The UMVIM Journey, by Rev. Dr. Jack Martin

The following post is from Rev. Dr. Jack Martin, who is a catalyst for the UMVIM movement, and now retired clergy in the Virginia Conference.

My first experience with the United Methodist Volunteers in Mission movement took place in 1978 when my wife, Marianne, and I volunteered to become part of a team to Haiti, led by Arlington United Methodist Church members Doug and Doris True for the Northern Virginia Board of Missions.

The Trues made their first trip to Haiti in the mid-1970s at the invitation of the Rev. Harry Haines, head of the United Methodist Committee on Relief. As a result of that invitation and its successful results, the Northern Virginia Board of Missions continued sending teams of non-professional volunteers annually, creating a seedbed for broader involvement in the UMVIM movement in Virginia yet to come.

Marianne and I were excited at the prospect of visiting an exotic foreign land and offering our labor to help build a school in a dusty little village near Port-au-Prince known as La Tremblay. As a child I had heard my grandfather describe a visit he and my grandmother had made as tourists to Haiti, arriving on an ocean liner in the main harbor of the capital city and being fascinated as young Haitians would dive for coins being thrown by the passengers into the water. My grandfather had never seen a place quite like Haiti, and after our visit many years later, we would have to say the same thing.

We were not fully prepared for the impact of this experience, although we had been warned that we would most likely go through culture shock twice – the first time upon entering the country and seeing firsthand the extreme poverty under which the majority of people lived, and the second upon returning to the United States, and stepping back into a world of affluence, with its sobering contrast.

It is a well-known fact that Haiti, despite its proud independence won from the French in 1804, has suffered the worst oppression and deprivation of any nation in the Western Hemisphere. Lying just 700 miles from our nation’s shores, it is hard to fathom how such a situation can exist in the modern world, and yet it goes on with little change in the day-to-day lives of the Haitian people. Democracy was finally put in place through free elections following American military intervention in 1994-95. But there is little to show for the change in government in viewing the lives of the common people, with the difficulties they must suffer from widespread unemployment, hunger, disease, inadequate housing and sanitation, and ongoing political unrest that too often turns to violence.

Haitian Vitality in the Midst of Adversity

Back in 1978, the Haitians were still under the Duvalier regime and times were bleak. Despite outward problems of poverty, everywhere to be seen, we were struck by the vitality of life in the streets. Everything seemed to be bustling.

Haitians were, and still are, a people on the move. The streets were full of people day and night. Sidewalks downtown were lined with vendors selling their wares from woven straw baskets, and streets were jammed with vehicles of every description. The smell of diesel fuel was heavy in the air along with a potpourri of other odors that emanated from open sewage ditches, charcoal cooking fires, and piles of garbage randomly scattered. The city was a noisy place, hot and dusty, and vastly interesting. Among the cars, trucks and vendors were animal drawn wagons, women walking with huge baskets on their heads and men pulling two-wheeled carts with pickup-sized loads of charcoal, sugarcane and rice. Men and women called out to one another in friendly greeting, school children could be seen in their uniforms moving in groups down the street to class, radios were blaring, horns were honking constantly as vehicles sought to make their way through the congestion – all of this against the scenic background of the Caribbean Sea on one side and endless mountains or dry plains on the other.

This land looked strange to me; beautiful, yet wounded. The trees were missing. Most had been cut down for the making of charcoal for cooking. Erosion was evident on the scarred hillsides. Great ravines of gravel could be seen where there was nothing to hold back the floods of heavy seasonal rainfall, sending mud and pollution into the sea. The waters of the harbor looked dead, though small fishing boats could be seen farther out, with fishermen casting their nets.

The homes of most Haitians were made of concrete block, or mud and thatch, and they were small, often just one room. Furnishings were almost non-existent, giving the clear impression that the poor lived mostly outside their homes with cooking and washing taking place under the hazy blue sky.

The days and nights were warm, but not unpleasantly so due to the soft sea breezes constantly blowing. At the higher elevations of this mountainous island the atmosphere was ideal. This must be at least one of the reasons the small wealthy class lives in the hills above Port-au-Prince; the air quality, temperature and view are all wonderful there.

One cannot help wondering why a better quality of life cannot be known by more of the population. When Christopher Columbus discovered Haiti, it was still in its pristine subtropical glory. He was so impressed by the beauty of this place that he said it matched his idea of the biblical Garden of Eden. Sorrowfully, Paradise is no more in Haiti, but there is still something wonderful about this nation of people that has spoken to so many, going to the heart of the UMVIM experience. It has to do with the love of God that is seen in the lives of Haitian believers who, despite their humble circumstances, display a wealth of spirituality.

