The Baptist Peace Fellowship of North America has announced Doris García Rivera as its interim executive director for a two-year period.
Doris García Rivera
She fills the role after the departure earlier this year of LeDayne McLeese Polaski, who served with the organization more than 20 years.
The BPFNA ~ Bautistas por la Paz board made the announcement on Thursday. García’s first day on the job was Sept. 23 – two days before attending her first board meeting.
“A missionary, pastor and leader in the U.S., Latin America and the Caribbean with indigenous communities, Dr. García thrives in multicultural contexts, successfully adapting materials and programs to meet specific needs,” the organization said in a news release.
García launched two theological schools, one each in Costa Rica and Mexico. She worked in fundraising and proposal development as chief academic officer of the Intercultural Mayan Seminary in Chiapas, Mexico.
She also raised more than $4 million in four years as president of the Evangelical Seminary of Puerto Rico.
“During part of that time, she was operating in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria,” the organization said, yet “was able to build a large and diverse network of support to reopen the seminary, rebuild the school and create new projects.”
****
Baylor, THI announce new collaborative to fight hunger
The newly launched Baylor Collaborative on Hunger and Poverty has been announced by Baylor University’s Texas Hunger Initiative.
Jeremy Everett
The Collaborative will be the umbrella organization for THI and will include Jeremy Everett, THI’s founder and director, and Kathy Krey, an assistant research professor at Baylor and the initiative’s director of research and administration.
“The Collaborative will integrate research and practice through projects such as THI, the Research Fellows program, the Global Hunger and Migration Project and the Hunger Data Lab, among others,” Baylor announced. It will “continue to conduct interdisciplinary hunger and poverty research with local, state, national and global relevance.”
“The Collaborative’s core purpose is to help communities end hunger and its causes by better use of existing resources,” Everett said in a Baylor news release.
The aim is for allies in the fight against hunger to solve problems by encouraging innovation and research, he said.
“Our core belief is that hunger and poverty are too complex for any sector to comprehensively address alone.”
Kathy Krey
The vision behind the Collaboration is to equip all communities with the resources to eliminate hunger, Krey said.
“These are the same tools they might need to respond to a crisis or natural disaster: coordinated efforts, a menu of proven strategies and real-time data,” she said.
****
CBF North Carolina launches congregational leadership fund
The Cooperative Baptist Fellowship of North Carolina has created a new fund to support “the strengthening of congregational leadership,” the state organization recently announced.
CBFNC said the Jack and Mary Elizabeth Causey Fund for Congregational Leadership will honor the legacy of Jack and Mary Lib Causey. It can be utilized by ministers and laypeople for continuing education, for theological education scholarships and programs that strengthen congregational leadership.
Larry Hovis
“The purpose of the fund reflects the Causeys’ long commitment to mentoring church leaders for effective, faithful ministry and service,” CBFNC said in its announcement.
Jack Causey served the First Baptist churches of Greensboro, North Carolina and Gaffney, South Carolina. He also served First Baptist Church in Statesville, North Carolina, until his retirement in 2000.
“I can’t think of any clergy couple who have had a greater impact on North Carolina Cooperative Baptists – clergy and laity – than Jack and Mary Lib Causey,” said Larry Hovis, executive coordinator of CBFNC.