compassion international lgbt
2007 10,000 2004 400 Compassion International Church Partnerships Specialist I Remote 2d $54K-$67K Per Year (Employer est.) 2008 146,300 Even during difficult financial times in the economy, God has blessed Compassion with dedicated sponsors and donors who care deeply about impacting children around the world, allowing our ministry to continue to grow year over year. One of the listed members of the Luis Palau Associations Next Generation Alliance (see: https://web.archive.org/web/20150712152416/http://legacy.palau.org/alliance/next_generation_alliance/nga_evangelists/ltop/ ) has been Ugandan Evangelist Julius Peter Oyet, who is in turn a member of of the Uganda branch of Silvosos International Transformation Network. Bickle has preached that Apostle Paul preached that In the last days the homosexual agenda will become so intense that, before the Lord returns, marriage will be outlawed in various parts of the earth and stated that the gay marriage agenda is rooted in the depths of Hell. Kennedys many projects included the Center For Reclaiming America, known for its patronage and promotion of leading Christian Reconstructionists. Because of the unique, unusual role the Iowa caucuses play in the American election primary system, the Iowa Family Policy Center wields great influence over Republican presidential hopefuls. 2006 65,000 2005 101,640 All Rights Reserved. 2013 1,000. 2010 88,550 2003 0 Leading those drives towards schism have been the so-called Renewal groups within the Methodist, Presbyterian, Episcopal, and other traditionally centrist or liberal Protestant denominations. Summit Ministries was until 2011 headed by David Noebel whose long participation in the American far right has included teaching at a school associated with Billy James Hargis Christian Crusade, running the Christian Anti-Communism Crusade (founded by Fred C. Schwarz), membership in the John Birch Society and the Council For National Policy and through Summit Ministries training youth in the biblical worldview, a Summit curriculum firmly rooted in Christian Reconstructionist doctrine. 2010 147,300 2002 106,000 The familial relationship has both helped to establish New Apostolic Reformation leader Silvoso as a superstar in the firmament of international right-wing evangelism, and also tapped Silvoso into the avante-gaurd of evolving missions strategy: Silvosos career began as a member of the Luis Palau Evangelistic Association ministry team. 2012 247,299, The Family Foundation of Virginia (EIN 52-1425355), 2008 1,300 2007 781,054 According to the Frontline Fellowship book description, The Pink Agenda poses the following questions: Why do men involved in homosexuality and sodomy have an average life expectancy of 42 compared to 73 for other men? Why are homosexuals 24 times more likely to commit suicide than other people? Does the international gay movement include the lowering of the age of consent for sex with children, especially boys, and the normalization of pedophilia?. 2005 5,000 In May 2010 TheCall held a rally in Kampala, Uganda attended by top leaders in Ugandas anti-LGBT crusade including Julius Oyet, David Bahati, and Nsaba Buturo. The ranks of Faith Angle Forum featured authorities informing Americas media elites at the conference are heavily populated with speakers who have been featured at The Gathering. My community celebrated my sponsorship because they believed I was one child rescued from the normal societal script and there was going to be greatness in our community from me. What number can I call if I need more information? 2. Compassion, Compassion International, Compassion Sunday, the Compassion Logo and the FILL THE STADIUM Logo are registered trademarks of Compassion International, Inc. All donations in the United States are tax deductible in full or part. 2004 3,754,238 Violence, discrimination, stigma, and criminalization negatively impact the lives of millions of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex (LGBTQI+) people around the world and contribute to poverty. It kills (as we have been reminded by the AIDS crisis). American Vision 2004 2,700 2003 99,901 2009 106,000 2010 48,712 2002 5,000 2011 1,600 2006 212,821 TheCall 2005 82,800 As detailed in a Twocare.org investigative report, CEF was one of the leading ministries engaged in the 1992-1997 program under which American evangelicals indoctrinated millions of school children in former Soviet Union countries (see: http://www.twocare.org/how-antigay-american-fundamentalists-indoctrinated-russias-school-children-1992-1997/). Compassion coordinates every aspect of the trip, including travel, meals, tips and gratuities, fees related to the travel, and sightseeing fares. 