Community Representative
David Merchant has a long history of working for peace with justice through several groups including Sojourners and Christ Lutheran Church on 16th Street in Washington, DC. David's other church-based volunteer work includes serving, along with his wife Lois Foehringer, as the Mennonite Central Committee Country Representatives to Laos from 1985-1990, where they managed a small scale development program and did peace and reconciliation work. While teaching at Chiengmai University in northern Thailand, David volunteered in the refugee camps with Catholic Relief Services, providing emergency health care to Khmer who were fleeing their country from the Pol Pot regime. David now works as the chief appellate defender for the State of Minnesota.
David and Lois are graduates of St. Olaf College. He obtained his J.D. from the Georgetown University Law Center. They have three children: Hannah, Max, and Emma along with a beloved flat-coat retriever who loves to swim along side David in Minnesota's many lakes.
