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UMC congregations and ministries in Honduras strengthen as leaders are given the opportunity to increase their reading comprehension levels.

By Osías Segura-Guzmán
July 22, 2021 | HONDURAS

Latin America and the Caribbean is a region impacted by systemic inequality.

The rich get richer, while poverty impacts the majority of the population. The unfair distribution of wealth linked to weak public policies fuels this inequality.

As a missionary and a foreigner, it is amazing to observe how the poor and the wealthy live as two segregated, parallel universes that only sometimes intermingle. Meanwhile, the small middle class anxiously lives in its own fragile bubble between those two worlds, fearing them both.

In this context, there is a relationship between education and poverty. Four out of 10 Latin Americans do not finish high school; it is common for students to leave school before they reach the age of 12. For the northern triangle countries of Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras, the rate of students not completing high school is double that of other countries in Central America. These young people are the first victims to be recruited by gangs in marginal neighborhoods. In Honduras specifically, 30% of children do not go to school and nearly 50% of families are single-parent families who do not receive any government support. The educational system in Honduras is also qualitatively poor and inadequate. All of these factors contribute to a low educational level among much of the population. It is a vicious cycle that continues for generations.

This cycle of poverty and inadequate education also affects the growth of The United Methodist Church in Honduras. Most pastors of United Methodist churches grew up with little or limited education. Yet the United Methodist Book of Discipline clearly outlines the necessity for study in order to become a pastor and for continuing education throughout a pastor’s life (¶ 324.4.6.c).

As a part of my responsibilities as a missionary, I am tasked with administrating the theological education of pastors in Honduras. The United Methodist Mission in Honduras started about 25 years ago and is currently in the process of becoming a provisional conference. Since it is a mission, pastors have been appointed to churches while still in the process of becoming educated, licensed and ordained. Most of the pastors finished their high school education as adults, but often have serious academic deficiencies and struggle with reading comprehension and writing. How can we do theological education in this context? And from their perspective, would you enjoy studying if you had difficulty with reading comprehension and writing?

In the past, we have taught pastors through traditional theological education courses, attempting to work through these challenges. When the first four students finished the program, they were asked to write an adaptation of the theological exam as described in the Discipline (¶ 324.4.9). They felt frustrated and incapable of expressing their learning through writing, even when mentored. So, we began asking ourselves, what else could we do? We have 15 more pastors ready to start their theological education, but they have the same challenges. The students deserve a contextualized program, and they also need good and constructive feedback. What can we do when the students lack the basic skills for learning?

I learned about a reading rehabilitation program called Glifing from a missionary colleague. Through a Global Ministries’ grant, we hired a consultant to provide reading evaluation for nine pastors in November 2020. Each pastor was evaluated for reading speed, comprehension and recall, among other areas. Despite all of our pastors having completed high school, the evaluation showed that most read at the level of a primary student (1st-2nd grade) and at very slow speeds. For instance, a 10th grade student should be able to read 164 words per minute (WPM). We discovered that only two pastors were able to read a simple text at a speed of 141 WPM, and the lowest score was 78 WPM. No wonder the pastors were frustrated trying to do a university or graduate level academic program!

Thanks to the brain’s elasticity, the program facilitates the rehabilitation of reading and reading comprehension for students, allowing them to independently work through online exercises multiple times a week to reach an appropriate reading level. To take our students to at least a middle-school level in reading skills and comprehension, they participated in the training program four days a week, 20 minutes per day, for a period of four to six months. First, the consultant worked as a coach, and then the students began accessing an online platform to do the daily exercises on their own. (Of course, to accomplish this, the pastors have to access an internet connection, which is often a challenge in Honduras.)

Pastors who achieve a middle-school reading level will certainly be better teachers, preachers and caregivers. These leaders will be capable of recalling information, developing better writing skills, processing information and making timely decisions as pastors.

