Paraguay’s First Lady captures hearts of MEDA audience

Maria Gloria Penayo de Duarte, wife of Paraguay’s current president and lead-off speaker at the annual convention of Mennonite Economic Development Associates (MEDA), Nov. 2–5 in Tampa, Fla., captured the hearts of her audience with her effervescent testimony.

She said she eagerly accepted the invitation “because of what MEDA has meant to Paraguay,” referring to the agency’s first work there in the 1950s and its current help to subsistence farmers.

Duarte described herself as “a daughter of God” and an “adopted Mennonite.” She shared the story of her conversion to Christianity 12 years ago and her subsequent involvement with the Raices Mennonite Brethren Church in Asuncion, where she was baptized in 1997 and attends regularly.

Duarte recounted the efforts of her husband, Nicanor, who became president in 2003, to set a new moral course in a country where “corruption had become a way of life.”

She also recounted challenges. Powerful economic interests were resisting tax reform, she said, and the press has ridiculed her, calling her “Mrs. Bible.”

Duarte said she was looking forward to helping host the Mennonite World Conference assembly in Paraguay in 2009.

The MEDA convention drew 434 attendees, including 40 college students and visitors from 10 countries.

President Allan Sauder reported that MEDA last year served 2.6 million clients in 35 countries through microfinance and agriculture programs. A particularly strong performer was the commercial distribution of insecticide treated mosquito nets to prevent malaria in Tanzania. MEDA ended the year in the black, with donations rising six percent to $1.8 million (US) and total revenues up 25 percent to $13.7 million (US).

Other speakers included the head of MEDA’s partner agency in Egypt, Nabil Abadir, who called for Christians to build bridges amid political and religious tension, and global advertising guru Keith Reinhard, chair emeritus of DDB Worldwide, one of the world’s largest advertising agency networks, who urged the Americans in his audience to set new standards for global citizenship.

The convention concluded with Linford and Janet Stutzman, both from Eastern Mennonite University, relating how they combined their passion for sailing with their love of the gospel by outfitting a sailboat and retracing the Mediterranean journeys of the Apostle Paul.

“Most of us here, like Paul, are citizens of a powerful and glorious empire. You are entrepreneurs of the kingdom on a sea of change,” they said, urging their audience to “travel the trade routes of globalization with a vision of the kingdom.”

—Wally Kroeker for MEDA