| The network’s main purpose
is to support dialogue about the root causes of poverty and hunger
within the member organizations and the communities they serve.
Member organizations encourage people to work together devise
strategies to address hunger issues through local government structures.
They hope that successful initiatives on a local level will influence
national policies and bring more social and economic justice to
the people of Lesotho. The network’s Web
site has further details.
Cindy was also involved in an initiative that sprang from her
local church in Pietermaritzburg. There, the church worked with
local women caring for orphaned and vulnerable children in their
community. The church contributed resources to refurbish buildings
and buy other necessities, while the women of the community ran
the center. Through this effort many children received protective,
loving care while being prepared for formal schooling.
Cindy’s first appointment as a mission co-worker was in
1998 when she served in South Africa with African Enterprise,
an interdenominational ministry whose mission is to “evangelize
the cities of Africa through word and deed in partnership with
the Church.” Cindy worked with founder Michael Cassidy in
his various speaking, teaching, preaching and writing opportunities,
both within South Africa and internationally.
Prior to her appointment with the PC(USA)—from 1994 to
1997—Cindy worked with African Enterprise as a volunteer,
providing administrative and communications support to the teams
in Malawi and South Africa.
Cindy first became involved in mission through urban ministry
outreaches in her church in Los Angeles. Her participation in
a short-term mission trip to Moscow and St. Petersburg, Russia,
with Operation Carelift sparked her interest in full-time mission
work. This followed a conversion experience in 1988 that Cindy
says, “radically changed my life. I knew at that moment,
beyond any doubt, that Jesus truly was who he’d said he
was, and I knew my life would never be the same.” In 1994
she left her job in human resource management in the electronics
industry in Irvine, California, to begin her mission career in
South Africa, arriving just after their first free democratic
election in which Nelson Mandela was elected president.
Having grown up in the Sacramento area, Cindy attended the University
of California at Davis, settling in the San Francisco area for
several years before moving to the greater Los Angeles area. Her
home church is Fair Oaks Presbyterian in Fair Oaks, California,
the church she attended in her early years with her family.
Birthday: January 31
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