| John and Joyce Michael
Rooseveltova 3
160 00 Praha 6
Czech Republic
Email: John
Michael
Email: Joyce
Michael
John Michael was a Presbyterian mission worker living in Slovakia
when he met Joyce Mauler, a Methodist mission worker living in
Prague. They were married in September 2002. John has been under
appointment as a mission worker with the PC(USA) since 1992 and
Joyce since 2002.
At the request of the PC(USA)’s partner church, the Evangelical
Church of Czech Brethren (ECCB), mission co-worker John Michael
was reassigned from Slovakia to the neighboring Czech Republic
in the fall of 2001. John works in Prague with the ECCB’s
ecumenical office. His primary role is to help foster communication
and cooperation between the ECCB and the PC(USA). This includes
facilitating Presbyterian groups visiting our partner churches
in the Czech Republic and Slovakia. John and Joyce work closely with the PC(USA)'s Czech Mission Network.
John also promotes congregation-to-congregation partnerships
and provides contacts for Czech pastors or scholars who wish to
study or serve in the United States. He translates church documents
and correspondence from Czech to English, and occasionally from
German or Slovak. John also works with the Brethren Church in Michalovce, Slovakia, in support of their summer outreach and evangelism projects.
John and Joyce work with two groups that help to foster contacts
and ties between the PC(USA) and the ECCB—the Czech Mission
Network of the PC(USA) and the American Working Group of the ECCB.
A particular joy for John, in 2007, was helping these two groups send youth to each other's church events—one Czech youth to the PC(USA) Youth Triennium and five youth from the United States to the ECCB International Youth Conference in the Czech Republic. John and Joyce translate and edit Czech Protestant News, a periodical
that is a cooperative effort of the ECCB, Diaconia (ECCB’s
service arm), and the Protestant Theological Faculty of Charles
University. John and Joyce also edit Czech Mission Network News,
the main organ of communication for the PC(USA)'s Czech Mission
Network. Joyce and John are helping to prepare for the visit to the Czech Republic of the Presbyterian Women's Global Exchange in 2008.
Joyce works with the ECCB and also with the Protestant Theological
Faculty. Her work primarily involves translating book-length texts
from Czech to English. These include a book of essays on human
rights by Bozena Komarkova, published in 2003, and a book about
historical sites of the Czech Reformation in Prague published
in 2006. Joyce is currently translating a book entitled Jesus Story: a Challenge for Us, in which Professor Jakub S. Trojan seeks to reenvision traditional theories of the atonement. Joyce also prepares presentations on Czech thinkers designed
to enable U.S. Christians to become more familiar with the religious
heritage of the ECCB and its Reformation predecessors. She also
prepares "Bridges," a one-page email newsletter sent
twelve times a year, on behalf of the Czech Mission Network.
Prior to his reassignment to the Czech Republic John was seconded
to the Brethren Church of Slovakia to do outreach ministry to
the community, something that was not possible during the communist
era. He taught English as a second language and Bible to teenagers
and adults in the towns of Trencin and Stara Tura. His classes
brought together members of the Brethren Church congregations
and residents of the community in these two towns. John would
also preach occasionally and lead groups in these two congregations.
John graduated from the University of Delaware in Newark with
a B.A. degree in philosophy. He earned his M.Div. degree from
Harvard Divinity School in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and his Th.M.
degree in church history from Princeton Theological Seminary in
Princeton, New Jersey. Before serving in Slovakia, John was pastor
at Hopewell Presbyterian Church in Brownsville, Pennsylvania,
for eleven years. He is a clergy member of Redstone Presbytery.
Joyce holds a Ph.D. in religious
studies from Syracuse University in Syracuse, New York. Her M.Div.
is from Methodist Theological School in Delaware, Ohio, and her
B.A. from Otterbein College, Westerville, Ohio. She served as
a pastor for the West Ohio Conference of the United Methodist
Church from 1986 to 1999. She has taught in part-time or interim
positions at Urbana University in Urbana, Ohio, and Otterbein
College.
Joyce was ordained to the ministry of the Word and Sacrament
in 1989 by the West Ohio Conference of the United Methodist Church.
She and John make their church home in an ECCB congregation near their residence, while occasionally visiting other ECCB congregations. |
