First Ordained Latino Methodist and Missionary to Mexico In 1873, the first train on the new line out of Vera Cruz carried a Methodist bishop and Alejo Hernandez, the first Latino to be ordained in Methodism, who was the bishop’s choice to establish a mission in Mexico City. But the throbbing power in the locomotive’s...
Leader among Central Conference Bishops Born in Tagudin, Ilocos Sur Province, in 1898, Valencia grew up as a Roman Catholic, although he became acquainted with Protestants through the United Brethren mission near his home. He came from a family involved in the Filipino struggle for independence. His uncle was a guerrilla in the conflict with...
First African Bishop in The Methodist Church Born in Mozambique in 1914, Zunguze became a Christian through his wife, Thelma, who was a graduate of the Hartzell’s Girl School in Chicuque. He was educated at a Methodist Episcopal Church school in Inhambane province, at the Cambine mission, and Old Umtali in then-Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe),...
Deaconess Leading Rural Ministry Ann McKenzie’s entry into ministry matches that of many women who chose to become deaconesses in The Methodist Church. When she heard about women doing church work, nothing was said about ordination – women could not be full members of annual conferences at that time, and no one mentioned mission work;...
Holistic Rural Ministry The Bennettsville-Cheraw Area Cooperative Ministry (BCACM), established in 1966, is a specialized ministry with rural residents of South Carolina’s Marlboro and Chesterfield counties. With four pastors and a combined church membership below 2500, the cooperative includes one station church (Trinity UMC), two parishes (Cheraw and Bennettsville), and one circuit (Bennettsville Circuit). All...
Traveling Evangelist and Leader of Methodist Church of the Caribbean and the Americas Alphonse was born in the Province of Bocas del Toro, Panama, in 1896. His father was a fisherman from Martinique and his French undoubtedly influenced young Efraim to appreciate languages. He completed his elementary and secondary education at Calabar College in Jamaica,...
Missionary and Father of American Methodism Francis Asbury, the father of American Methodism, was a missionary before he became a bishop in 1784 and was a missionary afterwards — until the day he died in in late March, 1816. Asbury was a missionary in the style of those sent by Jesus in the Gospel of...
Korean Evangelist, Teacher, and Bishop J. S. Ryang was born in Korea in 1879. He was educated and converted in the MECS mission schools in Shanghai. In 1906 he went to the United States and pastored a Korean church in San Francisco for three years. In 1909, he entered Vanderbilt, received his degree, and went...
First Brazilian Methodist Bishop Cesar Dacorso (Filho, which means ‘junior’) was born to a French-Italian father and a Portuguese-Brazilian mother in Brazil’s Rio Grande do Sul state in 1892. He attended the Methodist mission Sunday school in Santa Maria and was educated at Instituto Granbery and Dom Pedro College. Dacorso entered the South Brazil Conference...
Some of the first known Methodist missionary work was a result of visits from British Columbia to Wrangell in 1877 by the Reverend Thomas Crosby, pastor of the Fort Simpson Methodist Church. In 1886 John and Ethelda Carr were sent by the General Agent for Education in Alaska, Dr. Sheldon Jackson, to start a school...
