Peter Deyneka, missionary statesman to Russia and the former Soviet Union, died on December 23 after a six-month struggle with lymphoma. He was 69. After the collapse of communism, Deyneka and his wife, Anita, left Slavic Gospel Association (founded by Peter Deyneka Sr.) in 1991 to start Peter Deyneka Russian Ministries in Wheaton, Illinois. That ministry offers training in evangelism and church-planting, distributes literature, and helps churches and agencies in the former U.S.S.R.

Randall L. Hoag has been named president of Food for the Hungry International (Geneva, Switzerland), and Benjamin K. Homan is the new president of Food for the Hungry Inc. (Scottsdale, Arizona), the U.S. affiliate. They succeed Ted Yamamori, who has been president of both relief and development organizations since 1984.

The Navy forced Philip Veitch, an ordained minister of the Reformed Episcopal Church, to resign his commission as a lieutenant commander chaplain, according to the Rutherford Institute, the Christian public-interest law firm that has taken up Veitch's case. He was ousted on September 30 "because he refused to stop preaching conservative evangelical doctrine." According to Rutherford, Navy brass said Veitch was preaching "non-inclusiveness" and "non-pluralism." In December, Rutherford filed suit in federal court in Washington, D.C.

Bruce Murphy, 58, provost of Seattle Pacific University, has been named the eighth president of Northwestern College in Orange City, Iowa. The school's presidency became vacant in July 1999 when James Bultman became president of Hope College in Holland, Michigan.