2012 123,469 Up to 1995 Ahmanson gave Chalcedon over $750,000 and sat on the Chalcedon Institutes board. Such thinking goes to the very top of the elite evangelical right, as evidenced by The Fellowship head Douglas Coes insistence, captured on video in 1989, that Christians should follow Jesus with the same level of fanatical devotion shown by the followers of Hitler, Lenin, and Mao whose young Red Guard were willing, during the Cultural Revolution, to cut off the heads of their own parents for the good of the state (see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fYeGR7O1lKI ), 2007 0 2012 see CCCs Jesus Film Project (over $12 million in FYI 2012) 2008 4,667,026 Luis Palau was an honorary co-chair (along with Bill Bright and Billy Graham) of the AD2000 And Beyond movement that served as a major vector for the globalization of the New Apostolic Reformation movement and its characteristic ideas and practices (such as Spiritual Mapping. Brad Phillips, brother of Christian Reconstructionist and former head of the now-defunct Vision Forum Doug Phillips, is head of the Voice of the Martyrs effort in Southern Sudan. ), 2001 820,133 The Lutheran ChurchMissouri Synod overwhelmingly passed a resolution reaffirming its traditional, biblical stance on gender identity and sexual orientation, while also calling for churches to "minister compassionately" to people who identify as LGBT. Teen Challenge has officially endorsed exorcism as a therapy since 1996 (see main Teen Challenge entry), 2001 5,000 account. Hartley also had glowing words for Julius Oyet: Uganda, its an amazing thing. 2004 53,500 ( Trinity Academy, no EIN given ) This revised system altered Compassion's 4-star rating to a 3, less than three months after awarding Compassion a 4-star rating for the exact same numbers. Citizens For Community Values opportunity to develop spiritually, emotionally, physically and economically. It mattered, and it was enough. within a given culture. 2002 1,000 De-facto head of the Ethics and Public Policy Center is Vice President Michael Cromartie, a frequently featured speaker at The Gathering. In a 2011 op-ed, Dr. David Noebel (who stepped down from heading Summit Ministries that year) railed against Obama and his radical homosexual mafia plan to sodomize the world and make such perversion seem as wholesome as apple pie and vanilla ice cream. (see: http://www.worldviewweekend.com/worldview-times/article.php?articleid=7843). Stated Mitala, Some Ugandans are praising homosexuality and some believe it is their right but you should stand not to allow this moral decay in this country. (see: http://chimpreports.com/index.php/news/10456-bishop-lwere-urged-to-fight-homosexuality-pornography.html). 2011 104,600 Franais | | Espaol. 2009 64,800 Described the church website (see: http://truroanglican.com/events/sozo-prayer-seminar/). Founded in 1953 by Fred C. Schwarz, the Christian Anti-Communism Crusade became, following Schwarz death, a project of Summit Ministries (also funded by NCF) led by Dr. David A. Noebel (see: https://www.schwarzreport.org/about ) who in 1977 published his book The Homosexual Revolution, dedicated to anti-LGBT rights crusader Anita Bryant. 2006 75,000 2008 1,028,150 Javascript is required on this website, please Enable Javascript in your browser, Christian Child Sponsorship - Compassion - Child Charity Organization. Another data point in AIs pattern of anti-LGBT rights activism came in 2008 at the African Commission on Human and Peoples Rights when, At the 44th session in Abuja, Nigeria in November 2008, a further draft resolution was proposed at the NGO forum condemning violence and the culture of impunity of violations of human rights of LGBTI people. Luis Bushs book The 4/14 Window presents Ugandan Stephen Langa as having helped reverse Ugandas rising HIV infection rate. First time logging in? Michigan Family Forum mysterious ways to fulfill the plan. 2010 5,700 Im not suggesting that you ask for your role back, Im urging you to take it back. (see: http://www.publiceye.org/eyes/promkeep.html). Leading the Cornwall Alliance is E. Calvin Beisner, a participant along with Michael Cromartie at the Villars Consultation. The Becket Fund is also an organizational partner of the American Religious Freedom Program (ARFP), a sub-project of the Ethics and Public Policy Center (see E&PPC entry). 