Panel of Elders

The International Panel of Elders was formed at the 1999 global consultation in South Africa. It consists of up to twelve individuals, with a wide background knowledge and understanding of IofC’s world fellowship, to encourage spiritual growth, and where necessary, work for healing and reconciliation within and around the IofC network.

The Elders are an informal 'resource body' supporting the world fellowship of Initiatives of Change and the International Council. The Elders are mandated to take proactive steps to preserve the spirit of IofC and its effective outreach, and also to strengthen the accompaniment aspect in of IofC’s activities. 

The Emerging Agents of Change programme is an international accompanying-mentoring initiative launched by the Panel of Elders in 2021. 

In the early 60s, Christine’s family migrated from Mumbai, India to Perth, Australia where she met Initiatives of Change when the musical Sing Out Australia passed through en route to India. To engage all the new and interested young people, including Christine, Sing Out West was formed, traveling to towns in West Australia and sharing their initial experiences of change along with the songs they had learnt.

Christine was studying music in Perth at the time and training as a secretary, which she used when she became engaged full-time with IofC at the age of 18. She worked as a secretary in the Melbourne office for a couple of years and travelled with Anything to Declare on their return journey to India then on to Europe where she spent 3 years in the UK working as a secretary. She had the privilege of joining the cast of ‘Crossroad’, a multi-media production which told the story and history of IofC.

Returning to India to join Song of Asia, she travelled with the cast through the country until the programme ended its tour. She then married her husband, Niketu, and in 1995 they moved to North-East India, where they still reside. In Christine’s words, ‘Our home in Nagaland has become a place where people come from all over the North-East region and other parts of India.  We named it Kerünyü Ki which in Niketu’s Angami language means “House of Listening”. It is a place where people come together to plan, to listen to one another, and to solve problems through honesty, humility, and openness.’

Barbara was born in Brisbane where she initially came across Initiatives of Change when she was 21. She experienced a personal transformation to a new and constructive direction in her life and in her large family.  She went on to work on a full-time voluntary basis with IofC 1970-85 in Europe, India and Australia. Barbara has over 20 years’ experience in Human Resources and Industrial Relations in two of Australia’s largest media organizations in Sydney (retired from Australian Broadcasting Corporation in June 2011) where she attained a Master’s Degree in Business (Employment Relations). She relocated from Melbourne to Brisbane in April 2017.

Since 2003, Barbara has been particularly inspired by many visits to Indonesia and to Timor-Leste, working with IofC’s young team.  She has a calling to build bridges of trust and friendship between Australia and its neighbors. She feels Indonesia has much to give the world through its struggle for democracy and through its sound and true Islamic leadership which in turn builds bridges of trust across the world’s divides. 

From 2010-2014, Barbara was IofC Australia’s National Coordinator. This was followed by roles in a new organizational structure for IofC Australia; and currently in a transitionary role of Convenor, Network, Activities and Connections. She is also the Queensland representative on the Creators of Peace National Advisory Group Australia. 

Barbara is passionate about supporting IofC’s ongoing transition and growth as a channel of transformational and empowering values needed in the world, bringing its dynamic and unique approach of connecting the personal with the global. 

Megumi was born in 1952, and brought up in Tokyo and earned a Bachelor’s degree in Education from Tamagawa University and a Master’s degree in Human Security from the Dept. of Political Science, Doshisha Graduate University. 

In 1974, she attended her first IofC International Conference in Caux and subsequently trained with IofC in the UK. In 1975, while touring Europe and Canada with the MRA musical Song of Asia, she made lifelong friends from Asia and the Pacific as well as other continents. Through their life stories, Megumi learned what Japan had done to other people in Asia and around the world, and decided to dedicate the rest of her life to spread the message of IofC.  She worked full time for three and a half years with IofC in Brazil, alongside Latin American team.

Returning to Asia, Megumi worked for five years with Cambodian people, Korean Buddhists, and Japanese Christians. She assisted in developing a support team for the younger generations of Cambodians to have access to education, but also helped to encourage farmers to play their part in building a better society. 

In Megumi’s words, ‘As an ordinary Japanese I have sought to build bridges of trust within Asia and the world.  I live by the belief that by learning together everyone can discover more of their own strength. Wherever we are, and whatever situation we are in, people around the world will be able to fulfill their unique potential and have the strength to bring light into this needy world.  This part of the world [Japan and Asia] has yet to be able to offer its own unique strengths to respond to the world’s needs.’

Roy was introduced to Initiatives of Change at the MRA/IofC Centre in 1985 at Coolmoreen Farm, which is in Gweru, Zimbabwe as student on industrial attachment.  Upon graduation, he taught Agriculture in secondary schools in Harare and Bindura for two years and during this time he maintained links with IofC.  In January 1988, he and his wife Tafadzwa were invited by the Council of Management to Coolmoreen Farm and Conference Centre in Gweru to run the farming units which comprised of a dairy, poultry breeding, and cropping enterprises.  

