Advocate for Missions and Education in the Evangelical Association Distinctive bulges on the bridge of Bishop Orwig’s nose appear in Orwig family members to this day, testifying to the persistence of genetic traits. The bishop himself stood out in a debate over another persistent human trait: sin. He defended the position that only those who...
Leader in Settlement Work When the Methodist Episcopal Church, South (MECS), began its foray into settlement work at the turn of the twentieth century, it asked Sara Estelle Haskin to take up the post in Dallas. With no equipment and no real pattern to follow, she plunged into the work and began a very successful...
First Executive of Methodist Episcopal Missionary Society Nathan Bangs, 1778 -1862, was the primary organizer and first administrator of the Methodist Episcopal Missionary Society, founded in 1819. He was concurrently for almost a decade the head of the denomination’s Book Concern. Thus, Bangs had a major impact on the origins of two of the United...
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 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...
Leader of Southern Methodist Missions John B. McFerrin, aside from bishops the most significant figure of the MECS in the nineteenth century, was born in 1807 near Nashville. Licensed to preach at age eighteen, he received appointment to be missionary to the Cherokees from 1826-1828. After pastoring several churches, he was named presiding elder in...
Translators of Methodism into Croatian When Peter and Heidi Zunic followed God’s call to preach the gospel in Croatia, provide people with counseling and so play a part in building the kingdom of God, they could not possibly have envisaged that they would also be working on the production of Christian literature. But they very...
Mission Leader Within Segregated Methodism Born in North Carolina, Lillian Warrick Pope grew up in Philadelphia, where she was a social worker in the Zoar Methodist Church. A graduate of the Bible Institute of Pennsylvania and Temple University School of Theology in Philadelphia, she was ordained a local deacon in 1939 by Bishop Ernest G....
Mission and Hymn Translator Elida García de Falcón was orphaned at the age of ten in Guerrero, Tamaulipas, Mexico. She made her home with her only sister, Rosaura, who had married one of the first Mexican Methodist ministers, Pedro Grado. With them she itinerated and attended mission schools, including Holding Institute at Laredo, Texas. She...
Brazilian Hymn Writer and Translator Simei Monteiro, a retired United Methodist-sponsored Person in Mission in her home country of Brazil, searches to sing her faith in a uniquely Brazilian way. “I felt very strongly that we Brazilians should be expressing our faith in our own musical traditions. I committed myself to compose music which would...