2012 0 2005 0 2011 1,300 There are two changes that had the most impact on Compassions rating. Box 22429, Robinsdale, MN 55422-0429 (www.outpostministries.org), To give special status or rights to those choosing the personally and socially destructive homosexual lifestyle is to approve and endorse that behavior, and inevitably to spread it. Our frontline church partners across the world invest deeply in each individual, helping them discover their talents and use their skills to escape poverty, bless those . Portland Fellowship (EIN 93-0958183) 2003 2,646,613 In a 1999 book, NAR leader C. Peter Wagner described one of the key three moral nonnegotiables of New Apostolic churches: Homosexuality is a sin against God [from page 7 of his book Church Quake! While some organizations on the Christian right have over the past several years moderated their anti-gay rhetoric, the AFAs anti-gay speech has become, if anything, even more extreme. 2012 427,694 ( 419,617 to AFA Radio) Sexual abnormalities are a deep cancerous tumor in the entire society. Founder of ex-gay Regeneration Ministries was Alan Medinger, was the original executive director of Exodus International. In 2010, Stewart attended the CEFs triennial National Convention, which featured as a keynote speaker Dr. A. Charles Ware president of Crossroads Bible College. 2001 10,000 In a 2009 interview with Think magazine (Current Issues From A Distinctly Christian View) published in the April 2009 issue of Think, Phillips stated, The homosexual agenda has targeted the family for destruction. Summit Ministries Telling me that you are a homosexual took courage, especially because you know Im a Christian. 2009 33,400 2003 16,350 . It was the safest place to be. Compassion International is an American child sponsorship and Christian humanitarian aid organization headquartered in Colorado Springs, Colorado, that aims to positively influence the long-term development of children globally who live in poverty. 2010 81,623 2010 32,100 2006 932,717 Our commitment to stewardship has not changed even though the calculations of Charity Navigator have undergone revisions. 2002 14,000 Frank Worthen and Anne Paulk are founding members of the Restored Hope Network that formed in 2012 amidst the move of Exodus International away from the claim that reparative therapy works. Neither heterosexual sex outside of marriage nor any homosexual act constitute an alternative lifestyle acceptable to God., The statement also stipulates, I understand that if I am found being involved in a lifestyle that does not conform to the FCAs Sexual Purity Statement I will need to step down from my leadership position with the Fellowship of Christian Athletes., (see: http://image.teamfca.net/siteuploadfiles/FCA/2700706F-CF38-4FCD-B9E09BAEB17A3C29/8D77B8C2-29AE-4056-9AC3104B94D755FD.pdf). 2011 277,260 No to sodomy! A maturing child needs the gender-specific influences of both a mother and a father. 2005 0 The Villars Statement on Relief and Development (see: https://disciplenations.files.wordpress.com/2011/11/the-villars-statement-on-relief-and-development1.pdf ), signed by the 40-odd evangelicals attending Villars, stressed 13 key points: [W]e raise our concerns over the following issues. 2012 25,500. MDentistry: advancing health through education, service, research and discovery. 2005 15,900 2009 500 2008 5,920 In a 2005 interview, seminal architect of the religious right and new right Paul Weyrich stated that the Council for National Policy was an organization that, in the words of Rich DeVos, brings together the doers with the donors. (see: http://www.q-and-a.org/Transcript/?ProgramID=1016). 2009 9,500 2007 0 On one tape, the Rev. 2011 47,000 The congregation vowed in song that they would fight until every nation is on its knees before Jesus Christ. The IFA website showcases numerous anti-gay articles re-titled by IFA was inflammatory headlines such as US embassy raises flag in support of homosexual deviants and Limbaugh Right, OReilly Wrong: Homosexuals Molest Kids. Of particular interest in terms of LGBT rights, this biblical worldview includes the vision of implementing some version of biblical (mosaic) law including laws against homosexuality. 2009 3,000 Up into 2014, the website of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes featured a testimony from an athlete who claims to have been miraculously delivered from homosexuality through her conversion to Christianity. During the same time period, Lwere traveled to the United States for megachurch speaking appearances during which he characterized homosexuality as one in a number of demonic strongholds that can oppress cities and geographic territories. I know its at least over 80 percent, I believe its 80-85 percent success rate. 2009 82,600 In his 1986 book Kingdoms At War: Tactics For Victory In Nine Spiritual War Zones, Bright openly endorsed both the theocratic Coalition on Revival (see: http://www.reformation.net/) and the writings of top Christian Reconstructionists including R. J. Rushdoony. 2006 500 An Ounce of Prevention was the first in a series of books and resources, on how to prevent homosexuality, produced and sold by Schmierers [NCF-funded] His Servants ministry, which has had offerings from the book, video, and curriculum line translated into multiple languages including Russian, Chinese, Hindi, Spanish, and Portuguese. 