Roy learnt a lot about both IofC and commercial farming from the late Peter and Jean Loch together with the late Professor Emeritus Jesse Williams, who was a specialist in Dairy Science from the United States.  Due to his experience of IofC at Coolmoreen he decided to live a life guided by the values of IofC. It was during his tenure that the farm experienced its most productive years in the post-independence era. After five years at Coolmoreen, a new calling drove he and his family to Botswana. He worked for 15 years for the Government of Botswana where he was involved in various capacities introducing Agriculture in secondary schools throughout the country.

After teaching Agriculture in secondary schools in Zimbabwe and Botswana for nearly 20 years, he retired from active employment but maintains interest in sustainable farming methods and rural development. Roy was part of the cohort Workshop for Africa in 2013 which led he and his teammates to South Sudan for peace mobilizing efforts. He is currently the Secretary General of MRA/IofC Zimbabwe and is involved with efforts to reclaim the IofC Centre in Zimbabwe which had been taken away by the government for resettlement purposes. He is also Convener for the African Coordination Group (ACG).

Florence was born in 1952 and spent most of her childhood abroad in USA, Lebanon and Algeria. When she was 12 years old, she became aware that she was French, but hardly knew her own country. At 15, she moved to France and one year later, she discovered Moral Re-Armament (now Initiatives of Change). One of her first changes was to open herself to France, which she had longed to discover, but which she found difficult to adapt to.

She realised that ‘big doors turn on small hinges’ and that inner listening can lead to personal changes. These changes, which seem small at first, can have far bigger consequences. Her first ‘small hinge’ moment was to follow the thought that she needed to apologise to someone. In doing following this inner guidance and seeking forgiveness she began to walk on a new life path.

After her secretarial studies she worked full time with Initiatives of Change for 13 years. She worked in Europe, took part in two itinerant shows: ‘Time to choose’ in Europe and southern Africa, and ‘Poor man, rich man’ in Europe and northern America. She also lived a few months in Latin America with Jean-Louis, whom she married in 1983; they have had four children. After several years teaching in primary school, she retired in July 2018.

Lorne comes from a Mennonite Anabaptist tradition. That immigrant and faith upbringing have helped shape his worldview and informed his life choices.

With training in theology, linguistics, building technology, and political and ethnic conflict analysis, Lorne’s work experience has included building inspection, teaching, and non-profit management: working and consulting with NGOs, the private sector and the Canadian Government.

He has travelled extensively, including three years working in Ethiopia. His various work situations have included coaching and mentoring, some of which he continues to do on a volunteer basis.

Lorne has been active in IofC for over 30 years, alternating between a domestic and international focus. He has been on the IofC Canada board at various times, and also served for six years as Treasurer on the International Council.

Having recently ended his international humanitarian consulting work after 24 years, Lorne and his wife Joyce are part of a community which operates Rivendell Retreat Centre on the west coast of Canada.

Fung Ming associated with the MRA/IofC programs in Australia, Europe and India in mid 80’s.

A production engineer by training, she taught in the higher education in UK for 5 years, then in Hong Kong’s vocational education for another 23 years until her retirement in 2018.

Since 2001, the "Action for Life" and the "Chinese in Action" program participants would come to Hong Kong as one of their outreach services.  Fung Ming has actively helped organizing visits and activities for these two programs. She now serves as a Life Worker focusing in the area of Life Sensitivity Training and Deep Healing.

Charles Aquilina was born and raised in Malta. He speaks Maltese, English and Italian and some Arabic.

He has been committed to the work and life of IofC/MRA for over 50 years.

An apology to a Palestinian engineering student in Malta for arrogance and superiority towards Muslims soon after starting to move away from blame to taking responsibility through applying IofC ideas opened Charles' heart to the people on the southern side of the Mediterranean. An invitation to work with IofC in India in 1979 led him to resign his banking job and continue to work with IofC in Australia, UK, Middle East, Malta and the US - with a focus on bridging one of the world's major fault lines: the Muslim-Christian encounter.

He particularly credits the two and a half years spent in India for the education of the heart - and a growing belief that humanly impossible situations can be transformed. He has found common ground with Muslims and Hindus and others, as dramatically portrayed by his friends Pastor James and Imam Ashafa in Nigeria.

Working with Maltese and other colleagues to organize Mediterranean Dialogues in Malta was one outcome, along with assisting senior colleagues with high level Muslim-non-Muslim Dialogue at Caux and a Muslim, Christian and Jewish Dialogue - led by a Hindu - in Fez, Morocco.