Our first UMVIM experience in Haiti was disturbing from the standpoint of the stark inequities between their lives and our own. That two-week period of partnership in mission was a kind of awakening to a new way of seeing. As we were flying toward home at the close of our visit, I wondered if I would ever return to Haiti and questioned if I would want to go on another work team. I was exhausted, spiritually troubled, and unresolved in my mind as to what anyone could do to make a difference when the odds were so heavily against any real change. I kept asking myself, “What can I do?” I felt so inadequate with my training. What could a preacher do? Maybe if I were a physician or a teacher or an agronomist, maybe then I could make a difference. The questions in my mind were haunting, and I began the search for some answers.

UMVIM Grows Rapidly From Its Infancy

Little did I know at that time what a marvelous thing was stirring in God’s kingdom. Volunteers in Mission was in its fledgling stages. There were few visionaries and a lot of concern about what it might mean if untrained lay people and naïve, albeit well-intentioned clergy started going out into the mission field. They might be more trouble than they were worth. They could undo the good that dedicated missionaries had been trying to accomplish for decades. They were potentially dangerous to the mission of the church. The voices of warning were being sounded, but there was a Spirit moving and a fire burning that could not be stopped. The best that could be hoped would be that the stirring toward mission could somehow be harnessed.

The establishment of the UMVIM office in 1976 within the structure of the Southeastern Jurisdiction of the United Methodist Church is well-documented in the Rev. Thomas L. Curtis’ book, From the Grassroots: A History of United Methodist Volunteers in Mission. Surely this was one of the wisest decisions made in the mission movement in the last 50 years. God was raising up a grassroots movement to meet the needs of hurting people not only in Haiti, but in countless other places in the world, including the United States.

Somehow, by God’s grace and patience, I was given the opportunity to become chairperson of the Virginia Conference UMVIM Steering Committee in 1982, which provided a channel through which to respond to that initial experience in Haiti by inviting others to join in a process of discerning how best our conference could be part of this exciting new movement. It was not long before Tom Curtis was calling from the Southeastern Jurisdiction UMVIM office in Atlanta, inviting me to meet him at National Airport to discuss how Virginians might “get on board” with UMVIM.

Interestingly, Tom and his wife, Margaret, had served early in their careers with the Salvation Army, only later to be commissioned by the General Board of Global Ministries as missionaries to Rhodesia where they served for seventeen years in various capacities. Eventually, Tom became a district superintendent and administrative assistant to Bishop Abel Muzorewa, who later became prime minister of the nation.

Through the inspired and able leadership of the Curtises in establishing the UMVIM office in Atlanta, each of the Conferences in the Southeastern Jurisdiction of the United Methodist Church was asked to contribute to its support. The leadership of the Virginia Conference Board of Global Ministries consulted with the GBGM in New York and were told the office of coordination “was unnecessary.” However, our leadership thought otherwise and with the encouragement of the Rev. Hasbrouck Hughes, Conference Mission Secretary, an effort was made to find the funds. The Rev. Raymond Wrenn, who had led a significant two-churches-a-year church planting campaign for the Northern Virginia Board of Missions, was asked if he had residual funds that could help. He immediately stepped up and made the funds available, according to now Bishop Hughes, who said he was not sure whether those were spare missional funds or a personal gift. From that time, the Virginia Conference never wavered in its support of perhaps the most significant United Methodist mission movement in decades.

One thing led to another and before long we were part of the “movement,” setting up missions not only to Haiti, but to Jamaica, Mexico, Honduras, Costa Rica, Panama, Belize, and Puerto Rico. We were finding many people across our conference who wanted to get involved, and before long, we were hearing wonderful stories of how lives were being changed for the good, and how churches were coming alive in mission. Many of those stories were shared at annual mission rallies in Virginia and the much larger UMVIM, SEJ rallies at Lake Junaluska, North Carolina, where hundreds came from across the jurisdiction to celebrate God’s work in many distant places.

Important Lessons Learned As Virginia UMVIM Teams Take On Bigger Projects

As the UMVIM movement expanded, Virginia mission leaders discovered that we could manage bigger projects by sending multiple teams, one after another. This approach made it possible to build a large church at San Lucas Atoyatenco, Mexico, a home for the aging in Mexico City, and a large church construction project near Les Cayes, Haiti, a two-year effort that would ultimately involve ten construction teams and two medical teams that provided services in nearby makeshift clinics.

It was during our work in both Haiti and Mexico that we came to understand the importance of working in coequal partnership with our hosts. As Mexican Bishop Alejandro Ruiz told our team at St. Lucas Atoyatenco, “It should not be a strong partner/weak partner relationship. Rather, each partner has something unique to give.” Virginia teams could provide labor and some of the material costs, but equally important, our hosts were essential for providing hospitality, expertise, cultural understanding, skilled labor, and most importantly, their vision of what was to be done.