1:27), witchcraft, dissension, and cheating. (see: http://www.thefirstacademy.org/files/Admissions%20Images/StudentApplication.pdf). Alcorns ministry focuses on young women with addictions and behavioral problems. 2010 93,949345 . 2012 60,069 2009 100,000 This substantial increase in NCF funding to Becket presents strong evidence for the central role played by both NCF and the Alliance Defending Freedom (NCFs heaviest funded legal organization, which received $11,341,187 from NCF in 2013) in the Hobby Lobby case and the dozens of similar cases across American that ADF argued and supported in the lead-up to the Hobby Lobby decision including the Conestoga Woods v. Sebelius case that was folded into the Hobby Lobby case. 2007 4,587,858 2002 21,500 2007 6,000 2005 138,653 Compassion International Response Thank you for your feedback! Fosters institute promotes a Christian nationalist version of American history. 2005 0 Wrote journalist David Corn, for The Nation magazine, in 1991. education, more likely to have salaried The .gov means its official. . Compassion International, Inc. is a registered 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. It is also the worst possible thing we can do for homosexuals, who need to hear about the way out of bondage, not be encouraged to plunge deeper into it., 2001 5,000 2009 144,500 2008 7,800 Besides his ongoing hostility to LGBT rights, Florida Family Council head Stemberger has been accused, by the National Black Justice Coalition, of making racist public comments for seeming to suggest, on a Florida talk radio show, that August 2014 riots in Ferguson, Missouri riots that followed the fatal police shooting of an unarmed African-American teenager were not really about the police shooting but were, rather, manifestations of a barbarian society caused by a decline in traditional marriage. During the conference, FoF representative John Eldredge, who brought greetings and warm regards from Dr. Dobson of Focus on the Family, told attendees among whom were representatives from the American Family Association, the Family Research Council, Concerned Women for America, the Christian Coalition, the Christian Reconstructionism movement-linked U.S. Taxpayers Party, and the Conservative Caucus, whose longtime head Howard Phillips called Christian Reconstructionism founder R.J. Rushdoony his spiritual mentor that those of us at Focus on the Family in the public policy fight see this issue as one of the key issues of our time. However, once children graduate from the program and the sponsorship relationship comes to a close, the letters stop. 2009 38,100 2013 6,100, Council For National Policy (EIN 72-0921017). We believe that the relationship that develops between sponsors and children is instrumental in a child's growth and development. 2010 1,078,278 Tjey are pain-management coping mechanisms. Regeneration is billed as one of the oldest ex-gay ministries. ) Soon after that, I got my first ever gift, which was my first pair of shoes. Elements of that strategy which included the dual approach of demonizing LGBT people and promoting ex-gay therapy have since been implemented in Russia, Uganda, and elsewhere around the globe. 2010 581,750 2011 2,800 Bethel Church 2006 226,500 With a healed connection, you can walk in the destiny to which you have been called.. But another speaker at the conference was even more significant, for having helped create the broader anti-LGBT rights strategy in which Lively has played an aggressive role. . Michael Cromartie has brought to E&PPC his close ties to the elite Washington, DC evangelical network known as The Fellowship which hosts the National Prayer Breakfast and has been accused, by journalist Jeff Sharlet, of having inspired Ugandas festering national anti-LGBT rights crusade. By 2006, when the National Christian Foundation gave $12,000 to Paul Camerons Family Research Institute, over two decades had passed since Cameron had been disavowed by two of Americas most important relevant professional associations. 2010 1,000 The NCFs core beliefs include the statement, the entire Bible is the inspired and inerrant Word of God; the only infallible rule of faith and practice. (see: https://www.nationalchristian.com/vision), NCFs founders have helped create and lead the elite anti-gay evangelical right NCF co-founder and current board member Ron Blue has swerved on the Campus Crusade for Christ board and NCF co-founder (the late) Larry Burkett worked as a financial manager for CCC; Burkett was also a founding member of the Alliance Defense Fund (now renamed Alliance Defending Freedom); NCF co-founder and current NCF board member Terry Parker has served on the board of the Family Research Council (see encyclopedia entries for these three organizations.). 