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["Frank Imhoff" <Frank.Imhoff@elca.org>]

LWI News in Brief

+ New Youth Council Member Michel Ngoy Mulunda
+ German Theologian Dr Eva-Sibylle Vogel-Mfato Is LWF Europe Area
Secretary

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New Youth Council Member Michel Ngoy Mulunda

The Council of the Lutheran World Federation (LWF) at its August 31-September 6 meeting in Jerusalem/Bethlehem, elected Mr Michel Ngoy Mulunda from
the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), as a new member of the LWF
governing body. Mulunda, 25, is a representative of the Evangelical
Lutheran Church in Congo (EELC).

He replaces Mr Jhon Kundwe Mulanda, also from the EELC. Mulunda is a
member of the Program Committee for Ecumenical Affairs.

The EELC has 136,000 members. It joined the LWF in 1986. (89 words)

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German Theologian Dr Eva-Sibylle Vogel-Mfato Is LWF Europe Area Secretary

At its meeting in Jerusalem, the LWF Executive Committee appointed Rev. Dr
Eva-Sibylle Vogel-Mfato to a four-year term as the new Area Secretary for
Europe in the LWF Department for Mission and Development (DMD). She
succeeds Rev. Dr Andreas Wöhle, who, effective 1 October 2005, joined
the LWF German National Committee (GNC) in Stuttgart, Germany, as
executive secretary and chairperson of the Committee for Church Cooperation and World Service. Vogel-Mfato, 49, assumed her new position on October
1.

Vogel-Mfato was born in Celle, Germany in 1956. Following her theological
studies at universities in Bethel, Tübingen and Göttingen (in Germany)
and at the Ecumenical Institute Bossey in Switzerland, she did her first
theological exam in 1982 in Hanover, Germany. She was ordained in 1985,
after her second theological exam. From 1985 to 2000, she was a parish
pastor of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Hanover in Nettlingen near
Hildesheim. From early 2000 until mid-2005, she worked as Executive
Secretary for the Solidarity Desk (Women and Inter-church Service) of the
Geneva-based Conference of European Churches.

In 1994 Vogel-Mfato earned a doctorate in theology with her thesis titled,
"It Is in the Whispering of a Gentle Breeze that God Shows Himself. The
Missionary Church Between Claims of Absolute Truth and the Ability to be
in Community."

She participated in the 1997 LWF Ninth Assembly in Hong Kong, China, as a
delegate of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Hanover.

Vogel-Mfato is married, and has two sons.  (251 words)

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(The LWF is a global communion of Christian churches in the Lutheran
tradition. Founded in 1947 in Lund, Sweden, the LWF currently has 140
member churches in 78 countries all over the world, with a total membership of nearly 66 million. The LWF acts on behalf of its member churches in
areas of common interest such as ecumenical and inter-faith relations,
theology, humanitarian assistance, human rights, communication, and the
various aspects of mission and development work. Its secretariat is
located in Geneva, Switzerland.)

[Lutheran World Information (LWI) is the LWF's information service. Unless
specifically noted, material presented does not represent positions or
opinions of the LWF or of its various units. Where the dateline of an
article contains the notation (LWI), the material may be freely reproduced
with acknowledgment.]

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