ATLANTA – In the shadow of the Cotopaxi Volcano in the Andes highlands south of Quito, Ecuador, Ecuadorian Methodists maintain an elementary school called El Sembrador (“the sower”). The school has about 100 students enrolled in Kindergarten through 7^th grades.

David and Shari Nelson, Mission Volunteers from Colorado, have developed a passion for the ministry of this school, its students and teachers. They spent two months in Pastocalle in 2023 to assist the English teacher and establish a computer lab, which has been helping the children in their classwork, and basic computer skills and literacy. They returned to Ecuador in January this year.

Both David and Shari are lifetime Methodists with a long history of volunteer service in their church and community. One of their many goals for retirement was to remain active volunteers. David remembers, “in May 2022, while surfing to make a donation to UMCOR, we stumbled across a volunteer link on its website. That led us to discover Global Ministries’ Mission Volunteers (MV) program, and the rest is history!”

Last year, the Nelsons visited several Methodist churches in Ecuador and became familiar with some of the pastors and congregations. They have been slowly learning Spanish for years. After their immersion in the country, they have become conversant in Spanish, which has helped them develop deeper relationships.

The Methodist Church in Ecuador is a small denomination with about 20 churches and ministries to support childhood education, families, Christian education and leadership development. Pastors and church workers often have second jobs in addition to their church work to support their families.

“This year, we continue working with El Sembrador school and a few churches, and helping the national church create a presence on the internet,” Shari said. They have also organized a national praise team retreat partnered with the Ecuadoran church, which will include an ecumenical team through Broomfield United Methodist Church, their home church. The retreat will encourage church growth through strengthening faith, leadership skills and technical skills of the members of the Methodist praise teams. Forty-five musicians from across Ecuador are expected to attend the three-day event in April.

Broomfield UMC dedicated a portion of its 2023 Easter offering to support El Sembrador, which allowed the school to install secure doors on the new computer room and make much-needed repairs to the roof of the bathrooms at the school.

Global Ministries has appointed two missionaries to assist with the school. Sara Flores Quinones, a full-time Global Missionary from Bolivia, works with the Methodist Church in Ecuador as the Children’s Accompaniment Ministry coordinator. Mary Grace Luna from the Philippines, is a Global Mission Fellow (GMF) assigned to El Sembrador through the spring of 2024. Another GMF from India is scheduled to arrive later this year.

For more information about how to become a Mission Volunteer, possible placement sites and the schedule for the next training and orientation session, visit the Mission Volunteers website.

Christie R. House is a consultant writer and editor with Global Ministries and UMCOR.

Mission Volunteers

Global Ministries Mission Volunteers are individuals or couples (ages 18 and up) who seek long-term partnerships with communities around the world and fund themselves. Mission Volunteer opportunities are diverse and range from working with refugees, children and youth to serving as a teacher, pastor, camp director or health care professional. The length of service ranges from two months to more than two years, depending on the volunteer’s availability.

The post Back in Ecuador with El Sembrador appeared first on Global Ministries.

In past years, more than 2,000 volunteers annually have prepared approximately $4 million on average in relief supplies for shipment from the UMCOR Sager Brown Depot in response to disasters in the United States. Volunteer teams have also worked on community projects in nearby Baldwin. Sager Brown collaborates with affiliate warehouses within the United Methodist Relief Supply Network, including one in Alabama, one in Illinois, one in Missouri, two in Pennsylvania and two in Texas.

Volunteer teams that were scheduled to visit in 2020, and whose visits were canceled or postponed because of the COVID-19 pandemic shutdown, will be informed of the reopening and invited to move forward with their plans, according to Amy Fuselier, director of UMCOR Sager Brown Depot. The current plan is to open the new team registration calendar in June 2023 for teams who wish to visit in 2024.

“Assembling a relief kit is one of the special ways people show their support for UMCOR,” said Roland Fernandes, general secretary of the General Board of Global Ministries and the United Methodist Committee on Relief. “We are pleased to welcome volunteer teams back to such a storied place as UMCOR Sager Brown Depot and look forward to even more volunteer teams visiting in the future when we are fully open.” 

“The UMCOR Sager Brown Depot team is looking forward to hosting short-term mission volunteer teams once again,” said Amy Fuselier, director of UMCOR Sager Brown Depot. “We have missed them just as much as they have missed us.”