2008 64,150 ADA is a Michigan spinoff of Donald Wildmons American Family Association. According to Bethel Sozo, Sozo ministry is a unique inner healing and deliverance ministry aimed to get to the root of things hindering your personal connection with the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Reviews by Gary North and others in Rushdoonys movement praised Schlossbergs book for its presentation of Christian Reconstructionist ideas. Concerned Women For America has been one of the active U.S. participants in the World Congress of Families, and along with two other NCF-funded World Congress of Families participants, Focus on the Family and Family Research Council, has led the American Christian rights establishment as a presence at the United Nations. 2005 109,750 A video of the event is available for download from the AMA LGBT Advisory Committee. 2003 10,000 Founded in 1952, Compassion partners . And I tell you, I have experienced total freedom from poverty in Jesus' name. Jones two presentations for the Resisting the Green Dragon series are titled Rescuing People from the Cult of the Green Dragon and Go Therefore and Make Disciples: Advancing the Gospel in a World Permeated by Environmentalism. 2005 7,400 2007 5,000 Compassion International Reviews - Glassdoor 2007 5,500 Until the unexpected demise of Vision Forum Ministries in the wake of a sex scandal that embroiled its head Doug Phillips, Vision Forum was one of the leading Christian Reconstructionist organizations in America. 2013 13,000. 2009 4,000 2005 16,000 2003 27,000 Releasing children from poverty in Jesus' name. 2008 284,700 ( 143K to AFA radio ) Former Dean of Pepperdine University and now-President and Chancellor of Baylor University Kenneth Starr serves on the Advocates International board (see: http://www.advocatesinternational.org/node/697). 2002 1,647 2012 10,000 In South America, Compassion works in Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru. As Hammonds minsitry website explains (see: http://www.frontlinefellowship.net/inc/sdetail/119/341), The Pink Agenda exposes the truth about homosexual behavior and its links to crime, violence, suicide, substance abuse, paedophilia and disease. 2012 14,500 According to its website, AI informally links 30,000 advocates and jurists in 156 nations through 100 national Christian lawyer groups linked by six regional networks. (see: http://www.advocatesinternational.org/content/brief-overview-advocacy-1991-2010). Do children have to become Christians to continue receiving help from Compassion? But in recent years, Sheldon has diversified, ramping up his assaults on church-state separation, public education and the federal judiciary.. 2010 17,450 (see: http://www.kansas.com/2014/02/13/3287827/susan-wagle-bill-that-allows-service.html), William P. Mumma, President of the Becket Fund, serves on the ARFP advisory board (see: http://www.religiousfreedom.org/about_us/page/board-of-advisors), 2001 25,000 2004 33,000 2010 174,550 Along with Ugandan Martin Ssempa another Ugandan who has been both in the forefront of Ugandas state-supported anti-gay rights crusade and also a leader in promoting sexual abstinence over the previously successful ABC approach to HIV/AIDS mitigation Stephen Langa was a co-author of the 2004 Uganda National Abstinence and Being Faithful Policy and Strategy on Prevention and Transmission of HIV. Mayflower Institute Up until the death of its founder D. James Kennedy, Coral Ridge Ministries served as a leading force for Christian dominionism in America. (see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EpRV0spflIE#t=1m). In Asia, Compassion works in Bangladesh, Indonesia, the Philippines, Sri Lanka and Thailand. The project is headed by Campus Crusade For Christs Warren Willis, who first brought anti-LGBT rights agitator Scott Lively to Uganda, in March 2002. Many believed it helped defuse the radical leftist movement on that campus. 