We soon discovered that we did not have to worry about whether we would find Jesus Christ in the places we visited; as a matter of course, we found the presence of Christ had been well at work before our arrival, preparing the way in the hearts and minds of his people. Over and over again we have experienced the wonder of how God had “set things up” for miracles of love to occur. That love reaches across cultural and language barriers again and again to show that we are “one in the Spirit, one in the Lord,” when we meet in Jesus’ name, whether in some “holler” in eastern Kentucky or a South African homeland. Before long, the UMVIM movement adopted its official motto, “Christian Love in Action.”

UMVIMers (or “missioners,” as we often call ourselves) have learned that our work is but a vehicle to put us in touch with God’s people to bring about better understanding, to sow hope, and to build bridges of peace. While the work of our hands is important, in some ways it is secondary to a greater purpose of bringing people together to witness what God can do.

Some of these ideas became even more firmly ingrained after I was elected president of the UMVIM board in 1988, following 12 years of distinguished leadership by Dr. Michael Watson, a South Carolina medical doctor and true visionary of this movement who subsequently became president of the UMVIM, SEJ Medical Fellowship. I served as president for the next eight years (1988-1996).

People would sometimes ask why we did not just send money. We often asked our overseas hosts if a gift of money would be more useful than our presence. There were those among us who regularly raised the same basic stewardship question: “Wouldn’t it be better not to spend all that money on travel and just send the money?” Those were legitimate questions with which we struggled again and again, but the consistent answer our overseas hosts gave was, “We want you to come. We need for you to come so you can tell our story when you go home.”

It must be pointed out that there are ways people can just “send the money.” The Advance Special program of the United Methodist Church allows hundreds of possibilities to do just that, but the UMVIM program is unique in that it is a people-to-people program. What happens in the midst of the people is most important. Not only do teams work together with their host church, but equally important, they worship, pray, live, laugh and cry together. These relational encounters are mountaintop experiences wherein lives are changed. I often caution potential team members that they risk having their lives changed forever if they go on a mission team.

Missioners have also come to learn the importance of good preparation for mission. The warnings about cultural insensitivity and the “ugly American syndrome” are cautionary words we take seriously because we have seen the damage caused by lack of cultural awareness and inadequate understanding of how overseas church structures function. We have seen the toxic damage caused by creating false hopes or dependencies, and we have witnessed the way human dignity is diminished by often assuming our way is the best way. Frequently it is not, and it is here that we can learn to be more humble and open to new ways which might be surprisingly better in a particular setting.

One thing I learned well from my experience with the late Tom Curtis is to begin overseas work at the top of the church’s hierarchy, thus, to insure we are addressing the priority needs of a people and that we have the blessings of the church’s authorities in what we are doing. All too often, well-intentioned persons have set up arrangements with friends in overseas churches, without consulting church leaders. The results of this approach can lead to embarrassment and the possible withdrawal of future opportunities to serve. Jealousies can develop between competing local advocates of particular projects: “Why did you get help, when we didn’t?” The same principle applies when teams want to leave gifts behind for the people with whom they have served. It is good to give gifts, but the way they are given is everything. As a general rule, we seem to do better when the gifts are left in the hands of the church for distribution. That way everyone has fair access, and we don’t cause problems.

The Wonders of the Church Delivery System

More and more over the years I have come to realize what a wonderful delivery system the church provides. It allows us to reach people right where they are, and the host church looks after us while we are there working. The host churches in virtually all the places we have worked have taken seriously their responsibility to care for our teams, to expose them to the best that is in their world, as well as to some of the challenges they face. They have done it graciously, often denying themselves creature comforts to see to our comfort. The love we have known from those who have so little is truly humbling.

Over the years it has been exciting to break new ground through UMVIM in places we never thought possible, including India, Estonia, Russia, South Africa, Liberia, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Cuba, the Philippines, Cambodia, Brazil, Israel (working with Palestinian Christians) and the nations of Central America.

It’s All About Relationships

Alongside international opportunities, there are many avenues of mission volunteer service domestically, including disaster response and outreach to communities living in poverty and/or suffering the effects of economic and social injustice. An example of this was putting together a disaster response team from Williamsburg UMC following Category 5 Hurricane Hugo’s devastation of the South Carolina coastland in September 1989, causing 67 casualties and $11 billion in damage. Marianne and I had seen a national television story about the storm, which focused on the United Methodist pastor in Awendaw, South Carolina, the Rev. Annette Edwards, who had lost both her church and the parsonage in which she and her husband were living. She first appeared in the story sitting alongside the highway, head in her hands, wondering what she could do. Her parsonage was in ruins along with the homes of many parishioners.

