Overseas Personnel in Current Service

• Montreal and Ottawa Conference
• Serving the Coordenadoria Ecumênica de Serviço (CESE) in Salvador, Brazil
• January 2008 to present

Kathleen Stephenson is from Ottawa, where she has been a member of Parkdale United Church since the mid-1970s. At Parkdale, Kathleen has been a member of the choir, the financial trustees, and the team of teachers of the Bethel Bible Series. For about 20 years before moving to Brazil as overseas personnel, she provided consulting services to diverse voluntary social service agencies in the Ottawa region and also worked with national agencies, including on a United Way of Canada project in Brazil. This three-year project focused on the development of a network of Brazilian non-governmental organizations, focusing on fundraising and ensuring that volunteers have meaningful and rewarding experiences. Kathleen will be living and working in Brazil with the Coordenadoria Ecumênica de Serviço (CESE) until the end of 2011. She will spend two months in the late spring/early summer of 2010 in Canada carrying out a home assignment and enjoying reconnecting with her family and friends. Her immediate family includes two sons and two granddaughters with whom she likes to chat, play games, and read stories on Skype.

As overseas personnel, Kathleen is serving as a full-time member of the Coordenadoria Ecumênica de Serviço staff team, supporting and strengthening CESE’s ecumenical relationships with Brazilian churches. Her duties include working with local congregations, national churches, and international organizations committed to ecumenism and inter-religious dialogue. Kathleen contributes to the institutional life and decision-making of CESE and collaborates with other staff whose responsibilities also focus on strengthening ecumenism in CESE, and in Brazil more generally. CESE hopes to ensure that associated churches and other potential partners have an opportunity to participate in the work of promoting and defending the fundamental human rights of all Brazilians.

The Coordenadoria Ecumênica de Serviço was founded in 1973 by six Brazilian churches including five denominations that continue to be represented on the Board of Directors and who work closely with CESE: the Anglican, Lutheran, United Presbyterian, Independent Presbyterian, and Roman Catholic churches. The churches that work with CESE today include a very broad range of Christian congregations and churches as well as representatives of other religions. The United Church has been in partnership with CESE for more than 12 years.

• Read Kathleen's Letters from Overseas