South African Revival Leader And Translator For William Taylor Charles Pamla was born of Christian parents at Butterworth in the Transkei in 1834. His father, Mdingazwe, was the son of Zulu, a prominent chief of the Amabambo tribe in Natal. Charles Pamla was converted to Christianity early in life and was baptized by Rev. W. […]
Long-Time African-American Missionary Educator In Liberia Anna E. Hall was born near Bainbridge, Georgia on March 1st, 1870. She lived a religiously oriented childhood with her mother, a seamstress, and expressed the desire to serve as a missionary while a student at Clark University (now Clark Atlanta University) in Atlanta, Georgia, where she completed the […]
Cornelia “Mother” Moots (seated) with Genevieve “Sister Ruth” Cutler Cornelia Chillson Moots or “Mother Moots” was one of the four pioneer WFMS missionaries to the Philippines. A native of Bay City, Michigan, Moots was an evangelist for the Women’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU), an organization with […]
First African-American Woman Mission Executive; Mentor To Many Women Theressa Hoover. Image originally from the Board of Missions of The Methodist Church. Theressa Hoover was the first and she made sure she was not the last. The first African-American woman to become a top staff executive […]
Mission Bishop And Founder Of Relief Agency Bishop Herbert Welch Herbert Welch (1862-1969), the longest serving Methodist bishop, played multiple roles of lasting significance in the mission and social history of the church. His accomplishments included: Originator and first executive (1940 to 1948) of what is today the United Methodist Committee on Relief, the disaster […]
Founder Of Methodism In The Congo Bishop John McKendree Springer, MEC, Africa Mission Photograph Album – Portraits #04 Page 088 Although Methodist missionaries ventured into the Belgian Congo before John Springer, notably Bishop William Taylor with the Methodist Episcopal Church in the late 1800s, Springer’s enterprising evangelistic explorations in the early 20th century are credited with […]
Longtime UMVIM Volunteer Beginning in 1993, Ed Ririe of Bartlesville served on 27 United Methodist volunteer mission teams. He loved helping people as an expression of his faith. He was serving on a team in southern Oklahoma, helping flood survivors, when he died suddenly Jan. 24, 2017. Born in Tulsa, Ed grew up attending a […]
Brave Servant To Immigrant Children In Tampa Rosa Valdez was a brave Hispanic woman moved by the plight of immigrant children arriving in her hometown of Tampa, Florida, in the late 19th century when segregation was the law of the land. The children were banned from public schools, so Ms. Valdez used her own funds and, with […]
First Female Medical Missionary To China Coombs graduated from the Woman’s Medical College of Pennsylvania and was sent to China by the Woman’s Foreign Missionary Society (WFMS) of the Methodist Episcopal Church. Possibly the first female medical missionary of any denomination in that country, she arrived in Peking (Beijing) in September 1873; two years later […]
Defender Of The Methodist Mission During The Boxer Rebellion Gamewell received world acclaim for organizing the defense of the Methodist Mission and the British Legation in Peking (Beijing) during the Boxer Rebellion of 1900. Born in South Carolina, he earned three degrees from Dickinson College, Carlisle, Pennsylvania, but was also trained in engineering at Rensselaer […]