When the plea went out for volunteers, it felt like the thing to do was to start packing our bags. Upon arrival, we found things were even worse than anticipated. A Disaster Recovery Center had been set up and volunteers were being sent to muck out homes and pile up debris. This was my first encounter with the Rev. Nick Elliott, who had been named Disaster Coordinator of the South Carolina Conference. Years later Nick and I would become close colleagues, when he became the Director of UMVIM, SEJ. Nick was helpful in guiding us in our approach to the disaster.

Our team worked hard during the day and had lovely evenings when members of the church and community came together with us to share stories of their experiences of the hurricane. I had learned from various national disaster training events the importance of people sharing their stories as a means of coming to terms with the traumas they had known. These evenings provided great fascination as people told such experiences as hanging onto trees as the wind and water swirled around them throughout the night and how grateful they were for having simply survived. They also shared how the loss of homes and valuables left them feeling quite vulnerable about their future.

One loss made known to us was an important and irreplaceable WWII medal belonging to the husband of the pastor. It was swept away when waters rushed inland for over five miles, engulfing the parsonage. Several days into our work, one of the young people in our group found the medal in the sand near the foundation of the house. When we returned the medal, joy filled the room, even as tears came into the eyes of the veteran, who thought he would never see it again.

This UMVIM experience forged such a bond of friendship between the team and the victims of the storm that the folk from Williamsburg wanted them to come for a visit. Plans were made and over a dozen people traveled to Colonial Williamsburg for some rest and recuperation from the trauma they had been through. Again, they shared their stories, this time with the entire congregation. Colonial Williamsburg gave them passes to the historic area and friendships were deepened. Our guests were grateful for “Christian love in action” and our church members felt spiritually enriched that they could lend a helping hand during difficult circumstances.

A poignant example of a “helping hand” took place in 2000 during a project in the desert of the Coachella Valley of Southern California working with a small Christian congregation on the Torres Martinez Desert Cahuilla reservation to build the first Protestant church in the region, after meeting for twelve years under a brush arbor. One day, the 16-year-old daughter of the Native American pastor, a beautiful, vocally talented girl named Hannah Ward, came to me and asked, “Can (sic) I go on a mission?” “Sure,” I replied, “if your parents agree.” She then asked, “Where are you going next?” I told her, “Mozambique, Africa.” Her eyes widened as she exclaimed, “Africa! I could go to Africa!” and she went running for her parents.

It was not long before her parents gave their consent with the caveat that the tribal elders be consulted. The elders approved and decided to make Hannah an official princess of the tribe. Furthermore, they determined that she should carry a gift in case she met a tribal chief. She never met a chief, but in 2001 she did meet Bishop Joao Somane Muchado, which surely must have been tantamount to a chief, who joyfully received the gift of maracas the tribe had sent and enthusiastically said, “I know what to do with these” – and immediately led our team and the villagers in a lively dance around the courtyard of the rural church.

A wonderful sidebar to this story is that in preparation for the trip, Hannah’s parents and the tribe had raised about half the cost of the trip, but quite a bit was still needed. One wonders whether it was coincidence or providence that during this time, Lucy Gehress, a woman from Aldersgate UMC in Alexandria, called. Lucy had been a team member with us in Tallinn, Estonia in the 1990s, as we worked on the construction of the Baltic Mission Center. She shared that her husband had died recently and was wondering if there was something she could do in mission to honor his memory. I told her about Hannah, and she instantly replied, “That’s it – the perfect way to honor my husband’s memory. Thank you!” When Hannah arrived in Virginia to join the team, Lucy was there to meet her in a wonderful embrace. It was a dream coming true for Hannah and a living memorial to a loved one.

Another remarkable disaster experience came in response to Category 5 Hurricane Katrina, which had devastated the Gulf Coast in August 2005 and had caused 1,833 casualties and over $125 billion in damage. This event occurred at the beginning of what is called “boot camp” for new district superintendents of the Southeastern Jurisdiction at the Lake Junaluska Assembly Center in Western North Carolina. We were barely into our training when word came of the terrible hurricane that had torn apart much of the Gulf Coast, including Louisiana and Mississippi. It was hard for the new DSs from that area to concentrate on their training, as news kept coming of what was happening at home. We saw them on their phones constantly with worried looks on their faces. As our week of training was closing, those new superintendents stood before the larger group and asked us to go home and see what we could do in our own conferences to help them in response to the disaster, keeping in mind it would be weeks, if not months before enough of a recovery had taken place for regular UMVIM teams to engage.

