Civil Rights Leader and Short-Term Missionary to India Lawson was born in Uniontown, Pennsylvania, in 1928, one of nine children of a U.S. Methodist pastor and a Jamaican mother. He took much of his attitude toward others from his mother, who did not believe in violence. Lawson grew up in Massillon, Ohio, where he became...
Generous Mission Benefactor Everell Stanton (E.S.) Collins was an American lumberman and Methodist laymen who at this death in 1940 left the income from vast forest tracks in Pennsylvania and California to the Methodist Board of Foreign Missions; today, the Collins Forest income provides health and retirement benefits for qualified missionaries who serve through the...
Mission Bishop and Founder of Relief Agency 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 response and development...
First Methodist missionary bishop of India and Malaysia Born in St. Clairsville, Ohio, the son of immigrants from Ireland, Thoburn graduated from Allegheny College in 1857, entered the ministry of the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1858, and was sent to India by the Missionary Society of his church in 1859. He married Sarah Minerva (Rockwell)...
