wfn.org | President of Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service to Step Down

[<NEWS@ELCA.ORG>]

Title: President of Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service to Step Down
ELCA NEWS SERVICE

>April 20, 2009  

President of Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service to Step Down
09-091-MRC/CC*

CHICAGO (ELCA) -- After 18 years serving as president of
Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service (LIRS), Ralston H.
Deffenbaugh Jr. will resign from his post effective Sept. 1.

LIRS, based in Baltimore, is a cooperative agency of the
Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), the Lutheran
Church-Missouri Synod (LCMS) and the Latvian Evangelical Lutheran
Church in America.

In a LIRS news release, Deffenbaugh, 57, said the
"organization needs new gifts of leadership."

"As LIRS president I have always understood myself as
standing on the able, solid shoulders of all those who have gone
before me," he said. "I believe that my gifts have been well
used in my tenure at LIRS, that the agency has grown to a degree
that no one could have imaged 18 years ago, and that it is now
time for a new kind of imagination to light the way."

"I've long been influenced by the adage that our calling is
the intersection between our joy and the world's need. For me
and for LIRS, that intersection has shifted," he said.

Deffenbaugh is the longest-serving leader of LIRS since its
founding in 1939. Since the beginning of his tenure, LIRS and
its partners have resettled more than 100,000 refugees.  By
direct collaboration with the United Nations High Commission for
Refugees, LIRS revitalized the international system of
resettlement and care for children who enter the United States
without their caregivers.

Deffenbaugh helped to form the Refugee Council USA and
served as its first chairperson from 2000 to 2001.

"The sustained commitment of Lutherans in the United States
to resettle refugees is testimony to the leadership of Ralie
Deffenbaugh," said the Rev. Mark S. Hanson, ELCA presiding
bishop.

Deffenbaugh "has combined the skills of an attorney who
understands complex immigration law with the compassionate heart
of a person of faith who seeks to serve the neighbor," Hanson
said. "He has continued to champion faith and just immigration
reform, and remind Lutherans -- most of whom are the descendants
of a once-immigrant people -- that we are called to welcome the
new immigrants in our land."

Deffenbaugh said his future plans are still taking shape.
"I remain passionately committed to the mission of LIRS and look
forward to continuing to be a strong supporter of LIRS through my
financial support, my advocacy and my prayers," he said.

The LIRS board of directors has established a transition
committee. Representatives of the ELCA, LCMS and the Latvian
Evangelical Lutheran Church govern the LIRS on a 15-member board
of directors.

LIRS is one of the nation's leading agencies serving
refugees and immigrants. It resettles refugees, protects
unaccompanied children, advocates for just treatment of asylum
seekers, seeks alternatives to immigration detention and stands
for unity for families fractured by unfair laws.
- - -

Information about LIRS is at http://www.lirs.org on the
Internet.

*Cassandra Champion is LIRS communication director.

For information contact:

John Brooks, Director (773) 380-2958 or news@elca.org
http://www.elca.org/news
ELCA News Blog: http://www.elca.org/news/blog