SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA — On June 30, 2025, a centennial celebration was held at Lee Sam Bong Hall at Ewha Womans University to honor the 100th anniversary of Methodist mission work in Korea.

The commemoration highlighted the century-long legacy of three foundational legal bodies that significantly shaped Methodist mission in Korea. In 1924, the American Methodist Korean Women’s Mission Foundation was established to support women-led mission initiatives. This was followed by the founding of the Foundation of Southern Methodist Church in Korea in 1925, which expanded the institutional and property base of mission work. In 1926, the Foundation of Methodist World Mission-Korea was formed to unify and strengthen the growing infrastructure of Methodist mission. These three organizations were instrumental in establishing more than 400 churches, schools, hospitals and social service centers across Korea, and later played a pivotal role in the formation of the Korean Methodist Church in 1930.

Methodist mission in Korea began in 1883 with the first donations toward missionary efforts, which led to the arrival of the first missionaries in 1885. Over the past 140 years, more than 700 missionaries have served in Korea, contributing to spiritual, educational and social development across the country.

Distinguished international guests attended the celebration, including Bishop Gregory V. Palmer, executive secretary of the UMC Council of Bishops; Jana Jones, president of United Women in Faith; and Sally Vonner, general secretary/CEO of United Women in Faith. Their presence symbolized the enduring partnership between the Korean Methodist Church and The United Methodist Church community.

This historic event celebrated the legacy of past mission efforts and reaffirmed a shared commitment to future ministry and collaboration.

The Rev. Paul Kong is the Asia Pacific Region Representative for Global Ministries.  

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ATLANTA – Dr. Aquilas Soronaka, country director of United Methodist Global Ministries’ mission initiative in the Central African Republic (CAR), was ordained as an elder in The United Methodist Church on Aug. 29, 2023, by Bishop Gabriel Unda. His ordination was held in the city of Kindu in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). His wife, Priscila Soronaka, was also commissioned as the first deaconess in CAR.

Soronaka received teaching on Methodist polity and completed theological training prior to his ordination. He is the only ordained UMC minister in CAR, other than the Rev. M. Sachou, a missionary who will be leaving CAR later this year.

CAR was designated as a new mission initiative in 2015, focused on congregational development; forming youth fellowship groups, scouts, women’s and men’s groups; and training church leadership. This work builds on mission outreach from the adjoining East Congo Episcopal Area which borders CAR to the northwest.

Soronaka’s training and ordination bring renewed hope and energy for the mission initiative. “My ordination gives me the conviction that The United Methodist Church in CAR will continue to make a great impact,” said Soronaka. It also strengthens the partnership between the East Congo Episcopal Area led by Bishop Unda. In November, Bishop Unda is planning to send a team of pastors from East Congo to train local pastors in CAR.

Greater partnership with the associated UMC conferences is a key goal for mission initiatives started by Global Ministries. Global Ministries has started more than a dozen since the early 1990s – in Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe and Central America. Several have become integral parts of the United Methodist connection and some have or will become annual conferences, districts or autonomous churches.

Under Soronaka’s leadership as the country director and now ordained elder, three new United Methodist churches have been planted, rising from 14 to 17.

Susan Clark is the chief communications officer for the General Board of Global Ministries and UMCOR.

EVANGELISM AND CHURCH REVITALIZATION

Founding and nurturing new faith communities and supporting existing congregations that seek to increase membership and expand ministries into local communities have historic roots and contemporary implications for Global Ministries. Missionaries who train pastors to plant churches in new places; mission initiatives, which start new Methodist faith communities; scholarships that assist church leaders to earn the credentials and degrees they need for service and ministry; and networks that resource racial and ethnic faith communities across the United States are examples of Global Ministries’ commitment to evangelism and church revitalization.

Support evangelism and church revitalization by giving to Advance #400400.

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The United Methodist Church in Mongolia will celebrate the ordination of its first Local Elders in Mission, a new hospice facility, growing missions and new work with children and youth at its annual meeting in October 2022.

By Christie R. House
July 7, 2022 | ATLANTA

In Ulaanbaatar, the largest yet still remote city of Mongolia, Urje led a carefree life without much purpose. That was until she had a car accident and was confined to bed for a time. A Christian visited her and shared the gospel. He asked if she would pray the prayer of accepting Jesus. She didn’t really believe that praying would change anything, but she prayed anyway. Afterward, she found Gerelt (meaning “light”) United Methodist Church, where she attended worship services and was also hired to clean the church, since she needed a job.

