Jerrell Richer

The Ross Richer family has been called by Mennonite Mission Network and the Council of Evangelical Indigenous Nations and Organizations of Ecuador to serve in the Amazon region in an  innovative two-way model beginning in 2015. Our family will reside in the Ecuadorian rain forest in the winter and spring each year, where we will:

• support educational programs for indigenous pastors and church leaders,
• help develop the themes of creation care, economic justice, social structure and the rights of women and children, and
• accompany development initiatives proposed by members of the native communities, including development for women and youth.

We will return to Goshen in the summer and fall of each year to share what we have learned from our brothers and sisters in the global south.

Jerrell will continue his on-campus teaching at Goshen College in the fall semesters as well as lead several off-campus and on-line courses.

For more information about Mennonite Mission Network, visit the Mennonite Mission Network homepage at: http://www.mennonitemission.net

Or visit the family’s page at: http://www.mennonitemission.net/OurWork/Workers/Pages/JaneandJerrellRossRicher.aspx

Education

• B.A., Goshen College, 1985
• M.A., University of California Santa Barbara, 1988
• PhD, University of California Santa Barbara, 1991

Memberships & Associations

• International Society for Ecological Economics http://www.isecoeco.org/
• Waterford Mennonite Church http://waterford.in.us.mennonite.net/

Recent Projects

• “Rethinking the Market Economy,” Session 9 in “Every Creature Singing: Embracing the Good News for Planet Earth,” Mennonite Creation Care Network, 2014, http://www.mennocreationcare.org/mccn-curriculum/every-creature-singing-5
• “Bicycling as Transportation: Use of Bike Paths in Elkhart County, Indiana,” Report produced for Dovetail Projects and funded by: Elkhart County Convention and Visitors Bureau, Friends of the Pumpkinvine Nature Trail, Goshen Parks and Recreation Department and Goshen Engineering Department, Goshen, Indiana, 2014.

Recreation on Public Lands

I am currently helping direct two applied research projects in the national forests of Southern California:

• National Visitor Use Monitoring Program on the Cleveland, Los Padres and San Bernardino National Forests — A survey of visitors conducted year-round to estimate total usage and visitation patterns in the mountains that surround greater Los Angeles
• San Gabriel Canyon Visitor Study — A two-year project to analyze the effectiveness of a bilingual education outreach program designed to promote environmental stewardship in a sensitive riparian zone that provides recreational opportunities to tens of thousands of area residents