After pondering ways my assigned area, the Petersburg District, could be involved, I decided to include this appeal as part of every charge conference that fall. It was my hope that each church or charge could send at least one volunteer to represent them on a district mission team. That would provide about 50 volunteers if each church or charge participated. When the deadline for application came, it was a wonderful surprise to find that 144 persons had signed up to travel to our assigned work destination in Ocean Springs, Mississippi. I thought, “Now that is a truly biblical number!” referencing the 144,000 of God’s elect in the Book of Revelation. By the time we made the journey, we had 140 team members, who congregated at a United Methodist church in the damaged area that had made its facilities available to work teams from all over the country, housing and feeding them.

It turned out to be a wonderful mission experience for the participants who returned to their churches in Virginia all fired up to do more mission. Truly, it opened the floodgates to mission on the Petersburg District with teams ultimately traveling to both domestic and international destinations. We felt God’s hand was upon the entire enterprise, giving new energy to the Petersburg District, while doing a lot of good in the places where our people served.

These are just three examples of domestic UMVIM work. Virginia Conference teams have done literally hundreds of domestic missions serving disaster victims, reaching out to Native American tribes, assisting churches – most notably through the NOMADS ministry (Nomads On a Mission Active in Divine Service - volunteers in motor homes and campers who serve year-round throughout the country), working with the disadvantaged through ministries such as Petersburg’s Pathways, and in gleaning and food packaging projects through such church-related organizations as the Society of St. Andrew and Stop Hunger Now. The last three of these mission efforts were begun with the leadership of Virginia Conference pastors (Pathways: the Rev. Dwala Ferrell and the Rev. Mike Watts; Society of St, Andrew: the Rev. Ken Horne and the Rev. Ray Buchanan; and Stop Hunger Now: the Rev. Ray Buchanan.

Two other Virginians of whom we can be proud in relation to UMVIM are Dr. Betty Whitehurst and her late husband, the Rev. Walter Whitehurst, former GBGM missionaries to Cuba and Chile, respectively. The Whitehursts were beloved in Virginia for Walt’s pastoral skills and Betty’s teaching ones. After the UMVIM Board of Directors approved them by unanimous consent, the Whitehursts graciously accepted the leadership of the UMVIM, SEJ office in Atlanta, as the culmination of long careers in ministry, serving from 1995 to 1999.

At the Heart of UMVIM, It’s Always God’s Love

At this point in this reflection. I want to share two experiences that bespeak the wonder of what God is doing through UMVIM. The first relates to an invitation the Bishop Peter Storey of South Africa extended to the Virginia Conference to come to his country in November 1991 to build a church in one of the homelands where so many Blacks had been displaced from ancestral lands. I led the team that traveled to Johannesburg. From there we took the four-hour drive to the village of Ganalaagte, located in the homeland of Bophuthatswana. It was a long dusty ride into the heart of the homeland, once we left the paved road at the border,

We were well-received by the women of the village who revealed a certain shyness. How they must have chuckled to themselves that it took some of our team members an entire day to figure out how to pitch a large tent to find relief from the desert wind and to protect our tools and supplies. They must have wondered how these strangers were ever going to build a church. Their initial shyness was soon overcome, and our days were filled with laughing, singing and even dancing.

Marianne and I were housed in a corrugated metal shed with newspapers lining the walls against the cold night air which sometimes came in strong gusts. Never have I seen a darker night than in that homeland. There were no streetlights, no paved roads, and very little, if any, light emanating from the tiny homes after sundown. But you were aware of movement around you at night. People were out on the pathways around the village; you just couldn’t see them. You could hear them, though, their feet lightly padding along the trails. It was quiet until the wind would come up, and it would seem like we were just getting to sleep when a soft voice outside our hut would say something like, “Good morning!” It was still pitch dark outside, but here were our hosts with buckets of warm water which they had heated on corncob fires so we could bathe. They woke us up at this unseemly hour so we could hurry up and get to work. We had a church to build!

It is easy to understand their desire to see us on the job when you realize that there were only three actual church buildings on a circuit of 45 preaching places, which the pastor and his assistant served. An architect from Johannesburg had developed a plan for building churches in these remote areas using telephone poles cut and bolted together in an “A-frame” that could be built easily in a relatively short amount of time.

We were amazed how quickly the work went with construction from slab to completion in just seven days! That involved laying thousands of bricks and putting the metal roof in place. It seemed that at each stage of completion a shrill African shout would go up and the whole village would break into celebration with dancing and singing. We would lay down our tools and get into the act. When the excitement settled down, we would get back to work until the next outburst.

We learned that our hostess was president of the local Methodist women’s group. She did not speak much English, but her face communicated great warmth. She got it across to us that her husband was sick and in much pain from a machete wound on his leg. She wondered if we could do anything to help. After work we visited her home, which was a little larger than most in the village, but still quite small by American standards. Her husband was in the front yard and appeared to be quite inebriated from trying to kill his pain with alcohol. We had no doctor or nurse in our group, but that did not keep Marianne from engaging in her version of the healing arts. She cleansed the rather nasty wound which looked infected and gave him something to kill the pain. He had been complaining of not being able to sleep for at least three days. Marianne decided to do something about that, too. Later on, she said, “I hope he wakes up in the morning. I gave him a pretty good dose.”

