Ecuador, whose
story was written by her mother in Through Gates of Splendor. After her
father was killed, she returned with her mother to Ecuador and lived with the
Aucas for five years. Walt Shepard served in Uganda for short terms in 1992
and 1996 and in Sudan in 1996. Prior to the current appointment he was pastor
of Harrison Bridge Road Presbyterian Church in Simpsonville, SC (!
 Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church).

Kara VanderKamp -
[www.pcusa.org/missionconnections/profiles/vanderkampk.htm], who prior to her
appointment was living and studying for her master's degree at Teacher's
College, Columbia University, in New York City, is a member of the
Presbyterian Church in America. She will serve as an educational consultant
with the Evangelical Church of Niger (EERN) doing teacher training and
curriculum development and assisting with communication with EERN's church
partners and other international agencies. From 1997 to 1999 VanderKamp
served in Kenya in an educational ministry for the Reformed Church in
America. Earlier she was a facilitator for Habitat for Humanity in Chicago.

For more information about these and other mission workers, visit
www.pcusa.org/missionconnections.

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