Personalia

Arlee Johnson has resigned as senior pastor of Sardis Community Church in Chilliwack, B.C., effective May 1, after serving for six years. On June 1, he will become pastor of Herold Mennonite Church in Oklahoma. After earning an M.A. from MB Biblical Seminary, he pastored Western Oaks MB Church in Bethany, Okla. for three years, pastored Sardis Community Church for five years, was an associate professor at MBBS for four years and then returned to Sardis in 1991. He has also been serving as chair of the B.C. MB Conference Board of Pastoral Ministries. He and his wife JoAnn have three grown children.

Keith Poysti has been appointed senior pastor at Elmwood MB Church in Winnipeg, effective July 1. Most recently, he was interim pastor for a nine-month term at Steinbach (Man.) MB Church. Previously he was pastor of Burrows Bethel Mennonite Church in Winnipeg and was associate pastor of outreach and youth at River East MB Church, Winnipeg for four-and-a-half years. He also worked at Cornerstone Counselling Services in Winnipeg. He has a B.Sc. from Moody Bible Institute, has studied at Brock University in St. Catharines, Ont. and has a master's degree in Old Testament from MB Biblical Seminary in Fresno. While in Fresno, he was associate pastor at St. Michael's United Methodist Church for two years. His wife Heidi is staff development coordinator for Donwood Manor, a personal care home in Winnipeg. They have three children, Nathan, 17, Rachel, 16, and Sarah, 13.

Harry Olfert has been appointed interim president of Concord College in Winnipeg. He takes over from James Pankratz who resigned after nine years of leadership--first of MB Bible College and then its successor, Concord College. Olfert was business administrator at MBBC for seven years and was recently Canadian development director for MB Biblical Seminary. David R. Dyck, recently retired science professor at University of Winnipeg, has been named interim dean. He takes over from Gerry Ediger who will return to teaching at Concord. The presidential search was put on hold to allow the Manitoba MB Conference to review its schools.

In January 1997, Kerry Jo Bergen arrived in San Luca, Guatemala, to begin a 10-month English teaching assignment at the Centro Educativo Getsemane school. There are 700 children, grades K-9. The only problem was that the children had very few English books to practise their assignments. A call to Kerry's mother soon had Northview Community Church in Abbotsford, B.C. collecting children's books. The learning centre department had the children weigh in their books and made it a contest, the care groups brought books and the "Roaring 20s" raised money for shipping. A total of 1,100 books were collected in four weeks. The books were delivered by Canadian Food for the Hungry, who had a truck leaving for Guatemala and Nicaragua Apr. 4. This project was a great way to "houseclean" people's book shelves and send a message of Christ's love to the children in San Lucas. Pictured is Dan Byer (front) weighing the books.

On Feb. 10, Henry Wiens, Herb Wall and Abe Wiens of Scott St. MB Church in St. Catharines, Ont. joined Jake Boldt in Lithuania to renovate a two-story building for use as a church. It will accommodate 1,000 people and will be used as a co-operative training centre during the week. Using buckets to carry the concrete, they poured footings and walls inside the existing structure, then continued with framing interior walls. The project is sponsored by the Foundation for International Development Assistance.

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