When we got to the work site the next day, it wasn’t long before our hostess appeared with a big smile on her face. “My husband slept last night. He is feeling much better. He wants you to move into our house tonight.” We found out that the shed in which we had been sleeping was really the home of one of their daughters which had been vacated for our comfort. But now we were being invited into better quarters as a sign of appreciation and friendship. We might have just as well been royalty because that is how we were treated from that moment in their home.

An interesting feature of our time in the homeland was the need to make trips about every other day to a town outside the homeland for supplies. This trip took us through the wild brushy countryside where it was not unusual to see an ostrich or a herd of zebras in an open field. When we arrived in the mostly white populated town, we headed for the hardware store and then to the small grocery store for things needed at the work site and in the outdoor kitchen, which was run by the ladies of the village, who cooked our meals in huge black pots over corncob fires. I was struck by a sign on the door of the hardware store that read, “This land is our land,” which could be taken as a political statement reflecting the sad policy of apartheid which had divided the races. There was a great deal of interest in what we were doing out there on the homeland, particularly by the proprietor of the store, a big barrel-chested man in lederhosen, suspenders, and cocked hat. He was deeply curious about who we were and why we were there.

In a world where black and white rarely if ever came together as equals, it seemed most amazing, no doubt, that we could be eating out of the black kettles and sleeping in their beds. The scene was somewhat the same at the grocery store where Marianne would be invited to sit on a chair and sip a Pepsi, while being asked endless questions about what she was doing. The ladies from the homeland who went along with her had a field day shopping in the store, often picking up things that were non-essential, yet items they liked, such as candy bars and cookies.

It was evident that there was considerable skepticism about our presence, but one day curiosity got the better of the hardware man. We were near the end of our time at the project when we saw billows of dust rising from the road coming into Ganalaagte. It was a car being driven by this man. On arrival he jumped out and greeted everyone warmly, then began to inspect our work. He was full of suggestions of how we could improve on what we were doing and soon had a trowel in hand showing us how to glaze the windows. He stayed a good while and seemed to have a wonderful time.

Weeks later, after we had returned to our homes, we received a letter from Aaron Hedrick, now deceased, who had been our team foreman. Aaron was so proud of the church he had supervised in construction and was particularly pleased to have presented a large wooden cross he had made for the church on the day of its dedication to God.

Aaron was forwarding calendars from the hardware store that our South African friend had sent to each team member. In his accompanying letter Aaron said, “You remember the man from the hardware store? We know how he felt about ‘things,’ but for one brief, shining moment he was part of an UMVIM work team in an African homeland doing the work of the Lord!”

And we now wonder about the impact of those days, not only in the homeland, but in the little white town beyond the border.

On our final day at the work site, we gathered inside the new church, packed with excited people, for the service of dedication with Bishop Storey presiding. At the close of the spiritually moving service, Bishop Storey asked the Americans to linger inside near the chancel, while the villagers exited the building. He said to the African congregants as they went out, “You will know what to do.” When we finally exited the door, we saw the entire congregation formed into a huge circle, waiting to greet us one by one with hugs, tears, and looks too deep for words. It was a tremendously emotional experience, so much so that I could not speak. A lump came to my throat and stayed there for the longest time as we shared the love of God.

It was late in the day when the last of our group finished moving down the line of greeters. Moments later, we got into the combis and drove off into the majestic South African sunset. One of our team members, Brian Casey, commented, “This looks like a Hollywood ending. Let the credits roll.” If any credits were rolling that day, surely they were all in testimony to the incredible way the Holy Spirit can move to empower human beings in the work of the Kingdom.

On the following Sunday we gathered at the Central Methodist Mission in Johannesburg, the church where Bishop Storey had served courageously for seventeen years, leading the church in a prophetic witness in the heart of the city. The church had successfully integrated, albeit at considerable cost in the loss of many white families. But those who remained worked together with all the constituents of that racially and culturally mixed city to create a congregation faithful in its witness to love and justice.

By an ironic chance of timing, we found ourselves in worship on the final Sunday of Bishop Storey’s leadership at Central Methodist Mission. He was giving up his two-pronged task serving as pastor of this church, while also serving as bishop to the larger church. Now he would be devoting all his time to the role of bishop. He would be succeeded by a gifted young Black pastor named Mvume Dandala.

