ADVENTISTS IN GERMANY ELECT NEW DIRECTOR OF WOMEN'S MINISTRIES DEPARTMENT

Daniela Canedo will take over the leadership of the Women's Ministries Department in the Seventh-day Adventist Church in Germany. She will succeed Angelika Pfaller, who is retiring this summer. The Seventh-day Adventist church in Germany consists of two Unions, each serving a part of the country. The North and South German Unions have a joint director for the Women’s Ministries department. On April 18 and 25 respectively, the executive committees of the German Unions voted to elect Daniela Canedo as successor for the retiring Women’s Ministries (WM) director Angelika Pfaller.
Daniela Canedo
With Daniela Canedo, a woman takes over the leadership of the WM department who is familiar with church structures through her service in various areas for many years. Canedo, who was born in Siegen and trained as a banker in the Westerwald region, has worked as executive assistant in the Central Rhenish Conference, based in Darmstadt since 2012. Since 2019, she has also been the data protection officer for the free church in the three regional entities of Hesse, Rhineland-Palatinate and Saarland. For the past year, she has also worked as director of Women’s Ministries in the same region. Canedo is single and, in addition to her native German, speaks English, French and Spanish, which will be useful to her in networking with the department leaders in the other European countries.
She herself is "looking forward to exciting encounters with women and wants to continue the good work of her predecessor, finding her new niches and filling them." She wants to "connect women with each other, make it possible to talk about the unspeakable and reach the younger generation, for example, with a podcast." It's her desire, Canedo told APD, "to help women find their voice and share their faith wherever God wants to use us."
Angelika Pfaller
In July 2012, Angelika Pfaller was appointed to lead the Women's Ministries Department in the South German Union. She also took over leadership of the department in the North German Union a little later, making her the first WM director for the whole of Germany with approximately 65% of the members being women. Prior to that, she served in the same capacity in the Bavarian Conference since the fall of 2009. She says that "ministry with and for women has been a very enriching and beneficial time" for her. During this time, she says, continuing education seminars, women's weekend retreats, and conventions were developed and offered. Especially the strengthening and mentoring of girls and young women (Girls4Christ) has been a special task in these past years. The proclamation of the Word of God has always been at the center.
Pfaller is also a member of the five-member advisory board "Confronting Sexual Violence," which was initiated by the free church in 2010 as an independent expert committee of counselors. On the one hand, it prepares materials and, on the other, deals with concrete cases that are brought to its attention in accordance with its assigned competence. Angelika Pfaller is married and has two grown-up children. In retirement she is looking forward to spending time with her husband Max, which has been somewhat lacking in the last 12 years.
Source: APD