?Meet George Thompson, a member of the board of directors at Mennonite Mission Network!
Each Mission Network board member brings their unique voice and perspective to the leadership team, and each one is passionate about Mission Network’s guiding vision: to lead, mobilize and equip the church to participate in holistic witness to Jesus Christ in a broken world.
Home: Goshen, Indiana
Home congregation: Waterford Mennonite Church, Goshen, Indiana
Occupation: Retired
George is the second of nine children born to tenant tobacco farmers in central North Carolina (traditional Cherokee land). Against numerous odds, he graduated valedictorian of his high school class in ’65. An uncommon accomplishment is that he drove a school bus at 16 and 17 years old, during his junior and senior years of high school. He says he looks back on the task of daily caring for 60+ elementary and high school students in this way with much greater awe now than he ever did at the time.
George graduated from North Carolina A&T State University with a BS in Mechanical Engineering (’69). Later, in the same year George met Karen Diener (from Goshen, Indiana) at the University of Wisconsin, Madison and they were married in ’71, the same year he obtained his MS Degree from UW-Madison in Metallurgical Engineering (’71). He worked in Contract Research & Development with Battelle Memorial Institute in Columbus, Ohio for a couple of years. Then he and Karen left for what became a triple term with Mennonite Central Committee in Sudan (1973-1982). Seconded to the Sudan Council of Churches, George was assigned to help start a college for engineering technicians to support the country’s railway system. Also, working alongside his wife (a Special Educator) and other interested Sudanese, an institute for mentally and physically handicapped persons was developed and built up.
Returning from Sudan to Karen’s hometown (traditional Potawatomi and Miami land), George trained in the Quality Assurance discipline, attaining a Six-Sigma Black Belt level. He worked 33 years with the automotive supplier base (both in Elkhart County, Indiana and the Detroit Metropolitan area) developing, teaching, and applying QA techniques in engineering and managerial roles.
Relinquishing his Baptist upbringing back in 1971, George became a member of the Mennonite Church via his wife, Karen.
In recent years, George served nine years on the Indiana-Michigan Mennonite Conference (IMMC) governing board. Then, from IMMC, he was sponsored to the MCC-Great Lakes board on which he is still a member. He loves the many partnerships and projects of MCC here in the US and around the world. This helps George to continue to believe in and work toward justice and equality for all.
George and Karen have two children, Sarah and Mark, and one grandchild, Belén. He works with others at Waterford Mennonite, now a Repairing Congregation, in the local effort of Dismantling the Doctrine of Discovery. In his free time George enjoys playing pickleball, tennis, supporting the social and environmental justice causes championed by his family members, and of course, spending time with his first grandchild.
