Three Elected to Board of Governors

Three men were elected to the community's board of governors on August 29: Tom Caneff (Servant Branch), Nick Holovaty (Mission Division, Evansville) and John Zwerneman (South Bend). 

Each will serve a six-year term that begins on December 1, 2020. They join eight other men who will continue to serve on the board: Craig Lent (chairman, South Bend), Sean Connolly (South Bend), Charlie Fraga (Vancouver-Portland),  Bob Magill (Northern Virginia), Phil Monaco (Corvallis), Pat Murphy (Servant Branch), Jim Mysliwiec (northern Virginia) and Mike Zusi (South Bend).

Nick and John were re-elected and will be serving their second consecutive terms. Tom will be serving his first term. 

In December, current board member Joel Kibler will complete his second consecutive term. Members who serve two terms consecutively are not immediately eligible for reelection, but can be reelected after two years.

Tom Caneff is the principal branch coordinator of Servant Branch, a job he has held since 2015. (He was recently re-appointed and will serve a second term starting in January, 2021).  Prior to becoming principal branch coordinator, Tom worked for 33 years in the finance department of Thomson Reuters. Tom and his wife Nancy have been married for 39 years and have five children, all of whom are adult members of the People of Praise: Josh Caneff (South Bend), Naomi Coney (Mission, Indianapolis), Hannah Couch (South Bend), Sarah Stapp (Servant Branch) and Mary Ridenour (Northern Virginia). Tom and Nancy have 16 grandchildren. Tom joined the Servants of the Lord community in 1978, and made the covenant in 1985. He cites Romans 14: 7-8 as one of his favorite Scripture passages: "For not one of us lives for himself, and not one dies for himself; for if we live, we live for the Lord, or if we die, we die for the Lord; therefore whether we live or die, we are the Lord’s" (NASB). Tom hails from Hastings, MN, and he and Nancy now live in Burnsville, MN. Tom is a Roman Catholic.

Dr. John Zwerneman serves on the community's branch relations council, where he is responsible for the Appleton, Rockford and Tampa branches. (Previously, he served for 12 years as the principal branch coordinator for South Bend.) John also works part-time as a psychiatrist at a residential treatment center that serves adolescents. John joined the community in 1977 in South Bend, together with his parents Jim and Nancy Zwerneman. (Nancy died in 1978, while Jim, a long time member of the northern Virginia branch, died in 2005.) John and his wife Amy married in 1983. Early in their marriage, they spent a year in Israel, where John worked as a missionary doctor. They lived in Grenada for six years, and three of their five children were born on the island. John’s brother Andrew is a member of the northern Virginia branch. John is a Roman Catholic.

Nick Holovaty has been the community’s Mission program coordinator since 2006. He is the head of a household of 12 missionaries who live in Evansville, Indiana. Since joining the community in 2001, Nick has lived in South Bend, Servant Branch, Indianapolis, Shreveport and now Evansville. He helped establish the community’s new starts in Allendale, Indianapolis and Evansville. Nick has deep missionary roots. His parents, Orest and Susan Holovaty, lived as missionaries in Russia and Ukraine, and now serve as missionaries along with Nick in Evansville. Nick lived with them in Russia for seven years as a child, and he is a fluent Russian speaker. His grandparents and great-grandparents include ordained Presbyterian ministers, an Eastern Rite Catholic priest, and missionaries to Brazil and the Congo. Nick is a member of the Presbyterian Church (USA).

Members of the board of governors, also called head coordinators, are elected by an assembly comprised of the overall coordinator, head coordinators, principal branch coordinators and program coordinators, previous overall coordinators and head coordinators who have served as such within six years, according to the Principles of Structure and Government of the People of Praise. This year's elective assembly took place virtually via a Zoom video conference. The election relied on new voting software developed by South Bend branch members Jeremy Osterhouse and Annie Bulger of one:ten.

With Craig Lent's second term as overall coordinator coming to an end in November of 2021, the men serving on the board of governors as of December 1 will have the responsibility of selecting the community's next overall coordinator. That elective assembly is scheduled for June, 2021.