Missionaries to India and Malaysia Leila (Lee) come out of Middleville Methodist Church in Michigan, a small-town rural congregation that was on the cutting edge of theology and was proud of its contributions to Methodist ministry and mission. She first heard about the short-term program from the Reverend Charles Swann, her college sociology professor, whose...
Michigan Advocate for Human Rights Louise Donaldson is remembered for her involvement in human rights issues. In Dearborn, Michigan, she founded a local Council on Human Rights, and was instrumental in the desegregation of every restaurant in her community. She worked with the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom to register black voters in...
Passionate spokesperson for mission Millicent Rench, fondly known to those who loved her as “Billie,” was a passionate spokesperson for mission in her local church and throughout United Methodism in eastern Michigan, an area known during her life as the Detroit Conference of the United Methodist Church. Rench was also passionate about her church family....
Pioneering WFMS & WCTU Missionary to the Philippines 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 recognized links to holiness piety. Moots took over duties at...
One of the first Chinese medical doctors Shi Meiyu, also known as Mary Stone, a name she adopted while studying in the United States, was born into a Christian family in Jiujiang (Kiukiang), Jiangxi province in 1873. Her father was a Methodist pastor and mother was the principal of a Methodist school for girls. Defying...
One of the first Chinese medical doctors Kang Cheng, also known as Ida Kahn, was born into a poor family in Jiujiang (Kiukiang), Jiangxi province. She was adopted by Gertrude Howe, a student of the University of Michigan, and left school to work as a missionary in Jiujiang before completing her degree. During Kang’s childhood,...
Missionary advocate for Chinese women Howe attended the University of Michigan and in 1872 went to Kiukiang, China, as the pioneer missionary of the Woman’s Foreign Missionary Society (WFMS) of the Methodist Episcopal Church. For a few years she was joined by her sister, Dr. Delia Howe. In 1873, she founded what became the Rulison...
Medical missionary to China A native of Ontario, Canada, Howard graduated in 1676 from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, her medical education having been paid for by the Woman’s Foreign Missionary Society (WFMS) of the Methodist Episcopal Church. In 1877, she went to Peking (Beijing) under WFMS auspices and took charge of the Peking...
Pioneering Methodist Episcopal missionary to China Collins was one of eight children in a pious Methodist farm family in Michigan. While still a college student, he determined to become a missionary to China, but there was no Methodist mission work there, so after graduation he taught for two years at Albion College. In 1847, he...
Pioneering Missionary to Mongolia Helen Sheperd was a Global Ministries missionary nurse from 1992 to 2015, specializing in hospice ministries, first in Korea, and from 2002 through her retirement in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, where she also founded the Mongolia Mission Initiative that developed into a network of congregations and social programs. A native of Ann Arbor,...
