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10/10/2014

The Rev. Dr. Rafael Malpica Padilla Receives Lutheran World Relief Champion Award

Baltimore, October 9 -- At its September meeting in Chicago, the Lutheran World Relief board of directors presented the Rev. Dr. Rafael Malpica Padilla with the LWRL Champion award, formerly known as the Friend of LWR award. A former LWR board member, Malpica Padilla is currently executive director of the Global Mission program unit of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA). Based in Chicago, he also serves as the ELCA advisor to the LWR board.

Malpica Padilla joined ELCA Global Mission in 1993 and has been its executive director since 2003. He also served as bishop of the ELCA’s Caribbean Synod and, with the division of Global Mission, as director for International Programs and Planning and associate executive director.

LWR has partnered with the ELCA since its founding in 1988. Malpica Padilla emphasized that he was honored to receive the Champion of LWR award not only as a personal recognition but on behalf of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. A large-scale response to Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines and malaria prevention work in Tanzania that reached 1.4 million people are just two examples of what LWR’s fruitful partnership with the ELCA has made possible.

“The partnership with LWR provides a vehicle to the ELCA to deepen and extend our work in fighting hunger, addressing the root causes of poverty, and walking with communities and individuals in building their capacities for the betterment of their lives,” said Malpica Padilla. “Our work together brings to fruition the vision that guides the ELCA’s global relief and development work: touching people’s lives for the flourishing of human community.”

LWR board chair Gloria Edwards added that the board is looking forward “to a continued and strengthened relationship as LWR and ELCA work together in service to those living in poverty and injustice.”

“One of LWR’s core values is gratitude, and I am filled with gratitude to Rafael Malpica Padilla and the ELCA,” said LWR President and CEO Ambassador Daniel Speckhard (rt.). “It is our calling as Lutherans to help people in need, and Rafael has dedicated his life and career to that calling.”

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