Ambassador Lewis Lucke

Dear Prayer Partner,

I am sending you this Prayer letter from Amsterdam on my way to Accra, Ghana.  It will be the first stop on a 5 country trip that will take me to the following countries:

• Ghana (Jan. 27-30)
• Ethiopia (Jan. 31-Feb. 2)
• Sudan (Feb. 3 - 5)
• Zimbabwe (Feb6-11)
• Kenya (Feb. 12-17)

The Lord willing, I will be back home on Feb. 17th.  So I count on your prayers for this diverse and intense 3 weeks of ministry.  At least two of the countries—Sudan and Zimbabwe, are going through great political instability and economic crisis.  Also, there is a major cholera outbreak in Zimbabwe that has taken the lives of over 2,000 people.

But in spite of the many problems the continent of Africa is struggling under, there is an incredible new expectation and respect due to the recent Inauguration of President Obama (I hope you have read my blog on that).  And if you think that expectations for President Obama are high in America—they are “off the charts in Africa!”  So his election ushered in a new day of opportunity for America and Americans in Africa.

Last night before I left on this trip, I received an exciting email from Ambassador Lewis Lucke.  On his last day in office, President Bush sent a personal note of thanks to Ambassador Lucke.  Obviously a great honor!

President Bush letter to Lewis Lucke

What makes this very special to me is the fact that Ambassador Lucke is an “ND Alumni,” going back to the very earliest years of our existence.  He was with our ministry part of his senior year in High School.  Unfortunately, we had lost touch with each other for a number of years.  Then a few years ago, God connected us together again.  Since then we have exchanged regular emails about our various parallel ministries in many parts of the world.  As you will see from a few of the highlights from his career bio immediately below, he has served the US Government in many of the same countries NDI has been involved in for years.

Lewis Lucke was nominated by President George W. Bush to be US Ambassador to the Kingdom of Swaziland in early 2004 and was confirmed soon after by the US Senate. He served as Ambassador to Swaziland through July 2006. Prior to joining the US Department of State, Ambassador Lucke had been a career senior Foreign Service Officer who served for 26 years with the U.S. Agency for International Development. His prior position was that of first USAID Mission Director to Iraq, where he managed a $4.0 billion reconstruction and economic development program from Baghdad in 2003-2004, USAID’s largest program ever and the largest reconstruction effort funded by the United States since the Marshall Plan.

Ambassador Lucke is originally from North Carolina, now living in Austin, Texas married to Joy Willeford with three grown children. Mr. Lucke graduated from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill and has an MBA from the Thunderbird School of Global Management in Arizona. Ambassador Lucke has served in the U.S. Foreign Service since 1978 in ten countries: Mali, Senegal, Costa Rica, Tunisia, Bolivia, Jordan, Haiti, Brazil, Iraq and Swaziland. He had been USAID Mission Director in his last five posts of Bolivia, Jordan, Brazil, Haiti, and Iraq.

Mr. Lucke has received USAID’s two highest awards, the Administrator’s Distinguished Career Award in 2001, and the Agency’s award for Heroism in 2004. He was named a Distinguished Alumnus of 2003 from the Thunderbird School of Global Management. He received the Secretary of Defense’s Award for Exceptional Public Service in 2004. Mr. Lucke is fluent in French and Spanish and has a working knowledge of Arabic. He is the author of “Waiting for Rain: Life and Development in Mali, West Africa” published in 1999. Ambassador Lucke now manages his own international consulting firm from Austin specializing in the Middle East. Among other activities, his company is building affordable housing and schools in Iraq and brokering Texas investment into the Iraq oil and gas sector.

So I wanted to pass this email along to you as a source of encouragement and blessing.  Both Ambassador Lucke and I are “Ambassadors for the Kingdom of God,” as Paul wrote in II Corinthians 5.  He just has a “dual Ambassadorship” while mine is single!

Thanks again for your prayers for both of us as we seek to be faithful Ambassadors of our wonderful country, but even more for the Kingdom of God!  While he has faithfully served America under several Presidents, both of us are seeking to faithfully serve the “King of kings and Lord of lords” as Ambassadors of love and reconciliation in a hurting and fragmented world!

In His Service,

PS:  While I am gone, my associate Daniel, will be sending out a series of Reports from my past few trips that I haven’t had time to report on.  They will cover Nepal, India, Bangladesh and the Congo.  I hope you will be blessed and encouraged over what your prayers and partnership make possible.