Then Urje had a dream that sheep were following her. She could hear their “baa-baaing” behind her. She thought, “what a strange dream!” The dream returned to her a second time. She asked her missionary pastor, the Rev. Millie Kim, what this could mean. Pastor Kim suggested God might be calling her to ministry. Urje prayed about it and before she knew it, she was studying at Trinity Theological College in Singapore, where she received a Master of Divinity. When she returned to Mongolia, Urje was appointed to pastor Gerelt UMC, where she had first served as a church cleaner.

Another pastor, Munkhnaran, was at one time in her life considering suicide. She suffered with a chronic disease. But then, she heard about a medical mission team coming to Ulaanbaatar from the United States, and she met them for a medical check-up at Khonkhor United Methodist Church. She stayed for the worship service, and for the first time, she heard John 3:16: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son…” read by the local pastor, Naranbaatar.

Even though the medical team from Nashville had no cure for her disease, her visit planted a seed of faith in her soul. She still goes to the hospital twice a week for treatments, but her perspective has changed. “I thank God for my poor health because it makes me rely on God’s power completely,” she says. Her favorite Bible verse is 2 Corinthians 12:9, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness. Therefore, I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.” (NIV)

Munkhnaran also earned a Master of Divinity degree and returned to her church appointed as the new pastor, which was renamed Ezenii Urgoo UMC, meaning “The Lord’s House.”

The UMC of Mongolia has 12 churches and 12 local leaders, nine of whom are women and three are men. Five of these have met the qualifications to be mission pastors. But these two women, Urje and Munkhnaran, are ready to take the next step – ordination as Local Elders in Mission, roughly equivalent to elders in annual conferences.

In October 2022 during the Mongolian UMC annual meeting, Bishop Jeremiah Park, the mission initiative’s presiding bishop, will officiate the ordination ceremony. It will be a historic moment, not only for the United Methodist Church in Mongolia, but for the whole United Methodist connection.

For the past six years, the Rev. Chin Cho served as the missionary coordinator of the Mongolian Mission Initiative. Grace Cho, his wife, oversaw Christian education for the church. At the end of 2021, they returned home to the United States, but Rev. Cho continues to guide the church a little longer until the new director arrives in Ulaanbaatar.

One of the first ministries of the Mongolian mission, Grace Hospice, was established by the initiative’s first missionary, Helen Sheperd, in 2005. This ministry has continued to grow and change under Mongolian leadership. Grace Hospice director, Dr. Altankhuyag, told Rev. Cho that they began praying in 2012 to find the resources to build a 24-hour hospice center.

Grace Hospice is one of only five hospices in Mongolia, and the other four have their own hospital for 24-hour service. The staff of Grace Hospice conducts home-visit care, taking the hospice to the patients.

Dr. Sang Chun Lee, from Detroit, is a frequent United Methodist visitor to Mongolia, coming with church mission teams to provide periodic care. Back in Detroit, he cared for a patient that recovered well and wanted to donate to something Dr. Lee valued. He knew of the hospice staff’s desire to open a 24-hour facility, and he suggested a gift to this building project. His patient made a $50,000 initial gift.

“That became seed money to start the project,” Cho explained. “When we shared the need for this project, many Korean United Methodist churches also contributed. We raised about $176,000 to build this 24-hour hospice center. We can accommodate 10 patients to care for them fulltime. This is a dream come true, and we named this hospice “Compassionate Sight,” from Matthew 9:36, so doctors and nurses will have the same heart and eyes of Jesus to care for patients with a compassionate heart.”

They still need to be recognized by the government as a 24-hour hospital and estimate they will need about $40,000 for additional medical equipment to meet the standards. They’ve already raised $10,000 and welcome gifts through the Advance #14928A.

While Chin Cho continues officially with the Mongolian Mission Initiative, Grace Cho has continued to serve as a volunteer with Christian education.

When they served in Mongolia, Grace helped the Mongolian church start the Happy Kids Afterschool Program, supporting children of low-income families. The program supplies nutritious food and educational programing. It started at the Kairos Mission Center, which has a small library. Children and youth participate in the library reading program and they can also take lessons in musical instruments, arts and English classes. The national leaders have expanded this program to three locations.

Grace helped to start another new program, Teens for Christ, late last year. This program is resourced by a Mongolian leader named Batbayar. He relates to the global Youth with a Mission organization. Teens for Christ meets three times a week for Bible study and fellowship. During the Mongolian school spring break, they conducted a one-week Bible training event. Grace says in July they will participate in two weeks of discipleship training at Chingeltei UMC in Ulaanbaatar – for 60 teens and teachers!