While there have not been any changes to the team registration process, fees have been adjusted to meet the rising costs of food, utilities and maintenance.

New for 2023, COVID-19 protocols have been instituted. Volunteers will be required to have been vaccinated, have had a negative COVID-19 test within 48 hours of arrival and affirm both during the check-in process. Individuals who believe they have been exposed to someone with COVID-19 within five days of their scheduled trip will be directed not to travel to UMCOR Sager Brown. Volunteers will be encouraged to wear a face mask while in any indoor congregational setting during their visit.

During their visits, volunteer team members assemble, verify and pack relief supply kits. Learn more about kits here: https://umcmission.org/relief-supplies/. UMCOR recently introduced a new menstrual hygiene kit and donations are encouraged to help build needed inventory.

Visiting teams may also participate in UMCOR Sager Brown Depot’s outreach to its local neighbors through food distribution, housing rehabilitation projects and other community efforts.

Churches gathering supplies for relief supply kits can send those items to any of the affiliate warehouses listed and select the one that is most convenient. Find additional information here: https://umcmission.org/umcor-supply-depots/.

• Pray: Our work is undergirded by the power of prayer – both in the hours after a disaster strikes and through recovery.
• Make supply kits: Assemble relief supply kits to help keep UMCOR’s Relief Supplies Network ready to deliver goods in the hands of survivors (U.S. only).
• Volunteer:  U.S. volunteer efforts are arranged through annual conferences; reach out to your conference disaster relief coordinator to learn more. 
• Give: To provide support where it is most needed, give to Advance #999895. To specifically support UMCOR’s international disaster response efforts, you can give to Advance #982450. To specifically support UMCOR’s U.S. disaster response efforts, you can give to Advance #901670.  To support the maintenance and repair of Sager Brown Supply Depot, you can give to Advance #901515.

About the United Methodist Committee on Relief (UMCOR)

Founded in 1940, the United Methodist Committee on Relief (UMCOR) is the global humanitarian relief and development agency of The United Methodist Church. A part of Global Ministries, UMCOR works in more than 80 countries worldwide, including the United States and its territories. The agency’s mission, grounded in the teachings of Jesus, is to alleviate human suffering with open hearts and minds to all people. Working in the areas of disaster response and recovery and migration, UMCOR responds to natural or civil disasters that are interruptions of such magnitude that they overwhelm a community’s ability to recover on its own. Learn more about Global Ministries by visiting www.umcmission.org or by following www.facebook.com/GlobalMinistries and Twitter.com/UMCmission.

Media Contact:
Dan Curran for Global Ministries and UMCOR
770-658-9586 (cell)
media@umcmission.org

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Loving others, loving mercy, doing justice and walking humbly with God. That is mission for us.

Robilea Swindell

Volunteer service has become a way of life for Gerald (Jerry) Feese and Robilea Swindell, a married couple who live in Lawrence, Kansas, part of the Great Plains United Methodist Annual Conference. While they have served for years with Great Plains Disaster Response ministry and continue to serve with an Early Response Team, they decided to broaden their opportunities after they retired to see where, what and who else God might be calling them to serve.

In 2021, they took the Mission Volunteers training offered by the General Board of Global Ministries and by spring 2022, they were off to Sulphur, Louisiana, for their first official Mission Volunteer placement.

Working with the Fuller Center Disaster ReBuilders, Feese and Swindell began 2½ months of case management work with survivors of Hurricane Laura, which struck in August 2020, and Hurricane Delta in October 2020. The Fuller Center for Housing is a housing ministry started by Millard and Linda Fuller, who originally founded Habitat for Humanity.

In some cases, homeowners without insurance have not found the resources to recover from these disasters. In other cases, they had resources, but were taken advantage of by unscrupulous scammers or dishonest contractors.

“We were working with a family whose house someone else had owned at the time of the disaster, but after the disaster, the owners left after signing the property over to their renters. Unfortunately, the former owners had received insurance money and pocketed it, which left the family who lived there high and dry,” Swindell said.

Feese added: “In a couple of cases, owners had some insurance or relief money, and they hired a contractor who took the money and left without doing any work.”

Swindell had worked with disaster case management for five months or so in the Great Plains Conference, but this work was new to Feese. In Louisiana, they encountered families who had multiple people listed on their deeds, but the Fuller Center could only work with properties that were clear with one owner or couple. They had to sort that through with the families on the deed so that the family that lived in the house and sustained the damage could receive help.

“It was mostly inheritances,” Feese confirmed. “Parents would leave the property to their three or four children, and then in the next generation, to the grandchildren, and even though one family lived there, they all considered it part of their communal property.”

In addition to case management, the couple greeted volunteers coming to the Fuller Center each week.

In the fall of 2022, Swindell accepted a second Mission Volunteer placement from Global Ministries while Feese stayed at home. She went to Las Cruces, New Mexico, to work with a fast-paced immigration ministry at El Calvario United Methodist Church.

“The mission there is to receive immigrants who have just been released from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Border Control,” Swindell explained. “During the months I was there, only families seeking asylum who had sponsors came through the shelter.”

She said a bus with about 50 people on it arrived every week. About half the riders on the bus were children. Upon arrival, each guest would be tested for COVID-19 and they’d receive instructions about their stay at El Calvario, which only lasted 24-48 hours. If they tested positive for COVID, which she said was rare, they were separated from the group and sent to a hotel.

The group received lunch, and while that was going on, Swindell and other volunteers transcribed the immigration paperwork each family brought onto U.S. forms. Then someone would meet with the family to discern whether anyone in the family needed medical help and where they needed to go in the U.S.

Volunteers would then call the sponsors to make travel arrangements. Sponsors were responsible for buying bus, train or airplane tickets, but the volunteers needed to coordinate transportation to the airport, usually in El Paso, the nearest large airport.

Swindell often coordinated the “shower line” during her stay with El Calvario. It took about four hours for 50 people to take turns for a 5-minute shower in El Calvario’s one shower stall. Each individual received a clean set of clothes and a night’s sleep in the shelter. People heading to the North also received winter jackets. In the morning, they were off to the airport, train or bus station to continue on their journey to their sponsors.

Swindell speaks Spanish, which was helpful in trying to understand a family’s situation and where they were trying to go. However, El Calvario also received asylum seekers from Turkey and Russia. No one at the shelter spoke those languages, so she worked with a cellphone and a translation app to try to confirm the information they needed. It took a lot of patience.

“Serving as Mission Volunteers allows us to walk with people in need for however brief a time it might be – to be a symbol of hope,” Swindell noted. “I can’t tell you how many times people called into the number for the Fuller Center and were so grateful that people were still there to help them.”

For people just venturing out as self-supporting long-term volunteers, the couple thought the training would be very helpful. “There is a lot to think about in terms of leaving your home and having enough income to survive, paying bills while you are gone, whether you need to fundraise,” Swindell said.

Una Jones, director of the Mission Volunteers program, said “The Mission Volunteer process is equivalent to the expectations we have of missionaries. Robilea and Jerry expressed their gratitude for the preparation, training and the placements coordinated by Global Ministries.”

While no specific plans have solidified at this moment, both Feese and Swindell said they would be looking for another placement this year through the Mission Volunteers office. They thrive in this kind of environment.

The next round of Mission Volunteer training takes place in person at the St. Raphaela Retreat Center in Haverford, Pennsylvania, on March 27-30. More information can be found on Global Ministries’ website at  https://umcmission.org/mission-volunteers/.

Christie R. House is a consultant writer and editor with Global Ministries and UMCOR.

Mission Volunteers

Global Ministries Mission Volunteers are individuals or couples (ages 18 and up) who seek long-term partnerships with communities around the world and fund themselves. Opportunities for service are diverse and range from working with refugees, children and youth to serving as a teacher, pastor, camp director or health care professional. The length of service ranges from two months to more than two years, depending on the volunteers’ availability.

The post Lifetime of experience offered by Mission Volunteers appeared first on Global Ministries.

By Christie R. House
October 6, 2022 | ATLANTA

Ruth Johnson Colvin is still amazed at the way her life changed when, in 1960, she decided that someone needed to do something about the high rate of illiteracy in Syracuse, New York, where she lived. When that year’s census reports came out, she discovered that 11,055 people in her county could neither read nor write. She was certain some organization or municipal program must be working to correct this, but as her research deepened, she learned that no one was seriously addressing the problem.

Already in her 40s at that time, with no teaching background, Colvin invited the Syracuse Board of Education to her house for coffee. They had a night school program, they said, that taught adult reading to 50 people. Colvin decided to check out the program and discovered only 25 people in the class. She invited other groups to her house, hoping to find allies.

Finally, a representative of Church Women United attended one of Colvin’s coffee meetings. She said she would take the information to her next CWU meeting. Though Colvin had not heard of Church Women United, she was eager to meet them. “How many people are in your church,” she asked the representative, hoping to find some volunteers to help her develop a program.

“No, my dear, you misunderstand. I represent 80 member-churches involved in Church Women United in Syracuse.” At their meeting, members decided they would support this literacy effort with volunteers, but they wanted Mrs. Colvin to volunteer to lead the program. And so, her journey began.

Today, at age 105, Colvin has not lost her love for learning or her passion for literacy. In a recent interview, she reminisced about the many stops along her journey teaching literacy around the world. One of her first stops was Syracuse University, where she asked for help in designing the program. Professionals there reviewed her proposed curriculum and told her the phonics system she was using was 30 years behind the times.

That was one of her mistakes, Colvin noted, but she is proud to say that she learned from that mistake and others along the way, listening to people and working to build a better system. The nonprofit she founded was called Literacy Volunteers of America. In 2002, her agency merged with Laubach Literacy International to form ProLiteracy, which creates more educational opportunities for adult learners through an expanded national network and through new international initiatives.

Ruth Colvin said she had been a Methodist most of her life. After Literacy Volunteers of America spread throughout the Northeast and into the Midwest, staff of the General Board of Global Ministries asked her in 1973 to share her methods with people in other countries, particularly in partnership with some of Global Ministries’ missionaries.

Ruth’s husband, Bob Colvin, retired at age 58 so that the couple could travel as mission volunteers, before there was a formal program, to teach leaders how to teach adult literacy. Their first trip was to Turkey, and they thought would be the extent of it, but then the mission board asked them to go to the next country, and the next. They spent three months each year and taught in 26 countries. Global Ministries paid their expenses, but the Colvins volunteered their time and received no salary.

In fact, Literacy Volunteers of America depended on thousands of volunteers to reach out to people in their local communities who needed help with adult literacy. “I had no money,” Colvin confessed. “I didn’t have an office. My storage was down in my basement. I used a broken refrigerator as my book shelf.”

As the years passed, the Colvins found other sponsors and allies and eventually visited 62 countries in all. Bob Colvin passed away at age 99, after 73 years of marriage with Ruth. It was a difficult time for Ruth, losing the love of her life, but she still had work to do and more to learn.

“I’ve been around the world and worked with people of practically every religion,” Colvin said. “I look for the similarities and respect all of them. But the Methodists, I’ll tell you, are a favorite of mine.”

In her lifetime, Ruth Colvin has written 15 books. Most of them are manuals about teaching literacy, but a few are autobiographies of her journeys.

Her latest book was written two years ago as her memoir, published by ProLiteracy’s publication office, New Readers Press.

“When they wanted me to write a memoir, I said, ‘Who wants to read about an old lady?’ And they said, ‘we get all sorts of calls and emails – What’s your secret to longevity? How could you start a national and international literacy organization when you weren’t even a teacher? And how could you go to so many countries teaching literacy?’ People wanted to know that. So, I agreed to write it. If people can learn from my mistakes, that’s worth doing.”

In addition to her 15 books, Colvin gained recognition along the way. She is the recipient of nine honorary degrees, one from Syracuse University being her first. She was also honored with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, given to her by George W. Bush in 2006 and the President’s Volunteer Action Award, given by President Reagan in 1987. In 1993 she was inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame.

But her passion about literacy is what drives her. For more on her memoir, “My Travels Through Life, Love and Literacy: A Journey Over 100 Years in the Making,” visit New Readers Press, My Travels through Life, Love, and Literacy (Soft Cover).

Christie R. House is a consultant writer and editor with Global Ministries and UMCOR.

Mission Volunteers serve for two months and longer in their Global Ministries assignments. Volunteers build churches, assist in community health programs, advocate for social justice, build leadership skills and help after a disaster. Connect with Mission Volunteers through Global Ministries. Application process, training and open volunteer opportunities are on the site. The next training event is Nov. 30-Dec.3, 2022.

The post Yes, volunteering can change your life appeared first on Global Ministries.

Nancy Potter and George Gull, a recently retired couple, discovered that the Mission Volunteer program with Global Ministries offers an outlet of service for a lifetime of experience.

By Nancy Potter
February 11, 2022 | ITHACA, N.Y.

Transitions in life offer such a gift. When we were thinking about retirement, we looked at some of the life values and goals that we’d put on post-it notes years earlier. Some of them were perfect for this next chapter of our lives, including international travel and volunteering. We had both grown up in United Methodist churches in different parts of the country, upstate New York for me and South Dakota for George. Because of the Women’s Society of Christian Service (WSCS) and its successor, United Methodist Women, even our small church received visitors from other countries. It was an environment that placed high value on community service. From the time I was five, I was seeing people from other parts of the world and recognizing that we are all God’s children.

My career focused on community-based education and organizing for a public organization and I had expressed to a United Methodist friend that I would like to use those skills in a faith-based setting. George’s lifetime as a “toy builder” (mechanical engineer) for projects ranging from astronomy research to building our home was great for any kind of construction. So, we began exploring ways to weave these threads.

One option we learned about was Mission Volunteers (MV) through United Methodist Global Ministries. Hmmmm, does international travel and putting faith into action with a two-month volunteer placement sound like a God-send – while still balancing our time with aging mothers and other commitments?

Our first mission volunteer trip in 2015 to Los Chiles, Costa Rica, seemed like a big leap, yet we found the training had really helped us map out our preparation and understand the “yin and yang” of the experience. So, we reasoned, if it’s not the best fit, it’s only two months out of our entire lives.

We packed up and headed down to Los Chiles to a tiny Mom and Pop hotel and restaurant, the Carolina. Thelma, the owner, worked with the first director of Agua Viva Serves* and now most volunteer teams stay at the Carolina. After being with the local Agua Viva Serves team and getting acquainted with the communities in the first few weeks, we couldn’t imagine not going back again and again!

As George notes, when we walk around Los Chiles, people know us, and we know them. It is like we are going home every time we return. The more we are there, the more we understand the complexities. It is fascinating to see the connections we make at that little restaurant and the way Divine intervention happens. Community development is an ongoing process. One of the things I do is evaluation interviews to assess the impact of a project. One president of his hamlet’s development association said: “We like that you come back and check on us. We know that you really care.”

We have hours of stories and photos to show of our MV trips! Drilling wells for potable water for remote clusters of homes and small hamlets of limited resources never gets old. Public health workers and school directors/teachers tell us how much change they see in the health and education of children and families when they have access to clean water! We also learn about the challenges and goals of families in these remote border areas and the opportunities for tapping other local resources.

We have been forever changed by the excitement, generosity of spirit and gratitude of the people we’ve been privileged to work with side-by-side. The COVID-19 pandemic changed when we could return, but the sense that we are “back home” now that we can return has not changed one iota (or omicron)!  We are indeed blessed to be on this epiphany journey and, si Dios permite, we’ll be back, again and again.

*Originally founded by United Methodist volunteers in mission from First United Methodist Church in Winter Park, Florida, Agua Viva Serves is a nonprofit, faith-based ministry that provides sustainable clean water projects through community partnering and direct volunteer support in Northern Costa Rica and Southern Nicaragua.

Nancy Potter and George Gull are 2014 Mission Volunteer trainees who have returned to Costa Rica five times since that first trip in 2015. They are members of St Paul’s UMC in Ithaca, N.Y. After a two-year delay because of the COVID-19 pandemic, they returned to Los Chiles in January 2022. They helped Agua Viva Serves drill a 203 ft. well for 10 households and made headway in preparing a major Rotary Foundation Global Grant project to bring water to 85 households in San Isidro de Pocosol.

Visit the Mission Volunteers site or email mv@umcmission.org for information about 2022 Mission Volunteer training events. The first will be March 16-19, St. Raphaela Retreat Center, Haverford, Penn. It is currently planned as an in-person event.

The post An epiphany journey as Mission Volunteers appeared first on Global Ministries.

June 21, 2021 | ATLANTA

Global Ministries is hosting two trainings for those selected to serve as Mission Volunteers with The United Methodist Church and its ecumenical partners. The trainings are tentatively scheduled to be in-person gatherings and will take place September 27-30 in Atlanta, GA, and December 6-9 in San Antonio, TX.

