Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, USA – At a dinner event immediately following the 21-26 July 2015 Assembly, Mennonite World Conference general secretary César García expressed appreciation to a number of staff members who are ending their work involvement with MWC.

Merle and Phyllis Good were recognized for their service as communication consultants and fundraisers. Over the past 31 years – since the 1984 Strasbourg Assembly – they volunteered in a number of areas: writing articles, taking photos, editing Courier, developing the Anabaptist Shelf, publishing and promoting the Global History series, helping with social media and marketing, raising funds for both the core and Assembly budgets and advising on overall strategy. During some of those years, Phyllis also served on the General Council and the Executive Committee.

Eleanor Miller was recognized for 25 years of service. She served as a volunteer in the MWC Strasbourg office from 1990-1997, assisting in the planning of Executive Committee and General Council meetings and also the 1997 Assembly in India. From 1997-2015 she served as administrative assistant and during this time – until 2014 – she was also a member of the communication team. In addition, from 2003 to 2015 she was responsible for collecting all national church information and statistics for the MWC global census of Anabaptist-related churches.

Tim Lind was recognized for several key roles with MWC. From 1997 to around 2003 he and Pakisa Tshimika worked on a Global Gift Sharing project and co-authored Sharing Gifts in the Global Family of Faith (Good Books, 2003). After the 2003 Assembly in Zimbabwe and until 2014, Lind served as MWC’s Church to Church Relations Coordinator. In the months leading up to the 2015 Assembly, he provided assistance to individuals from the Democratic Republic of Congo in dealing with visa issues.

Other departing staff recognized at the dinner event were Robert J Suderman, who served as Peace Commission secretary for the past six years, Devin Manzullo-Thomas, who served as editor of Courier/Correo/Courrier since January 2013, and Ron Rempel, who served as chief communications officer since January 2012.

Also recognized were two individuals who completed a six year term as commission chairs: Richard Showalter of the Mission Commission and Paulus Widjaja of the Peace Commission.

At the dinner event, Liesa Unger, chief international events officer, Howard Good, national coordinator for the 2015 Assembly, and Lynn Roth, North America Representative also took the opportunity to thank the many paid and volunteer staff who helped with Assembly planning.

MWC release 

Photos: Phyllis Good, Merle Good, Eleanor Miller, Tim Lind, Robert J Suderman, Devin Manzullo-Thomas, Ron Rempel, Richard Showalter, and Paulus Widjaja