“Imagine,” Grace noted, “the sleeping arrangements for 60 people in one church. A mission team is coming from Korea and they will offer Bible study, discipleship training and music training.”

Grace has overseen the translation of Christian books, from both English and Korean texts to Mongolian. “New curriculum is a big need in Mongolia. Sunday school material, Bible Study curriculum, guidance for teenagers, we’ve also translated inner healing books and a curriculum book for the parents.”

Global Ministries has assigned a new missionary director to the Mongolia Mission Initiative – the Rev. Dexter Ceballos from the Southern Tagalog Provisional Philippines Annual Conference East. He has over 20 years of church ministry experiences and is currently serving as a district superintendent at Laguna and Quezon District. He and his wife, Laraine Abobon, are planning to arrive in Mongolia by August 1.

The Chos travel to Mongolia at the end of September. They will welcome the new missionary director and stay for the annual meeting, the dedication of the hospice and the initiative’s first ordinations. It will be a grand celebration.

The Mongolian Mission Initiative can be supported through the Advance #00209.

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

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By Elliott Wright
October 28, 2021 | ATLANTA

Discerning and realizing global mission priorities in a time of profound global change was the theme of the semiannual report of The United Methodist Church’s chief mission executive to directors of the General Board of Global Ministries, meeting virtually October 26-29.

Roland Fernandes, general secretary of the worldwide agency, described a “new mission age” shaped by near overwhelming factors such as the coronavirus pandemic, uncertainties about the future of the United Methodist denomination, the need to overcome racism and establish equity in church and society, and the ravages of climate change on the earth and its atmosphere. Both the pandemic and denominational uncertainties have a chilling effect on contributions for mission.

In remarks entitled “Witnessing and Rejoicing in a New Mission Age,” Fernandes challenged the directors, who set mission agency policy, and the church at large, to welcome and rejoice in the “hard” and “demanding” work of sharpening and shaping mission activity for today and tomorrow. For the theme of rejoicing in engaging in God’s mission, he turned to Paul’s letter to the young church at Philippi (Philippians 4:4-7).

Fernandes said that the clock is not going to be turned back to some previous “normal.” Yet Global Ministries has a strong foundation for this work: “We are blessed to have a sturdy 200-year-old legacy that we honor and from which we can learn and on which we can build. But yesterday will not recruit the missionaries needed today or tomorrow. Yesterday will not plant new congregations. Yesterday will not respond to pandemics. Yesterday will not clean the environment. Yesterday will not raise thoughtful children and the leaders of tomorrow. Yesterday cannot fully address the challenges of today. And yesterday cannot fully imagine the challenges of tomorrow.”

Fernandes’ report, which was joined by other staff members and guests, was prelude to three days of program evaluation and sharpening by directors, working with four mission priorities earlier designated. The four are missionaries, evangelism and church revitalization, global health and humanitarian relief and recovery. Global Ministries incorporates the United Methodist Committee on Relief (UMCOR), which is devoted to the alleviation of human suffering. It responds to natural disasters, civil conflict, health emergencies, migration needs and environmental crises without regard to religion, race or national origin.

The general secretary was joined by Amihan Jones, director of Monitoring and Evaluation, in presenting the ongoing process of evaluation and strategic planning being applied to the program inventory. To date, a roster of 30 programs has been refined to 17. Considerable time was scheduled during the meeting for evaluations of the plans by directors.

Fernandes highlighted recent program and operational issues and opportunities directly related to “new mission age” realities. These included:

• Joining initiatives aimed at equitable distribution of COVID-19 vaccines around the world. For example, UMCOR is working with the First United Methodist Church of Boise, Idaho, to set up an Advance project to support UNICEF’s role in COVAX (COVID-19 Vaccines Global Access).

• Response to a new generation of refugees entering the United States as a result of the situation in Afghanistan, work done in collaboration with the ecumenical partner, Church World Service, an official resettlement agency.

• The opening of internal conversation, started the previous day in a committee, on the operating principles for UMCOR including “capacity, accountability, partner relations and the role of the church in UMCOR’s work and vice-versa” and how to manage these issues “without violating our core principles of responding to human need regardless of religion, race or national origin.”

The general secretary’s report also included Native American ministries, agriculture in Africa and earthquake response in Haiti as items to be addressed elsewhere in the meeting.

New to the agenda was consideration of the use of space in Global Ministries’ headquarters building, property formerly owned by Grace United Methodist Church and still used in perpetuity by the congregation. With the policy of “remote” work expanding, the agency has an excess of space.