For Pastor “A”, being a part of the program has helped him grow personally and professionally: “Glifing is a very good tool that helps me to read, to think, and to memorize better. Now I understand the importance of perseverance to develop with discipline the weekly exercises. That helps me, as a pastor, to interpret the Scriptures and better understand the literary figures in the text.”

We are currently starting the third month of rehabilitation. While we continue to face challenges, such as some pastors struggling to follow directions or complete all the assignments and wrestling with feelings of shame in discovering their weaknesses in reading well, we expect that the impact of reading rehabilitation on the pastors will be a blessing for their ministries. Once the rehabilitation is finished, the pastors will take additional theological classes (hopefully by Fall 2021), which will empower them to continue practicing their new reading skills.

We are fighting against one of the effects of systemic poverty with a desire to equip leaders who will lead their congregations with sound doctrine and theological thinking. We hope the pastors will practice daily reading to continue to strengthen their abilities to learn and to teach, thus blessing the Honduran people and church.

The Rev. Dr. Osías Segura-Guzmán is a United Methodist missionary serving as the regional coordinator of Curriculum and Small Group Leadership Development in Latin America and the Caribbean.

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A little-known but fascinating corner of United Methodist mission work consists of a small corps of retirees scattered throughout the country. They call themselves Nomads.

The name fits because they spend their lives roaming the country in the RV’s in which many of them live full-time.

But as they roam, small groups of them converge at various locations – at United Methodist churches, children’s homes, camps or retreats, or at disaster sites. And where they meet up, good things happen.

Dilapidated doors and windows get replaced, faded furniture refinished. Leaky plumbing and outdated wiring and electrical fixtures get modernized.

Elaine Grabin, CO, painting parking lot stripes

Parking lots get striped, storage areas deep-cleaned, floors replaced, sanctuaries painted — and sometimes, entire new buildings are built from the ground up.

Oh, and jelly and salsa get cooked and bottled for charity sales.

“They’re the best-kept secret in the church – a group of incredible servants who will do just about anything you ask of them,” said Rev. Ted Wood, pastor of Community United Methodist in Casselberry.

Nomads have worked every year at the two Florida churches he has led for the past 17 years.

“I’ve had them build a two-story garage for a church, but I’ve also had them just clean the floors, scrape off the old wax,” he said. “They’re some of the humblest and most Christ-like people you’ll meet.”

The Nomads, with about 850 active members and 180 or so alumni, are actually a division of the United Methodist Church’s Global Ministries, but they’re based nowhere except on the Internet.
Most are retired contractors, craftsmen, or handymen of various kinds and their spouses, but some just provide labor and learn skills on the job.

They come from all 50 states and can be male or female, single or couples, but they must have access to an RV, said Director Carla Kinsey, the only paid individual involved. She coordinates their work from her home in Hot Springs, Ark.

Churches or other Methodist agencies apply for their services.

Nomad members go online to choose projects in locations where they want to work during any of 15 or more three-week project periods each year – and then hit the highway.

The agencies benefitting from the work must provide nearby RV parking facilities, but Wood said a parking lot with access to a water source and power outlets are sufficient for the groups that have worked at his church.

The agencies also provide most of the materials and supplies, but Nomads do the work.

They work nationwide and year-round, but winter is the busiest time of the year, Kinsey said. Many are warmth-seeking snowbirds and like to work in states like Florida, Texas, and Louisiana during the winter.

There are about two dozen three-week projects with a total of more than 100 workers going nationwide right now, plus indefinite-length disaster recovery projects in Texas and Florida.

In Florida, groups are currently working at Community and four other United Methodist churches and two hurricane disaster sites in Big Pine Key and Lakeland. They just finished projects at the Florida United Methodist Children’s Home near Deltona.

Nomads Gary and Donna Verdino, currently working at Community, became full-time RV’ers after selling their Winter Park home in 2016.

They initially planned to retire to a plot of land in rural north Florida to escape the increasing crowding in central Florida, but then heard about the Nomads and changed their plans.

