20th July 2005

Taranaki Pastor Stands for Christian Heritage NZ

Christian Heritage NZ announced today that Taranaki pastor Mr Mark Jones would stand as a list candidate for the party. Mr Jones has been working for Inglewood Christian Fellowship for the last 18 years. Prior to that he worked for 11 years in various roles in the dairy industry in Taranaki, from production on the factory floor to management of an Independent Milk Testing Station.

Mr Jones has also spent four years teaching in Pakistan at Murree Christian School in the early 1970s and in 1996 spent a year assisting the efforts of an education-based non-government organisation in Kyrgyzstan.

CHNZ leader Ewen McQueen said he was pleased to be able to have someone on the team of such high calibre and wide experience. McQueen stated,

“Mark Jones is well known and respected within the Inglewood community. He has a strong Christian faith and is absolutely committed to the positive ABC agenda we want to promote this election (Affirming Marriage, Building Families, Celebrating Life). It is a privilege to have him on what will become our parliamentary team. His wisdom and experience both in the church and in the dairy industry will be invaluable.”

Mr Jones will also be the Christian Heritage NZ candidate for the Taranaki-King Country electorate where he lives. He represented the party in this electorate in both the 1993 and 1999 elections. (For more information refer attached personal profile).

Inglewood has a history of strong support for Christian Heritage. In the Taranaki-King Country by-election of 1998 where the party surprised commentators by coming in ahead of the Greens and New Zealand First - Inglewood provided a disproportionately large share of the total vote for the party (nearly 20%).

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Mark Jones – Personal Profile

Professional Background

Mark graduated from Victoria University with a BSc in Zoology in 1971. Later, through the dairy industry's staff development programme he subsequently gained a Diploma of Dairy Technology from Massey University. He spent eleven years working in the dairy industry in Inglewood.

In 1987 Mark made a career change when he began working for Inglewood Christian Fellowship, which is now based at The Mamaku Centre in Inglewood. It is an independent church but has strong informal links with other churches of many denominations in Inglewood, wider Taranaki and throughout NZ.

Mark was also a volunteer in the New Plymouth Budget Advisory Service for about 8 years prior to 1996.

Overseas Involvement

In the early 1970s Mark and Joy spent four years at Murree Christian School in Pakistan. Their roles included teaching music and science, but primarily they were house-parents for teenage children attending the school.

In 1996 they also spent a year in Kyrgyzstan assisting the efforts of an education-based non-government organisation (Heart of Asia Management).

These overseas experiences have given the Mark and Joy a smattering of Urdu and Russian languages, a love for people of other cultures and an appreciation of the difficulties travellers and immigrants have when they come to New Zealand.

Personal Background

Mark has been married to Joy for 34 years. They have five adult children and six grandchildren. To relax Mark enjoys gardening, snooker, classical music, and watching foreign movies/TV.

ENDS

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