Walt and Valerie Shepard
c/o Central West Africa Office
Worldwide Ministries Division
100 Witherspoon Street
Louisville, KY 40202-1396
Email: Walt and Valerie Shepard
Email: Walt and Valerie Shepard 2

Short interview on video with Walt Shepard.

Short interview on video with Valerie Shepard

Valerie and Walt were appointed in January 2005 to serve in Kinshasa, the capital city of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Walt will divide his time between the pastorate of the International Protestant Church of Kinshasa and the Booth Superior Institute of Theology (ISTB). The ISTB is an institution of the Presbyterian Community of Kinshasa (CPK), which is a partner church denomination. The International Protestant Church of Kinshasa is a single church entity made up of Congolese and internationals living in Kinshasa. The Shepards will spend time studying French prior to leaving for Congo.

For Walt, the appointment means a return to the country of his youth—he’s the son of Caroline and Walter Shepard, who served from 1947 to 1961, the period of maximum expansion of Presbyterian mission in what was then the Belgian Congo. In 1960, there were 202 Presbyterian mission personnel in Congo. With the addition of the Shepards, there will now be seven PCUSA mission personnel in Congo.

(French Photo Album)
(Congo Photo Album)

Letters from
Walt and Valerie Shepard

• April 2008
• December 2007
• October 2007
• August 2007
• June 2007
• April 2007
• March 2007
• February 2007
• July 2006
• May 2006
• February 2006
• November 2005
• August 2005
• March 2005

For Valerie this will also be a return—to the mission field. She is also the child of missionary parents, Jim and Elisabeth Elliot. When Valerie was a baby, her father and four other missionaries from the Plymouth Brethren were killed in Ecuador by the Auca tribe, with whom they were attempting to share the gospel. Later, when she was 3, she went with her mother to live with the Auca. She left Ecuador when she was 8, but still feels connected to the missionary project. “My mother was able to tell Jesus’s life and show that killing is wrong,” she says. Her mother, Elisabeth, is the author of Through Gates of Splendor, which tells the story of Jim Elliot’s death.

Both the Shepards feel the call to mission service strongly. They had intended to go into mission service after Walt was ordained in 1975, but circumstances prevented that from happening. Walt did short-term service in Uganda in 1992 and 1996, training national church leaders and speaking at women’s conferences. He was a short-term chaplain to relief workers in Sudan in 1996. Both these experiences reinforced his call to mission service.

Prior to his appointment as a mission co-worker, and since 1997, Walt was pastor of Harrison Bridge Road Presbyterian Church in Simpsonville, South Carolina, a church of the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church (ARP). Walt has also been pastor of Aliso Creek Presbyterian Church in Mission Viejo, California, which is part of the Presbyterian Church of America (1987-1997). He has also been the called pastor of Covenant Presbyterian Church in Laurel, Mississippi (1979-1987), another PCA congregation, and Trinity Presbyterian Church (PCUS) in Laurel, Mississippi (1979-1983). His first pastorate was with three linked parishes of the PCUS in southwest Louisiana—Jeanerette, Franklin, and Centerville (1975-1979).

Walt holds a bachelor’s degree from Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee, and a masters of divinity from Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary in South Hamilton, Massachusetts.

Valerie holds a bachelor’s degree from Wheaton College in Wheaton, Illinois. “I’ve always been a stay-at-home mother,” she says, “and have homeschooled my children from 1983 to 2004.”

Birthdays:
Walt – March 9
Valerie – February 27
Walter – May 15
Elisabeth – June 2
Christiana – December 29
Jim – April 18
Colleen – June 7
Evangeline – November 9
Theodore – January 10
Sarah – August 17