“I called my husband and said we’re not moving to north Florida – we’re joining this Nomads group,” said Donna, formerly a banker and office manager.

Donna said she’s “mostly a helper and a painter,” and Gary, who’s retired from a building maintenance job and his own handyman business, “does the skill stuff.”

Gary Verdino, FL, putting new floor at Community UMC, Casselberry

At Community, their group are replacing windows, restriping the parking lot, redoing plumbing, painting, and installing new flooring in church buildings.

Larry and Kathy Phelps, originally from Durango, Co., came to the Nomads after retiring in 2017 – Larry after 25 years in construction and Kathy from working in youth ministry and at their son’s funeral home.

So far, they’ve managed to pack in 14 Nomad missions, and are now working with a group at Silver Palm United Methodist Church in Homestead.

“I don’t like sitting around,” said Larry. “I wanted something to do when I retired.”

Their home church in Colorado was highly active in mission work, and they heard about the Nomads from friends there.

“We decided immediately that’s what we wanted to do,” he said.

They sold their condo and moved into their RV full-time, though they return to Colorado for summers.

Larry said the most satisfying project he’s worked in so far was building a 600-square-foot building along with five other couples at the United Methodist Conference Riverside Camp and Retreat Center in LaBelle.

Kathy’s favorite is helping make jelly and salsa in Louisiana for sale to benefit a children’s home.

The Nomads work four-day weeks and six-hour days – many of the retirees aren’t up to full-time, physical work – and generally start every day with devotions.

The organization organically from a spontaneous impulse for helping.

It began in 1988 in the Rio Grande Valley among a group of Methodist snowbirds from Illinois, Iowa, and Indiana who spent winters in Texas.

Pastor Ted Wood, Community UMC, Casselberry, FL

According to the Nomads’ web site, https://www.nomadsumc.org/, one of them told the group, “I am bored; there must be some good we can do here.” 

They approached local Methodist churches and offered their services. In their first year, 24 members finished five projects in Texas and Oklahoma.

The all-volunteer organization grew and eventually incorporated under the church’s General Board of Global Ministries.

Kinsey was working in a church camp in New Mexico when Nomads came through in 2004 and got recruited to replace the director who was then retiring.

Their services, said Wood of Community UMC, are particularly valuable to small and mid-sized churches that don’t have a lot of money to pay for contractors, but he believes comparatively few church leaders nationwide know about them.

He learned about them from a pastor friend in Jacksonville, Fl., and said more churches could benefit.

“They come with a lot of skills –painters, plumbers, electricians, you name it,” Wood said. “But the big thing is, they come with a servant’s heart.”

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A reflection on the bicentennial of Methodist mission

By Thomas Kemper
April 3, 2019 | Atlanta, Ga.

How does the current work of the United Methodist General Board of Global Ministries compare to the objectives of our oldest predecessor, the Methodist Episcopal Missionary Society, established in 1819? I have reflected on this question as we celebrate our mission bicentennial and I am fascinated by the continuities I see.

Nathan Bangs, the first executive of the missionary society and a historian of early American Methodism, cites six motivations for starting the organization. Two concerned financial considerations and one is sociological—keeping up with what other denominations were doing. The other three, focusing on mission outreach, are the ones I find most interesting. These are: 1) reaching people on the remote western frontier of the young United States; 2) ministry with Native Americans; and 3) extension of mission “to more distant fields” [abroad].¹ In short, the Missionary Society was intended to enlarge the reach of the gospel to persons and groups not already or well-served by the church, to offer them Christ and accompany them on their faith journeys. This mission outreach is what we still do.

I am a little amazed that a self-conscious motive for the society’s founding was the possibility of including Native Americans in the Methodist family. This came about primarily through the ministry of a lay pastor named John Stewart, of mixed African-American and white heritage. He preached among the Wyandot people in Ohio beginning around 1815 with the support of the then Ohio Annual Conference and the benevolence of Bishop William McKendree, the third U.S. episcopal leader after Thomas Coke and Francis Asbury. Stories of the work of Stewart enlivened enthusiasm for a missionary society back East.