Bishop Storey gathered the many children of the church around him at a special time in the service when the so-called “candle of peace and justice” was to be lit. This was a special white candle wrapped in barbed wire symbolizing “the light that shines in the darkness” that the darkness shall not overcome. Each week in the life of the church this candle burned as special concerns of justice were voiced and prayers offered. On this particular day, he spoke to the children of the sacrifices that their parents and grandparents had made to bring them to this day. It was a tremendously moving moment to fathom what that congregation had gone through to keep faith with their God.

That evening another service was held in the chapel during which I was given the opportunity to preach. Afterward, Bishop Storey stood and said to us, “What you have done, we should have done.” And he went on to tell of their hope of doing similar work in days to come with South Africans in the lead. Then Mr. Dandala rose to speak of how Blacks in South Africa had always thought of hard work as a form of servitude, but now they saw something special in the labor they had witnessed in our group, something he called “the sanctity of labor.” In essence, he said they could see how hard work could be viewed in a new way, and that when people work together in this way, great things can be done to improve the conditions of life.

In 1995, the annual UMVIM, SEJ rally was held at Lake Junaluska, North Carolina with over three hundred missioners in attendance. One of the keynote speakers was Bishop Mvume Dandala, pastor of Central Methodist Mission in Johannesburg, and now a bishop. I had no idea what he would say to us, but you can imagine how my heart leaped when he began talking about a VIM work team from Virginia that had built a church in a South African homeland. After he described what had been done, speaking again of the sanctity of labor, he said, “I have an announcement. We now have in South Africa ‘SAMVIM’ – South Africa Methodist Volunteers in Mission, and we are doing what you do!”

Things had come full circle on that day, and we rejoiced once again at how God was using this movement to empower godly people.

A second experience that I will describe briefly took place in 1993 in Ivanovo, Russia, where we had gone to do renovation work at a children’s orphanage/tuberculosis sanitorium. The day of our arrival was an unforgettable experience. We had walked through deep pine and birch woods until we came into a clearing with old wooden buildings serving as a campus for children, many of them orphans undergoing treatment for the sad effects, including birth defects, of the polluted environment in which many of them lived. It was a misty day with gray skies. It seemed a gray world in many ways except for the beauty of the woods. As we passed between the buildings, we noticed the faces of children in the windows watching us. We waved and they waved back. After being greeted by the officials of this rustic facility, we were invited to meet some of the children. We were led into one of the buildings where the children were neatly lined up in tight rows, wide-eyed and quiet as church mice.

When our group had finally squeezed into the small room, a beautiful girl of six or seven, clothed in a festive folk dress, stepped forward with a large loaf of bread and salt, and offered this food as the traditional Russian greeting of hospitality. As she moved among us, offering this food to us, one by one, I felt in spite of our cultural and religious differences that this was communion of a kind. It was deeply moving to look upon these recovering children and see the beauty in each of their faces.

After each of us had eaten, the children and their teachers entertained us with songs, dances, and skits. Several of the boys presented gifts they had made. One such gift was a detailed sailing ship carved from the bark of the trees of the forest. This was the beginning of one of the most wonderful experiences of my life. People I had been brought up to fear were now taking a group of Americans into their hearts.

Another way we grew close with our hosts was through an arrangement by which a leading language professor at Ivanovo University facilitated interpretation. Instead of bringing one or two interpreters along for the job, she brought her entire class to give them the experience of meeting “the Americans” and practicing their English language skills. In all, there were about ten students who were with us constantly. The natural reserve we felt at first melted away within hours, and before long we were one happy family. We worked together, ate together, visited local sights together and became quite involved with each other’s lives (On a subsequent team, one Russian interpreter and a team member fell in love and eventually married.).

Evenings were filled with conversation as the young people asked about our country and answered our many questions about theirs. They loved to entertain us with singing, playing instruments and puppetry. When we had devotions, they politely listened. Some were Christians, though several said the thousand-year-old Russian Orthodox Church did not appeal to them particularly. They said it was not making much effort to address the needs and ideas of the young people their age, and as a result, most of the young did not go often to church. But there was a lot of interest in matters of faith, if only from a philosophical point of view. Let it be remembered that, in spite of a long history of the Orthodox faith in Russia, there is another history which denied God altogether over the past 70 years – communism.

Young people were searching for where the truth could be found. There was a lot of interest in what we believed. One young woman asked me, “What is a Methodist?” This gave us an opening to share about our church and let them know that Methodism, while a small presence there, was established in their country well over 100 years ago. These were seekers and inquirers with honest questions, people living in a tumultuous world where the future was far from clear as ideologies struggled for preeminence.