Those eligible to serve as Mission Volunteers are individuals or couples (ages 18 and older) who seek long-term partnerships with communities around the world. They should have local and/or international mission experience and must be willing to fund themselves. Length of service can range from two months to more than two years.

Attending a training is required for those who have applied and been accepted to serve as Mission Volunteers. Although the application is open year-round, applications must be submitted by the end of July to guarantee participation in the upcoming September training or by the end of October for the December training.

“The training equips volunteers with a deeper understanding of Global Ministries’ theology of mission and provides a solid foundation for service, wherever their matching placement site may be,” says Una Jones, director of Mission Volunteers for Global Ministries.     

Matthew and Jennifer Wilke, volunteers who recently served in Tanzania, echo the importance of training: “The training was invaluable. It taught us about respecting the culture of the country you are going into, building trust, and not trying to change things.”

If you feel called to serve as a Mission Volunteer, view and complete the application here. If you have questions or would like more information, please email mv@umcmission.org.

The post Fall 2021 Mission Volunteer training appeared first on Global Ministries.

By Stacey Jones 
May 13, 2021 | ATLANTA 

Even after farming for 35 years, Lyn and Gene Saltzman found they still had a lot to learn about growing food. That’s because these two mission volunteers took on the task of cultivating a one-acre produce garden for Reelfoot Rural Ministries, a mission program of the Memphis Conference of The United Methodist Church in Western Tennessee. 

Loading up a trailer from their home in North Central Kansas and armed with donated garden equipment and hundreds of starter plants, the couple drove the 700 miles to Reelfoot in January to start work on the garden. Where they had once raised hogs and cattle and farmed crops such as field corn, soybeans and wheat, Lyn and Gene now faced the peculiarities of growing farmers’ market produce in unfamiliar soil. 

The Saltzmans are long-time mission volunteers at Reelfoot, which serves a four-county area with tremendous need in Tennessee and Kentucky. On their five previous placements there, Lyn worked in the office, the food pantry and the Christmas Toy Store, while Gene did work such as picking up donated food, preparing meals and helping make home repairs throughout the community. 

Despite their fondness for Reelfoot, the Saltzmans thought their time had run its course. “Last Christmas, before we left to go home, I told Mark, the guy I’ve worked with there, that I didn’t see us coming back anymore unless something really changes, because there’s nothing to do,” said Gene. The pandemic had forced Reelfoot to halt or drastically alter services. What’s more, Lyn added, “We didn’t want to take a paying job from someone who really needs it.” But the Rev. Robert Craig, who directs Reelfoot, had other plans for the couple and wanted them to return in the spring. “He told us of his dream of having fresh produce for the food pantry clients,” Lyn said. After Christmas, the couple started planning the garden and preparing for another return to Reelfoot. 

“We talked to friends at home who had been in the gardening business for a number of years. Both were quitting their gardening,” Gene said. And both donated a generous amount of equipment and advice. Between that and some old equipment on their farm dating back to Lyn’s grandparents’ day, the two were ready to start their project. 

Besides picking their friends’ brains, the Saltzmans did a lot of reading and research on their own. Gene even brought a welder and torch back to Reelfoot in case he had to fabricate needed equipment. 

The garden will provide fresh food to Reelfoot clients all summer. The Saltzmans have planted 1,200 potatoes, 650 tomato plants, about 400 peppers of varying varieties, 125 yams, 50 hills each of watermelon and cantaloupe, 400 each of onions and cucumbers, zucchini, squash, a smattering of other vegetables, and enough sweet corn to supply about 70 dozen ears to the food pantry each week until Labor Day. A cold snap in early April had them scrambling to cover the plantings, using donated one-gallon ice cream buckets and anything else they could cobble together, before leaving for Indiana to welcome their fourth grandchild. 

The garden will be ready for harvest starting in late June/early July when the tomatoes should come in, followed by the potatoes in mid-July. “Then we’ll have a couple of months that just about everything will be ready on the other part of the garden,” Gene said. “The watermelon will come a little later—more like late July or August.” 

As it so often happens, a life transition led them to Global Ministries’ Mission Volunteers program, a long-term, self-funded service opportunity. “Kind of pushing me along is that her dad died,” Gene said, referring to Lyn’s father. “And when he died, I lost my father-in-law, my mentor, and then my best friend. And I got to thinking, why am I doing what I’m doing?” 