2013 180,000. Illinois Family Institute 2007 2,734,300 2009 456,877 2003 20,000 Summit Ministries ideological proximity to Christian Reconstruction is manifest is its long partnership with South African Christian Reconstructionist pastor Peter Hammond, who serves on the current Coalition on Revival Steering Committee. A fourth MLM board member is J.I. 2006 14,100 These people are playing for keeps. In a very real sense, for Howard F. Ahmanson whose Fieldstead and Company philanthropic group cosponsored (with Food for the Hungry, an enterprise Fieldstead has heavily funded) the Villars Consultation Villars was the logical extension of Ahmansons funding of the theocratic Christian Reconstructionism movement (Ahmanson had, up into the early 1990s, bankrolled its leading think tank, the Chalcedon Foundation.). FoF support of evangelical right state-level family policy organizations that oppose LGBT rights and reproductive rights conforms with a strategy laid out during a key 1994 anti-gay rights strategy conference held at the Colorado Glenn Eyrie castle headquarters of The Navigators. Top Christian Reconstructionists such as R.J. Rushdoony (widely considered the movements founder) have advocated imposing capital punishment (via such biblical methods of execution as stoning, crucifixion or burning at the stake) for violations of mosaic law such as adultery, homosexuality, female un-chastity (sex before marriage), witchcraft, idolatry, and blasphemy. 2008 150,680 The Cornwall Alliance asserts (http://www.cornwallalliance.org/alert/cornwall-alliance-releases-an-evangelical-declaration-on-global-warming/) that the Earths biological and climate systems are controlled and regulated by divine provenance: We believe Earth and its ecosystemscreated by Gods intelligent design and infinite power and sustained by His faithful providence are robust, resilient, self-regulating, and self-correcting, admirably suited for human flourishing, and displaying His glory. 2006 2,435,175 2008 7,200 In his book What Every Man Wants In a Woman: 10 Essentials For Growing Deeper in Love (Charisma House, 2005), pastor John Hagee argued for a constitutional amendment recognizing only the marriage between a man and a woman and warned, If we fail to achieve this, the gates of hell will be opened If God does not then punish America, He will have to apologize to Sodom and Gomorrah. More broadly, at the State Department, Abrams helped steer the Reagan Administration towards its support for Central American nations such as Guatemala and El Salvador that during the the early to mid-1980s, under the banner of anticommunism, were mounting genocidal counterinsurgency campaigns against their civilian populations. Compassion, Compassion International, Compassion Sunday, the Compassion Logo and the FILL THE STADIUM Logo are registered trademarks of Compassion International, Inc. All donations in the United States are tax deductible in full or part. 2012 2,640 2006 22,200 The ceremony was presided over by Ugandan First Lady Janet Museveni. 2002 26,500 Why does Compassion focus on individual child development rather than broader community development work? In a 2006 at The Gathering, during an Alliance Defense Fund three and a half-hour special briefing titled How people of faith are being silenced here in America, Family Research Council President Perkins stated, I think were at great threat, externally, from radical Islamists who want to destroy us and our way of life The second greatest threat I think this nation faces is internally, and its from the radical homosexuals that want to destroy the underpinnings of our nation the homosexual, the radical homosexual, wants to destroy our way of life, Among the FRCs high-profile events was the 2009 prayercast against health care reform (see:http://www.frcaction.org/pressrelease/frc-action-to-host-live-prayercast-tonight-on-health-care-reform-) which included TheCall head Lou Engle and Bishop Harry Jackson, one of the most aggressive among African-American pastors working against LGBT rights. 2003 500 States Burns, Celebrating Gods Design is a unique new curriculum series that takes a balanced and biblical look at important youth issues including gender confusion, tolerance, and challenging family dynamics., 2001 156,000 2012 57,500. 2005 0, [Campus Crusade For Christ sub-ministries funding by NCF], Athletes in Action EIN 95-6006173 (plus other EIN number CCC AIC entities), 2001 6,345 2001 100 When people were held in bondage to hunger and deprivation by unjust social As Ockenga conceived, the Neo-Evangelicals would not, like the fundamentalists had done in the 1920s and 1930s, flee modernity or separate themselves from secular society; they would instead infiltrate (Ockenga used this term) the secular realm, placing their operatives in key positions from which to advance their cause which was the divine redemption of the world, the evangelization of all its peoples, and the establishment of Gods dominion over all sectors of society. 2008 80,510 2009 18,861 2013 5,766,158, Citizens For Community Values (EIN 31-1075684). 2011 0 model is culturally appropriate and relevant. 2006 10,800 The Alliance Defending Freedom, a heavy recipient of NCF funding, in turn provides substantial grants to the Liberty Counsel. Cromartie took over as acting director for E&PPC in 2001, with the departure of E&PPC president Elliott Abrams, who had served since 1996.