Our group was exposed to many facets of Russian society during our two weeks in Ivanovo. We saw the textile mills, the chief industry of the city, that had been closed due to the poor economy. We saw the many colleges and universities, which are the pride of the people, but we also saw professors of math and physics serving as tour guides because there was no work for them to do. We met physicians and teachers struggling to live on the pittance they received for their jobs, and we sensed that life in Russia was hard for everyone. It is no wonder that people seemed hard and abrupt at times. Their world was in turmoil. Despite these realities, our group was exposed to another side of Russian life that was beautiful. Our new friends were fiercely proud of their rich culture – art, music, dance – and they knew the promise of their vast land that will one day emerge from this time of trouble.

One young Russian artist expressed this to us by giving us a picture he had drawn. All around the borders were frightening things. It looked almost nightmarish, but at the center was a beautiful young girl in the nude with her eyes closed, looking like pure innocence.  Pointing to the girl, he said, “This is Russia. She is sleeping now, but one day her eyes will open.” The question in my mind was, “Open to what?” That future is now being written.

On the last evening of our visit before heading home via Moscow, a banquet was held at which many speeches were given, remembering highlights of our time together and giving thanks for one another. Near the end of the evening, one of the Russian leaders rose to speak. She offered her own words of gratitude for our time together, then said the most remarkable thing: “I believe you were sent by Someone I do not yet know.” I thought to myself, “Surely we were meant to be in this place at this time!”

In summary, God has been opening doors for the UMVIM movement on every continent and in many lands where doors had been previously closed. Only God knows where the future will take us, but we know who holds that future. Let it be enough for us to continue heeding God’s beckoning Spirit in the faith that God is working and so must we. Whether we be senders or receivers, the sent or the received, Christ is in our midst with the words of Life. May we find our lives as we put Christian love in action.

I began this story talking about Haiti. During the past couple of decades, Marianne and I have continued to remain active with UMVIM, leading teams mostly to Haiti, where we have made many friends and continue to find opportunities to serve. We have traveled to Haiti dozens of times and each time we find something new, challenging, and wonderful. As recently as four years ago, we began work on a school of music within the Methodist compound near Petionville. Through generous donations of funds and instruments and the hard work of both Haitians and Virginia Conference UMVIM, a beautiful building was constructed and dedicated, just prior to the trouble currently besieging Haiti. Since the assassination of Haiti’s President Moise, it has been impossible to send teams, but we continue to provide monetary and spiritual support. As of this date, we are engaged in the process of establishing a covenant relationship between Virginia Conference churches and the Methodist Church of Haiti (Eglise Methodiste d’Haiti, or EMH) to maintain our friendship and to find ways to strengthen the Methodist Church of Haiti in its ministry to a nation in great need.

Let me close with a Haitian proverb and two prayers which seems fitting. The proverb alludes to the ways our many small efforts multiply, stating simply,

Many small make a great.

The prayers come from a collection of prayers gathered at the Baptist Haiti Mission entitled, “God is No Stranger.” Father, they say that I am poor. Thank you, Father. May I also be poor in spirit, that I may inherit the Kingdom of God.

Lord, how glad we are that we don’t hold you, but that you hold us.

Further Acknowledgements

While in this article I have shared a variety of experiences that Marianne and I have had, I would be remiss not to mention the many clergy colleagues and lay missioners with whom we have been privileged to work.  We cannot name them all because there are many, but the following are outstanding Virginia UMVIM volunteers and supporters with whom we have worked closely:

Clergy:  Rev. Sam NeSmith (past Russia Initiative Chair and leader of many UMVIM teams), Rev. Jim Athearn (past Russia Initiative Chair), Rev. Frank Jennings (Disaster Coordinator), Rev. Nancy Robinson (Honduran mission and Conference mission interpreter), Rev. Denise Honeycutt and Rev. Glenn Rowley (Conference Mission Secretaries), Rev. Steve Rhodes, Rev. Gary Milstead, the late Rev. Roy Creech (Conference UMVIM Coordinators), Rev. C. Milton Rodgers, Rev. David Hindman

Laity:  the late Barbara Reed (President of Conference Board of Global Ministries), Dorothy Ivy (President of Conference Board of Global Ministries), Kip Robinson (Conference UMVIM Coordinator), Darlene Runaldue, Mark Bradley, Chris & Bill Lowe, Hannah & Allan Nixon, Erin McKenney, the late Julia Brooks and Sarah Bostick, Dr. Rick Taliaferro and Dr. William Olson, Frank & Dede Fishback, George Williams. the late Dr. Jim Wall, Irvin Baldwin, Nancy Forrest (Medical Coordinator for UMVIM, SEJ), David Roane, Pat Koontz, Dr. Jack Underhill, the late Lauren Bainbridge and wife, Connie

We are especially grateful for mission leadership from our Conference Office now being given by the Rev. R.J. Jun, Director of Serving Ministries.