Plans were described for increasing the square footage leased by HOPE Atlanta, which seeks to eradicate homelessness in central Georgia, and which recently absorbed Action Ministries, an agency focused on hunger and homelessness, already a tenant of the Grace property.

In addition, Grace Church, now a small predominantly white congregation, is entering into a joint ministry with Cascade United Methodist Church, a predominantly African American congregation of 7,000 members. When plans are complete, Grace will become a satellite campus of Cascade and a center of community ministry in Midtown Atlanta. This is in keeping with Global Ministries’ original vision when the agency relocated to Atlanta and the Grace location in 2016, according to Fernandes.

The general secretary’s full report can be found here.

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By Elliott Wright

March 9, 2021 | ATLANTA

Join me in a visit to the Methodist community in Cambodia, a church that developed from a vague possibility 30 years ago into a vibrant fellowship overflowing with children, led by Cambodian pastors and laity.

We can’t fly into Phnom Penh, the capital city, for an on-the-ground visit, but we can experience Methodism in Cambodia online. A marvelous website, organized by the United Methodist Cambodia Initiative, explores worship, education, community ministries, evangelistic outreach and the history of the Methodist Church in Cambodia.

Think of this article as an internet tour of how Cambodian Methodists experience their faith and engage in God’s mission in their country and culture. Many of the statements and quotes here link to the website and to extensive reports on mission witness and service.

Thomas Kemper, general secretary of Global Ministries from 2010 to 2020, cites four primary reasons for the particular success of the Cambodia Mission Initiative:

• Collaboration among the five sponsoring mission agencies, which reduced competition and concentrated financial and personnel resources.
• The diversity of agencies also led to a rich diversity and blend of Wesleyan theology and polity.
• Swift development of and dependence on Cambodian church leadership both lay and pastoral.
• True Wesleyan linking of evangelism/church growth and social/community ministries
• Early introduction of basic Methodist worship and doctrinal sources in Khmer, the national language. ( See the Khmer vision of membership vows )

Community Health & Agricultural Development (CHAD), a program with the goal of improving the health, well-being, food, and economic security of individuals, families, and rural community.

Women’s Empowerment, with a focus on church and society, providing incentives for economic empowerment through education and social involvement.

Street Children Ministry, one of the oldest and most widely known components of the Methodist work in Cambodia, the goal is to share the love of God by funding children’s education, teaching vocational skills, and providing health care to the sick and undernourished. Linked newsletters, going back four years, tell the stories of ministry activities and individual children. The ministry serves some 400 children a year in multiple locations. Website

Susanna Wesley House is a residential facility in Phnom Penh for Methodist-related students who have completed their secondary education and have entered colleges. This three-story dormitory provides a safe place for 22 young women and men.

Scholarships Education has been an important objective in the development of the MCC. It is seen as a key to producing church leaders and counteracting the cycle of poverty that keeps communities from gaining self-sufficiency. Application for scholarship support is made easy online, designed for local Cambodian applicants. The program currently assists 101 students from kindergarten through college, with 64 being in universities; 80% of recipients are women.

The United Methodist Cambodia Mission Initiative as a whole and many key programs individually can be supported through the Advance, the designated mission giving channel.

For donations to the overall ministry, use Advance #00230A; descriptions and Advance numbers for specific programs appear throughout their website, notably under the “Give” tab on the homepage.                      

“It’s been really challenging since early 2020. Recently (February 2021), another massive cluster infection was identified, resulting in closing all schools and churches for at least two weeks and suspending of all public gatherings. Many stores are closed and the local economy is directly affected by the changing situation. I can still see an increasing fear and anxiety among people.

Global Ministries has, since the onset, worked with MCC congregations, families, and people living in the neighborhood of MCC churches to provide a series of relief projects. We have seen poor people become poorer, and in particular, many women and children are in dire need at this time. Together we have offered health education seminars and provided a package of necessity items such as rice, masks, sanitizers and soaps. In addition, we have reached out to local people in Buddhist communities. It was a great opportunity for us to share the love of God with people in real ways, giving them relevant help.“

– Rev. Andrew Lee

Global Ministries currently sponsors four missionaries and one Global Mission Fellow to work with the Methodist Church in Cambodia.

The five and their responsibilities are:

Keep up with their work through blogs and newsletters, easily accessed here.

Take a mission trip via the internet – explore, thank God and pray for the Methodist people of Cambodia as they go about God’s mission in their land and communities.

Elliott Wright is an information consultant and writer with Global Ministries.

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