| LOUISVILLE —
Jan Opkyke has been named director of the Mission
Initiative: Joining Hearts and Hands (MIJHH), the campaign
to raise $40 million over five years for PC(USA) missions in the
United States and abroad.
Opdyke has been with the campaign for more than a year. She
was hired initially as associate development director for the
Western United States, and became acting director when Ron Lundeen
resigned to take a teaching and fund-raising position at Hartford
Theological Seminary.
MIJHH was established by the General Assembly of the Presbyterian
Church (USA) in 2002 to support overseas missions and new-church
development and church redevelopment in the United States, especially
in racial-ethnic communities.
“Jan did such an effective, remarkable job (as acting
director) that it became clear we needed to call off our search,”
said Bill Saul of Long Beach, CA, an MIJHH co-chair. “We
already had the right person.”
According to Saul, fears that the campaign might stall during
the search were unfounded. Under Opdyke’s interim leadership,
he said, “We made significant strides. We didn’t want
to mess that up.”
John Detterick, executive director of the General Assembly Council,
said Opdyke has a “wealth of experience,” including
other funds-development work in the church, most notably in a
successful capital campaign for San Francisco Theological Seminary
(SFTS), in which she worked with Saul and Lundeen.
“I’m confident that with Jan’s leadership,
the initiative will be an absolute success,” he said.
Opdyke, a lifelong Presbyterian and a former small-business
owner, will be based in Redlands, CA, where she lives. She is
a graduate of the University of California at Los Angeles and
the University of California at Riverside, and is completing a
degree at SFTS.
The MIJHH steering committee will gather in San Francisco for
a two-day meeting starting Feb. 3.
Some information for this article was furnished by Malcolm
Logan, the MIJHH associate development director for the Central
United States. |
