Dallas, Texas – At its opening session on Tuesday, June 10, 2008 the 36th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in America elected TE Paul Kooistra as moderator. The PCA General Assembly is holding its annual meeting in the Hyatt Regency Reunion Center in Dallas, through June 13. Dr. Kooistra is coordinator of Mission to the World, the foreign mission arm of the PCA, with its offices located in Lawrenceville, Ga.  

 
Also nominated were TE Tom Kay, Jr., pastor of First Presbyterian Church in Aliceville, Ala., and TE Palmer Robertson, vice-chancellor of African Bible University in Kampala, Uganda.
 
A native of Duluth, Minn., Dr. Kooistra graduated from Columbia Seminary in Decatur, Ga., with a master of divinity, and received his PhD from the University of Alabama. Before becoming the coordinator of MTW in 1994, Dr. Kooistra served as a pastor, Director of Christian Education, professor at Belhaven College and Reformed Seminary, both in Jackson, Miss., and president of Covenant Seminary in St. Louis, Mo.
 
Under Dr. Kooistra’s leadership, MTW has grown into the largest missionary agency in Presbyterian history. There are over 600 career missionaries and several hundred short term missionaries serving throughout the world.
 
Considered a leader in the PCA, Dr. Kooistra is a much sought after speaker for mission and Bible conferences.
 
In his brief acceptance speech, Dr. Kooistra spoke of the recent death of his wife to cancer. He stated that the Lord had taught him some lessons about how he uses nobodies to accomplish the Lord’s work. He challenged the GA commissioners to see themselves as nobodies who become somebodies in Christ.