Director Richard Penner, who was among 37 people killed in a plane crash in Tashkent, capital of the ex-Soviet republic of Uzbekistan.
There were no survivors when the Uzbekistan Airways flight crashed Tuesday, January 13, short of the run way during what was reportedly its second attempt to land in heavy fog.
Three other foreigners were also killed, including Richard Conroy, a British-Australian citizen heading the United Nations mission to Uzbekistan and two Afghan businessmen, reported Mission Network News (MNN), a Christian mission news broadcaster.
GOVERNMENT COMMISSION
There was "no evidence" of terrorism but a special government commission has been was set up to investigate the crash, security officials said. Airliners in the former Soviet Union have often been criticized for a lack of safety and maintenance standards.
The 56-year old Director Penner, who was a Canadian citizen, leaves behind a wife and three young adult children.
He joined World Concern, a Seattle-based Christian relief and development organization, in 1993 to work in Uzbekistan, after spending 14 years doing aid work in Afghanistan.
RETURNING REFUGEES
Last year Penner returned to neighboring Afghanistan to oversee the return of thousands of refugee families camping in bombed out structures or living in tents.
"Our current goal is to help bring families home to their villages and to keep them there," he said recently in a statement seen by the BosNewsLife Budapest Bureau.
"We’re doing this by helping them to rebuild good irrigation and clean water systems, schools and sustainable agriculture. Still, we’ll need to continue providing warm clothing, shoes, blankets and medical supplies, as most refugees are returning with very few resources," Penner added.
FOOD PRODUCTION PROJECT
At the time of the airplane crash, he reportedly supervised a food-production project that employed poor women. Friends and colleagues described Penner as a born missionary worker who would be greatly missed in the relief world.
"The world is minus one special person," said World Concern Relief Director Kelly Miller in an interview with The Seattle Times newspaper. "I learned an immense amount from him, being able to come new to a culture. Life to him was a big adventure, and he and his wife were living a large adventure in central Asia for the best part of 20 years."
Miller said Penner and his wife took their children to Asia with them when the kids were in their early teens, exposing them to the mission work. In Afghanistan he initially worked for International Assistance Mission as executive director from 1985 to 1992.
EVENTFUL TIME
Their three adult children now live in Canada, in Winnipeg, Manitoba following an eventful time. They lived through the middle of the Russian- Afghan war and were never evacuated, said Miller. Their front yard became a triage center for some of those injured in the war.
Penner "was a great man; we are all going to miss him much," said Glen Garner, finance director for World Concern in Uzbekistan, in an MNN-interview.
MNN, which has ties with Christian relief workers, has urged Christians around the globe to "pray for the Penner family and pray for other relief workers who face danger every day."
