The Rev. Paul Jeffrey is a General Board of Global Ministries
missionary serving in Central America along with his wife, the
Rev. Lyda Pierce. Appointed to the Christian Commission for
Development in Honduras, Paul writes about the region for
church-based media in the north, including United Methodist
publications such as Response. His work also appears in
Latinamerica Press, the Christian Century, National Catholic
Reporter, and Ecumenical News International--the news agency
of the World Council of Churches. His photos have appeared in
a number of media, including Sierra and National Geographic
Explorer.

Paul's writing and photos focus on how Christians and Christian
communities struggle for justice and peace in the midst of
repression, violence, and rapid economic and social change.
While he specializes in Central America, Paul has filed
stories from more than 30 countries in Latin America, the
Caribbean, Africa, and Asia, writing about everything from
hurricanes to health care, from massacres to indigenous rights,
from refugees to ecumenism. In the course of his work, Paul has
been trapped in combat, tear-gassed and shot at, taken prisoner
by soldiers, and gotten sick from what he calls "every intestinal
disorder known to modern science." He's also had what he terms
the "privilege of witnessing the poor become subjects of their own
history rather than the objects of someone else's history."

"My job is to help people in the U.S. and Europe understand what
Christians in Latin America are doing, why they're doing it, and
what the consequences of that work may be both for those in the
south as well as those in the north," says Paul. "When I do that
well, people in the north begin to understand how they are
intrinsically linked to their sisters and brothers here, not just
because they share the same Gospel, but also because they share
an international economic system that manufactures poverty and
injustice for the majority."

Paul also assists the Honduran Theological Community (an
ecumenical seminary in Tegucigalpa) and the Christian
Commission for Development in the area of communications,
including the preparation of periodic reports describing their
work and analyzing the political context within which they carry
out their ministries.

Paul also helps provide coverage of emergencies for Action by
Churches Together (ACT), a Geneva-based network of church
disaster agencies. Paul assists ACT in training Latin American
nongovernmental organizations in communications strategies and
practices to be implemented following emergencies.

Paul is the author of Recovery Memory, a book about the role of
churches in the Guatemalan peace process. The book is in the
process of becoming a video documentary. He has also written
chapters for two different books on the region, and is coauthor of
a forthcoming study of post-Hurricane Mitch reconstruction in
Honduras.

Paul has won several awards for his writing and photography. Most
recently, in 2002, he won the Eileen Egan Award for third
world reporting from Catholic Relief Services.

Along with their children Lucas and Abigail, Paul and Lyda live
in the mountains outside Tegucigalpa, the capital of Honduras.
Before moving there in mid-1996, Paul and Lyda served for two
years in the western highlands of Guatemala. Before that, they
lived for nine years in Nicaragua where they worked on the staff
of the Nicaraguan Council of Churches (CEPAD).

A native of Vancouver, Washington, Paul is an ordained elder in
the Pacific Northwest Annual Conference. He served two rural
churches in western Washington State before moving to Central
America in 1984. He has a Bachelor of Arts in literature and
political science from The Evergreen State College in Olympia,
Washington, and a Master of Divinity from Pacific School of
Religion, part of the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley,
California. In 2001, Paul and his wife Lyda were named
distinguished alums of Pacific School of Religion.

Missionary Code # 009541-2NZ