April 20, 2009

CHICAGO – After 18 years serving as president of Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service (LIRS), Ralston H. Deffenbaugh Jr. will resign from his post effective Sept. 1.

LIRS, based in Baltimore, is a cooperative agency of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod (LCMS) and the Latvian Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.

In a LIRS news release, Deffenbaugh, 57, said the "organization needs new gifts of leadership."

"As LIRS president I have always understood myself as standing on the able, solid shoulders of all those who have gone before me," he said. "I believe that my gifts have been well used in my tenure at LIRS, that the agency has grown to a degree that no one could have imaged 18 years ago, and that it is now time for a new kind of imagination to light the way."

"I've long been influenced by the adage that our calling is the intersection between our joy and the world's need. For me and for LIRS, that intersection has shifted," he said.

Deffenbaugh is the longest-serving leader of LIRS since its founding in 1939. Since the beginning of his tenure, LIRS and its partners have resettled more than 100,000 refugees. By direct collaboration with the United Nations High Commission for Refugees, LIRS revitalized the international system of resettlement and care for children who enter the United States without their caregivers.

Deffenbaugh helped to form the Refugee Council USA and served as its first chairperson from 2000 to 2001.

"The sustained commitment of Lutherans in the United States to resettle refugees is testimony to the leadership of Ralie Deffenbaugh," said the Rev. Mark S. Hanson, ELCA presiding bishop.

Deffenbaugh "has combined the skills of an attorney who understands complex immigration law with the compassionate heart of a person of faith who seeks to serve the neighbor," Hanson said. "He has continued to champion faith and just immigration reform, and remind Lutherans – most of whom are the descendants of a once-immigrant people – that we are called to welcome the new immigrants in our land."

Deffenbaugh said his future plans are still taking shape. "I remain passionately committed to the mission of LIRS and look forward to continuing to be a strong supporter of LIRS through my financial support, my advocacy and my prayers," he said.

The LIRS board of directors has established a transition committee. Representatives of the ELCA, LCMS and the Latvian Evangelical Lutheran Church govern the LIRS on a 15-member board of directors.

LIRS is one of the nation's leading agencies serving refugees and immigrants. It resettles refugees, protects unaccompanied children, advocates for just treatment of asylum seekers, seeks alternatives to immigration detention and stands for unity for families fractured by unfair laws.

Information about LIRS is at http://www.lirs.org/, on the Internet.

ELCA News Service
Cassandra Champion is LIRS communication director.