wfn.org | Notes About People - Ruth Z. Eschbach

[Worldwide Faith News <wfn@igc.org>]

This story available online:

www.pcusa.org/pcnews/2009/09024<http://www.pcusa.org/pcnews/2009/09024

> Notes about people

> by Jerry L. Van Marter
> Presbyterian News Service

Ruth Z. Eschbach, a China-born daughter of Presbyterian
missionaries who later served in the mission field in Asia
herself, died in Berea, KY, on Nov. 30. She was 92.

Eschbach was the daughter of medical missionaries John H.
and Mary Bushnell Wylie and grew up in China and
California. After graduating from the College of Wooster
and Eden Theological Seminary, she married Donald E.
Zimmerman in 1940 and departed for Japan to begin a
missionary career. As relations between Japan and the U.S.
deteriorated, they transferred to the China mission field
and went to the Philippines to study Chinese. When Japan
overran the Philippines, the Zimmermans were interned as
civilian prisoners of war from 1941-1945. Ruth served as a
teacher in the camp.

After their release, the Zimmermans returned to the U.S.
where Don served pastorates in Michigan, Missouri and
Illinois and Ruth became a leader and later a staff member
for Presbyterian Women. She was president of United
Presbyterian Women from 1961-1964 and served on the staff
from 1968-1983, the last 10 years as coordinator of
Presbyterian Women.

Ruth Eschbach is survived by her son, Richard; her
daughter, Sally ¯ who serves on the national staff of the
PC(USA) as a cost accountant; stepsons James and Robert
Eschbach; six grandchildren and 12 great-grandchildren.

> # # #

Ogbu Kalu, a Nigerian scholar who was a towering figure in
the fields of global mission, African Christianity and
global Pentecostalism, died Jan. 7 in Chicago, where he was
professor of world Christianity and mission at McCormick
Theological Seminary. He was 66.

Kalu joined the McCormick faculty in 2001 and also served
for years as the Director of the Chicago Center for Global
Mission. He previously taught at Harvard University, the
Presbyterian College and Theological Seminary in South
Korea, the University of Edinburgh in Scotland and the
University of Toronto.

A prolific writer on a wide range of subjects, Kalu has
authored or edited 16 books including Power, Poverty and
Prayer: The Challenges of Poverty and Pluralism in African
Christianity, 1960-1996, African Christianity: An African
Story, and African Pentecostalism: An Introduction,
published by Oxford University Press in 2008 and already
regarded by many as the seminal work of its kind.

He is survived by his wife, Wilhelmina, and four children.

> # # #

The Rev. Robert J. Marshall, who led the former Lutheran
Church in America and helped lay the groundwork for the
church's merger with two other denominations to form the
Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, died Dec. 22. He
was 90.

Marshall, a dedicated ecumenist, was elected president of
the Lutheran Church in America, the largest Lutheran
denomination in the U.S., in 1968. He served as president
for a decade, helping prepare the LCA to merge with the
American Lutheran Church and Association of Evangelical
Lutheran Churches in 1987 to form the 5 million-member ELCA.

> # # #

A brochure for Presbyterian Disaster Assistance, designed
by Michelle Bingham in the Creative Services department of
the General Assembly Council's office of Communications and
Funds Development, received a graphic design award at the
19th Annual Louisville Graphic Design Association (LGDA)
100 Show.

The award was presented during a special reception and
ceremony on Dec. 11.

The LGDA, founded in 1989, is an organization of creative
professionals in Louisville and the surrounding areas. Its
annual "100 Show" recognizes the 100 outstanding projects
in these categories: students, graphic design,
illustration, photography, motion and interactive media.

> # # #

The Rev. Richard John Neuhaus, an eminent Catholic
intellectual who tutored President Bush in Catholic social
teaching and helped build the political coalition that made
his election possible, died Jan. 8 at age 72.

Though he often portrayed himself as a simple priest,
Neuhaus rose from a rabble-rousing leftist cleric in the
1960s to become a presidential mentor, helping Bush define
his policies on gay marriage, abortion and stem-cell
research, among other issues. In 2005, Time magazine named
the Catholic priest one of America's 25 most influential
evangelicals.

In the 1990s, Neuhaus co-founded the group Evangelicals and
Catholics Together with former Nixon White House counsel
Charles Colson, which helped cement the political alliance
between two groups that had long been suspicious of each
other.

Born and raised Lutheran in Canada, Neuhaus converted to
Catholicism in 1990 and was ordained a Catholic priest the
following year.

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