Jesuit Refugee Service/USA Welcomes New National Director

Jesuit Father Michael A. Evans has become the sixth National Director of Jesuit Refugee Service/USA. He succeeds Jesuit Father Kenneth J. Gavin, who next year becomes Assistant Director of Jesuit Refugee Service International in Rome.

Fr. Evans served from 1990 through 1996 as the JRS Eastern Africa Regional Director and from 2000 through 2010 as Development Director and Treasurer of the Jesuit province of Eastern Africa.

Fr. Evans recalls the letter Jesuit Father Pedro Arrupe, former Superior General of the Society of Jesus, wrote to Jesuits worldwide in 1980, asking “every Jesuit world-wide to consider how his personal life, his actions, his institutional apostolate, etc. could begin to address the world-wide refugee crisis.”

For thirty years, “I have dedicated my life, my educational pursuits, and my work as a Jesuit to do just that – in the context of social ethics and economic development – to work with refugees, internally displaced and marginalized members of our society,” said Fr. Evans. [JRS/USA]