Methodist Educators, Relief Leader, Bishops J. W. Ernst Sommer was born to a German Wesleyan minister father and British mother in Germany. He went to Kingswood, Cambridge University, and the university at Lausanne for his education. He taught in London and married a Briton, Beatrice Dibben. From 1907 to 1912, he was a missionary in...
Ministry of Hope with Hispanic Youth Do you take the things you have for granted? Carmen, a 35-year-old Mexican woman who lives in Hamilton, Ohio, can answer that question with an absolute no! A single mother with three children, she came to the United States with a desire to find a better future for her...
Missionary to Mexico and among Mexican-Americans Onderdonk was born in Mission Valley, Texas, in 1871. He received his higher education at Southwestern University and then joined the West Texas Conference. From the beginning of his ministerial career, he felt a call to Spanish-language ministry. He served congregations along the Rio Grande. In 1897, Board of...
Missionary to Italian Immigrants in Wisconsin Louise Johanna Nienas was born in a sod house in Thompson, North Dakota and spent her early years on a North Dakota “free claim.” The family later moved to Wisconsin, where Louise received a degree in elementary education. Working as a public school teacher in Racine, Wisconsin, she volunteered...
Korean Immigrant Pastor and Martyr in Russia In 2014 the United Methodist Church in Eurasia has celebrated its 125th anniversary since the first Methodist congregation started in Eurasia. It was in the year 1889, when a small Methodist congregation began to meet in Saint-Petersburg, Russia. For over 125 years the Spirit has moved and inspired...
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...
A Model Community Center Driving through Harrisburg, the capital city of Pennsylvania, today, one would hardly guess that in 1907 the Woman’s Home Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church declared the region a “foreign mission field.” They urged the greater church body to recognize and acknowledge the influx of immigrants from eastern Europe and...
MEC missionary to China and Chinese-Americans In 1854, at the age of 27, Otis Gibson, a graduate of Dickinson College, was appointed a missionary to China, along with Dr. Erastus Wentworth, professor of natural sciences at Dickinson and one of the original sponsors of the Methodist Episcopal Church’s China Mission. Gibson and his wife reached...
Founder of Norwegian Methodism and Co-Founder of Norwegian-American Methodism Methodism in Norway owes its introduction to a single founder, Ole Peter Petersen. As a young Norwegian sailor, Petersen had his first contact with the Methodists in Boston in 1843. The next three years brought much serious reflection and a strong feeling of spiritual need. In...
Missionary to Swedish sailors and immigrants to the US Olof Gustaf Hedström was born in the province of Kronberg, Sweden. At age twenty-to, he shipped as a sailor on a vessel bound for South America. It was diverted from its course and in 1825 entered the port of New York where it was sold. On...