While Methodists may not have an altogether continuous, or admirable, history of relations with indigenous peoples, such ministry is in our DNA and has been pulled to the forefront in recent years by the UMC Act of Repentance Movement. We must never again let it fall by the wayside.

In the early 1830s, the Missionary Society wet its sights on “distant fields” abroad, first Liberia, Brazil, and then Argentina. This has grown remarkably over the decades, so that today we have missionaries in some 60 countries and mission personnel, projects, and partners in a total of more than 125 countries. And we keep adding new locales. Recent mission initiatives have introduced Methodism to 15 places where it did not formerly exist, and since 2009, these initiatives have started more than 1,000 new worshipping communities.

The initial mission society operational plan provided circuit-riding missionary-pastors on the frontier. Bishops serving mission districts called upon the society for funds for such clergy. Immigrants counted in this expansion and our denomination’s contemporary concern for migrants emerges from our mission roots.

The several missionary societies that would emerge in our American Methodist and Evangelical United Brethren history were acutely aware of the influx of immigrants in the mid-to-late 19th century. The M.E. Church Missionary Society organized specific mission outreach to ethnic or nationality groups—such as Norwegians, Germans, Swedes and Italians—who had their own cultures but were on the fringes of life in the New World on arrival.

Ministry with 19th century immigrants by our EUB mission ancestors has personal meaning for me. Immigrants from Germany who settled in the United States joined a predecessor movement that became part of our Evangelical United Brethren (EUB) heritage. Some of these new Wesleyans returned as missionaries to Germany, where they formed the community out of which my family would eventually become United Methodist. So, I have a keen appreciation for the ministry with migrants and those on the edges, giving substance to the realization that migration can be a blessing.

Also, as early as 1850, German Methodists in Bremerhaven, the port city of Bremen, started an Auswanderer Kirche, or “Emigration Church,” to prepare people leaving Germany to link up with Methodists (rather than Lutherans or Catholics) in the new land. They distributed a 24-page pamphlet, “friendly hints (advice) for emigrants,” and they “have done much more than us,” wrote one Lutheran critic at the time.

Christian mission is always at its best when it focuses on those ignored or pushed aside by dominant cultural norms and economic force. We learn this from Jesus and John Wesley, and my own experience as a missionary in Brazil bears it out. I went to Brazil in 1986, where I worked for eight years teaching in a theological seminary. The interaction with students was deeply meaningful and valuable to my growth as a Christian. But the most gripping part of my experience was through an ecumenical ministry with people who were homeless, many living under the freeways of São Paulo.

The street ministry focused on food and worship. Weekly, people living on the streets and our group of volunteers contributed to a common soup pot—vegetables about to be discarded by vendors or bits of fish from shop owners. Everyone contributed to “The Soup” and shared the savory results. Everyone was equal around the common dish. After eating, we sang hymns, praised God, and prayed together. Sometimes we joined marches and protests seeking justice. It was powerful mission.

Two hundred years ago, April 5, 1819, a group of Methodists met at the Forsyth Street Church in New York City to organize a missionary society. They did so, issuing an “address,” very much in the language of its day but with a breadth of vision worth recalling:

[…] Our views are not restricted to our own nation or colour; we hope the aborigines of our country, the Spaniards of South America, the French of Louisiana and Canada, and every other people who are destitute of the invaluable blessings of the Gospel, as far as our means may admit, will be comprehended in the field of the labours of our zealous missionaries.²

Amen.

Thomas G. Kemper is the general secretary of the General Board of Global Ministries.

NOTES
¹ History of the Methodist Episcopal Church, III, pp 80ff, and cited by Wade C. Barclay, Early American Methodism 1769-1844, Vol. 1: Missionary Motivation and Expansion. Board of Mission and Church Extension of The Methodist Church, New York, 1949, p. 206.

² Barclay, op.cit, p. 208.

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