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The Rev. Wilma S. Kucharek was re-elected November 17 to serve a third six-year term as bishop of the Slovak Zion Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) during our Synod Assembly November 16-23 aboard the Carnival Dream. (The Synod Assembly is scheduled to make stops in Key West, Freeport, and Nassau.)

Bishop Kucharek was re-elected on the first ballot receiving 97.3% of the vote.

Prior to becoming bishop in 2002, Bishop Kucharek served as a parish pastor in Connecticut and Pennsylvania, and briefly as a deaconess in Indiana and New York. She received the Synod’s Servus Dei Award in 1999 and served as Secretary of the Board of ELCA’s Division for Global Mission, as Chair of the Synod’s Ecumenical and International Relations Committee, as a member of the National Council of Churches’ Task Force for Korean Women, and as a member of the Board and Disaster Response Team of the American Red Cross. She has served on delegations to the Lutheran World Federation, North and South Korea, the Holy Land, Russia, and Central and Eastern Europe. She is currently Advisory Bishop to the Women of the ELCA, and holds a seat on the Board of Trustees of Muhlenberg College.