New director hired for Emporia Rescue Mission
By The Emporia Gazette (Contact)
Originally published 01:41 p.m., October 11, 2007
Updated 01:41 p.m., October 11, 2007
The Emporia Rescue Mission has a new executive director, according to an announcement from Nate Terrell, chairman of the board for the group and chairman of the department of sociology and anthropology at Emporia State University.
The mission has been without a director since Dane Cook resigned earlier this year. The mission, which opened in 1999, provides a home, food and clothing for men in need and teaches basic interview and job skills, as well as providing a “new life” program based on the Bible.
The board announced it has hired the Rev. Michael V. Paddy, a missionary with 30 years of ministry experience. He has served in the jungles of the Philippines and with organizations and churches world-wide, Terrell’s announcement said.
For the past 10 years, he has held management and fundraising positions to serve the urban poor. Most recently, he has been director of CityTeam Ministries in Seattle.
Paddy is married and has four children.
“I believe the calling of my life is to help people in need who go unnoticed in the everyday activities of our lives, and to go to people and places that might have been inadvertently ignored,” Paddy said in the release.
Terrell said that the board had spent considerable time scrutinizing candidates to find “someone to come to our city and provide the leadership needed to try and alleviate and eradicate the poverty issues facing so many of our citizens of Emporia.”
Terrell characterized Paddy as a person who shared the board’s vision and as being “a man with a gentle spirit, and a love for the Lord.”
“We were looking for a director to take the Emporia Rescue Mission to the next level and we believe we have found that in Rev. Paddy,” he said.
Paddy terms his philosophy of ministry and programs to help people in need as “Grace@Work.”
“I believe the greatest changes in the lives of people willing to change is the work of grace in their lives, giving them the hope and new chance they truly need,” he said.
More information about the mission may be had by calling 342-3351 or 342-7439.
Whitebugs (anonymous) says...
Is this the same Mike Paddy who once sacked Ron Jaworski?
October 15, 2007 at 5:56 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )