From working with refugee resettlement in a small Australian town, to one of the biggest ecumenical refugee operations worldwide: Brian Neldner, former Director of LWF World Service, shaped the LWF’s humanitarian and development work for four decades.
Neldner presenting at the LWF days of meetings in the ecumenical center, 2012. Photo: LWF/T. Miller
Brian Neldner, former LWF World Service Director, turns 90
(LWI) - From refugee resettlement in a small Australian town, to one of the biggest ecumenical refugee operations: Brian Neldner, former Director of LWF World Service, shaped the LWF’s humanitarian and development work for four decades.
Lutheran World Information met with Neldner to look back at his years of service. The room where he is could also be an LWF field office: Shelves with folders can be seen in the background, like wallpaper, the desk is full of papers. Neldner is writing his memoirs and only recently learned to conduct video interviews over Skype. "I am just a little bit slower,” he says smiling. During the conversation, he effortlessly remembers details, places and names, from Baglung, Nepal, to Tanzania, the Mauritanian desert and Dresden, Germany.
On a visit to the LWF India programme in 1979. The leader of a Dalit women's cooperative shows some of the tie and dye saris the villagers had made and which were now providing a modest cash income. Photo: Brian Neldner/ private
From Bonegilla to Dar Es Salaam
Coming from a winemaker family in Australia’s celebrated Barossa valley, development work did not seem an obvious choice of profession. Neldner trained as an engineer and joined Australian Lutheran World Service in 1955, helping to find new homes for people from the Baltic countries in the aftermath of World War 2 at Bonegilla migrant center. Five years later, he became the Australian Representative for LWF World Service.
In 1964, on an early Saturday morning, newly married and “quite happy in Australia”, he received a call by Rev. Bruno Muetzelfeldt, then LWF World Service Director, who asked him to head the program in Tanzania, then Tanganjika Christian Refugee Service. “I went to a long farmer’s meeting at church,” Neldner recalls. “When I got home, my wife had thought about it. I rang the LWF on Monday morning and three weeks later we were off.”
At that time the Neldners were expecting their first child. The family would spend the next nine years in East Africa, and the way the LWF program in Tanzania was established would become a benchmark for many other LWF country programs: working with local churches, and local staff, of many faiths. One of them was lady in waiting to the queen of Nepal, “a devout Hindu”, Neldner remembers. She worked many years with LWF, first in Nepal, later she joined the program in Tanzania.
In 1973, Neldner moved to Geneva to head the World Service operations desk. At the time there was already a famine looming in Ethiopia. He was part of joint Lutheran-Catholic fact-finding team which travelled through the drought affected areas of Wollo and Tigray in the north of the country and warned of a major humanitarian crisis.
Brian Neldner on his second visit to Mauritania in 1974. The LWF team was introduced and explained to people in remote of the Sahel as a follower of “the revolutionary Martin Luther”. In the predominantly Muslim country, Neldner explained his motivation through the parable of the Good Samaritan. Photo: Neldner/ private
Example of the Good Samaritan
Ralston Deffenbaugh, who joined LWF in 1981 to work on human rights advocacy, and later became Assistant General Secretary for Human Rights, remembers Neldner’s fierce dedication both to people in need, and the protection of his staff. I always made sure “that the LWF would not make any public statements that would jeopardize World Service operations,” Deffenbaugh recalls. “Brian cared – and cares – so deeply about humanitarian assistance. He knew that when LWF was in these countries, fewer people would go hungry or otherwise suffer.”
Together, they found a way to expose human rights violations without endangering the team. "The Good Samaritan did also not ask: whose fault is it? He saw a person in need, and then he basically gave his credit card and said: Put it on my bill”, Neldner says.
The famine response in Ethiopia has stayed with Neldner until today. As part of a fact-finding mission for the Joint Relief Partnership (JRP), an ecumenical relief operation, he saw the hunger with his own eyes in the so-called feeding camps. “If there was one thing in my career that’s given me trauma at times, it’s what I saw and worked with in Ethiopia,” he said. “That’s still with me now and I still get emotional over what I saw there, more than in any other country.” The JRP raised 625 million USD in 18 months, almost one-fifth of all the international money which went into the drought response at the time.
Handover ceremony of Mishamo Refugee Settlement, Tanzania, on 8 August 1985. The settlement for 40,000 refugees from Burundi was established under a tripartite agreement between the government of Tanzania, the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, and the LWF on 2050 square kilometers of uninhabited bushland in the remote western region. Photo: Neldner/ private
Lutheran foundation
“I bear witness every day to the imprint of his work, vision, courage and commitment to the lives and dignity of the poorest, most marginalised communities across the world,” writes Maria Immonen, Director of LWF World Service in a greeting to Neldner. “You shaped World Service, in our approaches that put human beings at the centre, underline principled, caring humanitarian action that continues to meet the needs of millions of people every year.”
You shaped World Service, in our approaches that put human beings at the centre, underline principled, caring humanitarian action that continues to meet the needs of millions of people every year.
– Maria IMMONEN, LWF World Service Director
From 1991 until his retirement in 1995, Neldner was the Director of LWF World Service. During his time, LWF forged a strong partnership with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), and in the 1990s engaged in “profound dialogue” with Muslims on refugees. At the root of his work however, he always saw the Lutheran identity of the LWF. “The more I worked in the world, the more important that I know my Lutheran foundation,” Neldner emphasizes.
