Paul Jeffrey

Paul Jeffrey is a United Methodist missionary who writes about the work of the church around the world as senior correspondent for Response, the magazine of United Methodist Women. Paul also provides coverage of emergencies for Action by Churches Together (ACT), a Geneva-based global alliance of churches responding to disasters.

After living in Central America for 20 years, Paul and his family moved to Eugene, Oregon, in 2004. Yet his writing continues to focus on similar themes, including how Christians and Christian communities struggle for justice and peace in the midst of repression, violence, and rapid economic and social change.

Paul has filed stories from more than 60 countries in Latin America, the Caribbean, Africa, and Asia, writing about everything from hurricanes to health care, from massacres to indigenous rights, from refugees to ecumenism. In the course of his work, Paul has been trapped in combat, tear-gassed and shot at, taken prisoner by soldiers, and gotten sick from what he calls "every intestinal disorder known to modern science." He's also had what he terms the "privilege of witnessing the poor become subjects of their own history rather than the objects of someone else's history."

"I often write about what people of faith are doing to empower people at the margins to live the abundant life that's promised to them in the Gospel. I focus on why they're doing that and what the consequences of that work may be for ordinary women and men in the pews," says Paul. "When I do that well, people in the global north begin to understand how we are intrinsically linked to our sisters and brothers in the global south, not just because they share the same Gospel, but also because they share an international economic system that manufactures poverty and injustice for the majority."

Paul's writing has also appeared in magazines such as the Christian Century and the National Catholic Reporter. He is the author of Recovering Memory, a book about the churches' role in the Guatemalan peace process; the book inspired "Precarious Peace," a documentary video about the church in Guatemala. He has also written chapters for two different books on the region, and is coauthor of a study of the effects of Hurricane Mitch on the economics and political culture of Honduras.

Paul's photos have appeared in countless church and ecumenical publications and in magazines such as Sierra and National Geographic Explorer. They've also been used by organizations ranging from the World Bank, the World Health Organization and UNESCO to the UN Population Fund, the World Meterological Organization and the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. A book with his photos from the Darfur region of Sudan - Where Mercy Fails - was published by Seabury Books in March 2009.

Paul has won several awards for his writing and photography, including the top annual photography award of the United Methodist Association of Communicators (eleven times), the top annual writing award of the same association (nine times). Four times he has won the Eileen Egan Award for Journalistic Excellence from Catholic Relief Services. He has received the top annual magazine photography award of the Associated Church Press, as well as awards for the best international news writing and the best photo story from the Catholic Press Association.

Paul has interviewed hundreds of important newsmakers ranging from Jimmy Swaggart to Evo Morales. He has himself been interviewed by journalists ranging from Bill Moyers to Amy Goodman.

As part of his assignment with ACT, Paul assists in training nongovernmental organizations in communications strategies and practices to be implemented following emergencies.