To become mission volunteers, the couple trained with the program’s director, Una Jones, in Arkansas, right across the Mississippi River from Reelfoot’s location. The Saltzmans also have served in Alaska and Hawaii. The training helped them gain awareness, Gene said, “And I think it prepared you for hardships a little bit so that, when you run into them, you’re prepared to endure and face them.” 

The training uses role playing to help mission volunteers adapt to unfamiliar situations and scenarios they may have to navigate while in service. “The culture changes immensely from state to state and place to place,” said Lyn. The program also prepared them for Reelfoot specifically, as they met Robert Craig before they finished training. 

The Saltzmans expect to leave Reelfoot after about eight months, which will prove to be their longest stint there. But Craig has already urged them to think about next year’s garden. “If he wants us back, we’ll probably start seeds again and be back out here,” Lyn said with a smile. 

To learn more about opportunities for volunteer service, attend a two-hour mission discovery event on June 3 or 5. Visit this page for registration. If you have questions or would like more information, email mv@umcmission.org. 

Stacey Jones is a freelance writer and editor in Atlanta, Georgia.

The post Couple “sows the word” with their service and garden appeared first on Global Ministries.

The Mission Volunteer office of Global Ministries is offering two more virtual mission discovery events in June for anyone interested in learning more about volunteer opportunities in the U.S. and around the world. 

Volunteers join in God’s mission to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world. “Even in a virtual environment, this dedicated time will equip participants to have a better understanding of the volunteer network offered through Global Ministries,” says Una Jones, director of Mission Volunteers for Global Ministries. 

During the discovery events, participants will receive an overview of the basics of volunteer service, including the difference between short-term and long-term opportunities as well as serving as an individual or couple. Participants will also have the chance to engage in conversation with the Mission Volunteer and United Methodist Volunteers in Mission (UMVIM) staff. 

The discovery events are scheduled for Thursday, June 3, 3-5 p.m. EDT and Saturday, June 5, 10 a.m.-12 p.m. EDT. Visit this page to register. If you have questions or would like more information, please email mv@umcmission.org.

The post Discovery events offered for those interested in volunteer service appeared first on Global Ministries.

Matthew and Jennifer Wilke spent eight months in Tanzania as mission volunteers. They learned much, loved a lot and discovered new ways to trust in God. 

By Christie R. House 

February 3, 2021 | ATLANTA 

Jennifer King and Matthew Wilke met while on a cultural immersion event in Jamaica when Matthew and Jennifer’s sister were students at Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington, D.C. “I guess you could say mission work was part of our relationship from the very beginning,” Jennifer explained. 

The seminary students traveled to Jamaica to serve with a deaf children’s ministry, and since Jennifer was studying to become a sign language interpreter, her sister invited her along. 

The couple married in 2018 and decided to spend a year in volunteer mission service. Through a family friend, Matthew connected with Angel House, a United Methodist project in Tarime, Tanzania. His friend advised, “You should spend as much time volunteering there as you can, and you should go through Global Ministries.” 

After graduation, the Wilkes worked extra jobs and finally moved into Jennifer’s mother’s basement to save enough money to fund their year-long trip. After attending Global Ministries’ Mission Volunteer training event in Phoenix, Arizona, they set off. 

Una Jones, Global Ministries’ Mission Volunteers director, described the Wilkes as an amazing couple: “Eight months have stretched them to see life in a new way. They were flexible enough to handle the culture shock and learned much on their journey.” 

Angel House, founded in 2005 by Methodist missionaries, has an orphanage, secondary school and kindergarten on the grounds. Matthew’s official job description was to serve as a Bible Knowledge teacher. The Tanzanian government provides education through 8th grade, but secondary school is not funded, so many families cannot afford it. Most Angel House kids attend kindergarten on site, primary and middle school in town and secondary school back at Angel House. 

Matthew said: “In addition to Bible Knowledge, I also taught topics that they thought might be interesting to hear from me, such as ‘Globalization.’” With the help of an interpreter, he occasionally taught in another school and preached in a few of Tarime’s seven United Methodist churches. 

Jennifer worked on Angel House communications. “I facilitated communication between sponsors and kids,” said Jennifer, “and I sent letters and photos back to the U.S.” She said the children receive cherished letters back from their sponsors, and some sponsors even make the trip to Tanzania to visit. 

