Member profile
Helping the church be the church
In March, seasoned Bread for the
World board member Sandra Joireman stepped up to lead as board chair,
a position previously held by David
Miner.
Joireman is a professor of Politics
and International Relations at Wheaton College in Indiana. A noted author
on property rights in the developing
world, Joireman has spent considerable time abroad researching, writing,
and teaching. Last fall, Joireman was a
Fulbright scholar and visiting professor at the American University in Pristina, Kosovo.
“Sandra Joireman is an expert on
international development, a teacher within the evangelical Protestant
community, a grassroots activist, and
a visionary leader,” says Rev. David
Beckmann, president of Bread for the
World, noting that Joireman’s professional accomplishments are matched
by her faith. “When she and I talk, she
often ends the conversation by asking
how she should pray for me.”
Joireman is enthusiastic about leading the board: “I think that Bread is
uniquely positioned to help the church
to be the church, to help the church to
be engaged with the poor and hungry
people,” says Joireman about the road
ahead. “I want to see Bread become secure enough financially to make a significant impact on hunger and devel6 Bread | May-June 2013
opment issues into the next century.”
Throughout her life, Joireman has
sought answers to injustices among
people living in poverty or strife. In
1988, then a student at Washington
University in St. Louis, Joireman went
on an eight-week mission to Liberia
with a University Christian Fellowship
group. The experience had a profound
effect.
“Suddenly I saw the things that I
had studied in books. I saw that there
was such a human component to the
work I could do,” she recalls.
Joireman was struck by the stark
difference between her idea of plenty
and what it meant for her host family. “It was amazing to me what was in
their kitchen. They had a bag of rice,
a container of instant coffee, and three
or four other things,” Joireman says.
“It was clear that the food cushion of
that family wasn’t anything like it was
in my house. And that family was not
bad off.”
That experience and others
strengthened Joireman’s commitment to advocating for change. As
an undergraduate, she first learned
of Bread for the World through an
Offering of Letters and remembers
feeling empowered by the action of
communicating directly with lawmakers. Later, as a professor, Joireman
re-entered Bread’s orbit when she dis-
Michael Hudson
Sandra Joireman Begins Her
Term as Board Chair
Sandra Joireman, Ph.D., brings extensive
knowledge about development and a deep
faith to her new role as chair of Bread’s board
of directors.
covered background papers on cotton
subsidies published by Bread for the
World Institute.
In 2005, Joireman volunteered to
lend her expertise and voice to the
Bread for the World delegation at the
G8 summit in Edinburgh, Scotland.
She was impressed that the approach
of her fellow Bread members to hunger “was sophisticated and deeply
Christian.” Shortly thereafter, Joireman was asked to join the board. She
readily accepted.
Joireman’s current work as a professor and scholar focuses on how communities rebuild after war and the
significant displacement of population
due to violence.
“The countries I am working in are
almost all foreign aid recipients and
Bread’s work on modernizing foreign
assistance is relevant,” she says. “It is
my regular encounters with hunger
and poverty in the developing world
that has made me aware that these
things are real.”