He recently lost his wife Kathy after a long struggle with cancer.

Mary Lean was born in the UK in 1952, to parents who were part of the pioneering generation of the Oxford Group/MRA/IofC. She grew up in Oxford and studied history at Oxford University, before embarking on full time work with MRA/IofC, first in Southern Africa and then in London.

A main thread of her life has been helping people to share their stories. She co-edited IofC’s international magazine, For A Change, from 1987 to 2006, and has since offered editorial support to various IofC comms teams. She has helped several IofC authors to write books, and written three of her own, including Stories of the Caux School (with Elisabeth Peters), sharing the memories of the children who lived at Caux in the 1950s and 1960s while their parents were away working with MRA. Most recently, with a team of colleagues, she wrote and edited 75 Years of Stories: Caux 1946-2021.

Mary served on the Council of Management of IofC UK’s legal body for about 20 years. She co-facilitated the first Creators of Peace circle in the UK in 2007, and continues to be active with CoP. As Secretary of the Barnabas Charitable Trust, she is involved in pastoral support of the IofC network in the UK.

Mary also offers one-to-one spiritual accompaniment in the tradition of St Ignatius Loyola, after a faith journey which transformed her life 20 years ago.

She lives in Oxford with her husband, John Bond, who she married in 2009.

Dr Peter Rundell was born into an IofC family (then MRA); his parents got engaged in Caux and he spent much of his childhood in MRA homes in London and in Switzerland. Like many other children of MRA marriages he was sometimes cared for by friends of the family while his parents were away, and recalls with appreciation the sense of being included, as a child, in welcoming visitors to Mountain House and folding hundreds of napkins for the dining room so that all those who came should feel treated "as a royal soul".

He went to Oxford to read mathematics and then spent a year in Brazil with MRA. He returned to the UK to do a Ph.D. in mathematical statistics and then faced a choice of career. He speaks of sitting in Caux and praying over two offers: international development as a civil servant, or banking computerised decision support. A time of quiet gave him the clear thought to go into development, a decision which, looking back, left him with much less money and far greater riches.

His career in international development took him to many countries, but most important to him is Zimbabwe, where he met Barbara - they married in 1984 so will celebrate their fortieth anniversary in December 2024. He worked in the European Commission, the World Bank and the UN, in countries ranging from Kosovo and Iraq to Libya and Mali.

Alongside his official work, he has been part of the Steering Group for IofC's Initiative for Land, Lives and Peace, which grew out of the Caux Forum on Human Security and has helped to bring land degradation and climate change onto the agenda of security actors, and peace-building and trust-building onto the climate change agenda. He also chairs a Trust in Zimbabwe that works with low-income communities to develop changed mindsets and mutual support in collective gardens in peri-urban areas.

Throughout his life he has tried to follow the sense of direction that comes from seeking God’s will. Since 2005, that has led to a focus on countries in and emerging from violent conflict. He was awarded the CBE in 2013.

Adalbert OTOU-NGUINI was born in Cameroon in 1948. After his primary and secondary education, he was admitted to the University of Yaoundé where he studied French and English (Language and Literature); then he went on to be trained as Translator and Conference Interpreter in Paris. He returned to Cameroon to work as Translator and Conference Interpreter at the Presidency of the Republic of Cameroon for 10 years.

In 1985, he was recruited by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) and transferred to its West and Central African Office in Dakar (Senegal) for 8 years and then to the ICAO Headquarters  in Montreal (Canada) for 15 years  until his retirement in 2008. It was in Montreal that he came across the Moral Re-Armament movement and joined the IofC-Canada team, becoming a board member and a Co-Chair of the Board in 2007. He took an active part in the revitalization of the Quebec team.

When he returned to Cameroon in 2008, he joined the Cameroon IofC team and got involved in its activities. He was elected Chairman of the Board and served in that capacity from 2010 to 2020. Simultaneously, he was co-opted into the Africa Coordination Group (ACG) and the Silvia Zuber Fund Management Committee. He stepped down from both structures in 2022 and 2024. 

Adalbert’s task now is to offer his time and experience to the young people around him who come to consult him and discuss with him, trying to find practical solutions to the difficult environment we live in.  Many young people are desperate in our society; they do not see what the future has in store for them. Some of them have a good academic background but have no prospect for any job opportunities. The only dream for many of them is to leave the country and try their chances abroad. Is that the solution? Can we find solutions locally? Is there a way to continue to  inspire hope? Until when? 

The Cameroon IofC team is presently involved in the Trust building Program which aims to establish a meaningful dialogue between the French-speaking and the English-speaking students of some State Universities in Cameroon. We are following this project with keen interest with the hope that it will help in the search of a solution to  the problem of living together in our country,  in peace and harmony.