In their free time, they found other mission opportunities that God seemed to offer on a regular basis. They spent time with the kids at the orphanage, just building relationships. Matthew gave guitar lessons, working out the chords to traditional Swahili songs the kids requested. 

“One of the things that really stuck with us from the mission volunteers training was, ‘mission is a relationship and not only serving a project,’” said Matthew. 

The Wilkes connected with another Methodist-founded organization in town called Our Father’s House, directed by Moses Nyamhanga. His remarkable journey with the UMC began when he entered Angel House at age six, went through the secondary school and on to college. He returned with a degree in education and dedicates his life to this Advance project, which works with kids like him, growing up on the streets of Tarime. The Wilkes created a promotional video for Our Father’s House. 

Jennifer described Moses as a counselor, social worker, pastor…“and soccer coach,” Matthew interjected. Our Father’s House team is called “UMC” and plays in a league with private schools. 

After a few months, the Wilkes learned enough Swahili to talk with people in town. “We worked really hard on that. And we had so much fun, just talking with people. We weren’t good Swahili speakers, but we learned,” said Matthew. 

“Once in the community, we felt God pulling us to different places as we got to know people,” said Jennifer. 

While teaching Bible Knowledge, Matthew noted that the class had very few Bibles. “The ones they had were tattered,” said Jennifer, “and of different translations,” Matthew finished. They prayed about that. 

Then one day in town, they met a missionary from the Kenya Bible Society who had boxes of Swahili/English Bibles that he didn’t want to take back to Kenya – problem solved. The children at Angel House were delighted. 

On another foray, Jennifer wanted to visit a public school in town that had initiated a Tanzanian sign language class for deaf children in the community. Talking with the principal, they discovered there were many physically disabled children in the area who could not attend school because there were no wheelchairs appropriate for the terrain. 

Another takeaway from the mission volunteers training was that starting a project that local church members can’t maintain once you leave is pointless, so Matthew connected with a metal worker at their local UMC. They helped that member find training to build multi-terrain wheelchairs using available bicycle parts. 

“Things like that made it so cool and fun to be there,” noted Matthew. 

The shop completed five wheelchairs before COVID-19 forced the Wilkes to return home in March. The workshop continues to make wheelchairs today. 

The Wilkes were visiting the eastern coast of the country on the Indian Ocean for a short vacation when Tanzania and many other African countries went on lock-down. They couldn’t even return to Tarime to pack their belongings. They left directly from Dar es Salaam after three days of searching to find one flight out. Every leg of their journey home, flights were cancelled. But they made it. And the day they arrived home, Matthew’s district superintendent called about an appointment to a church in Tonganoxie, Kansas. 

“It was an incredible experience of trusting God,” Matthew noted. But would they recommend the mission volunteers program to other people willing to venture out in mission? You bet, 100%. 

To learn more about the Mission Volunteer program, attend a two-hour mission discovery event in March or June. Visit this page for registration. If you have questions or would like more information, email mv@umcmission.org. 

Christie R. House is a consultant writer and editor with Global Ministries and UMCOR.

The post Love, laughter and lives transformed in Tanzania appeared first on Global Ministries.

January 21, 2021 | ATLANTA 

The Mission Volunteer office of Global Ministries is offering virtual mission discovery events in 2021 for anyone interested in learning more about volunteer opportunities in the U.S. and around the world. 

Volunteers join in God’s mission to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world. “Even in a virtual environment, this dedicated time will equip participants to have a better understanding of the volunteer network offered through Global Ministries,” says Una Jones, director of Mission Volunteers for Global Ministries. 

During the virtual discovery events, participants will receive an overview of the basics of volunteer service, learn about different ways in which they may serve and engage in conversation with the Mission Volunteer and United Methodist Volunteers in Mission (UMVIM) staff. 

The two-hour events will be offered four distinct times so participants may attend when the time best aligns with their schedule. The events are scheduled for: 

• Tuesday, March 2, 10 a.m.-12 p.m. EST 

• Thursday, March 4, 5-7 p.m. EST 

• Thursday, June 3, 3-5 p.m. EDT 

• Saturday, June 5, 10 a.m.-12 p.m. EDT

Visit this page to register to attend a mission discovery event. If you have questions or would like more information, please email mv@umcmission.org.

The post Discovery events offered for those interested in volunteer service appeared first on Global Ministries.