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Orwig, William (1810-1889)

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 have been purified of all sin can enter heaven.

In 1856, Orwig published an article in which he asked about the fate of those “who die without entire sanctification,” and replied that “they will inevitably be lost.” A partially pure person has as little hope of heaven “as one who is altogether impure.” It was an extreme position that cost him his re-election as bishop.

But before and after that defeat, Orwig significantly modernized the Evangelical Association, which had been founded by Jacob Albright in the early years of the nineteenth century, and which now constitutes part of The United Methodist Church.

A Pennsylvania German by birth, Orwig experienced conversion in 1826 and was received into the ministry of the Evangelical Association in 1828. Five years later, his fellow preachers selected him as their district superintendent. After four years in that position, he assumed responsibility for his denomination’s publishing activities, including the editorship of its principal journal.

A letter to the editor challenged him to do something about missions. He responded by organizing an annual conference missionary society in 1838, which prompted the next General Conference to found the Missionary Society of the Evangelical Association.

Just as missions was a “modern” cause in the 1830’s, so higher education appeared radical to many Evangelicals. But Orwig, as one of his contemporaries noted, “advocated it strongly, in the days when the cause was anything but popular among our people, and when many saw little good and much evil in higher institutions of learning.”

Orwig championed the cause of education so effectively that he became the first principal of Union Seminary, an Evangelical Association boarding school in Central Pennsylvania, which eventually became Albright College, one of United Methodism’s current educational institutions. Union, which opened in 1856, enrolled women as well as men, largely became Orwig insisted upon it. The students, who numbered 264 by 1858, could study English, ancient and modern languages, math, science, psychology, ethics, theology, music, bookkeeping, and be trained as public school teachers. Orwig not only administered the school but also taught German and ethics.

The 1859 Evangelical General Conference elected him to the episcopacy. Four years later, recognizing that Solomon Neitz–his opponent in the controversy over whether partially pure people would go to heaven–was going to defeat him, Orwig asked his supporters to switch their votes to a third candidate, J. J. Esher, who won the bishopric.

Orwig returned to editorial activities, served a four-year term as treasurer of his denomination’s missionary society, and held pastorates, along with the post of district superintendent, before his death at age 79. In addition, he wrote the first history of the Evangelical Association, a catechism, a book on pastoral theology, and, of course, a study of sanctification–the doctrine that deals with the extent to which sin is overcome in the lives of Christians.

One of Orwig’s contemporaries said of him: “His intellect does not seem to be of that brilliant order which startles and amazes the world.” Which may account for his failure to recognize that impurities persist in Christians, just as distinctive bulges on the nose may be passed down from generation to generation in a family. Nevertheless Orwig’s mind was sufficiently sharp and subtle to sustain his advocacy of such forward-looking causes as publishing, missions, and higher education for women.

Taken from “An Evangelical Bishop Who Restricted Heaven To The Sanctified 1810-1889,” by John G. McEllhenney, General Commission on Archives & History, http://gcah.org/history/biographies/william-orwig.

Lester, Emma (1883-1978)

Missionary Teacher In China

In September 1904, an Augusta, GA school teacher did not return to the classroom; instead, she left to begin training as a missionary to China.

It was not the safest of career moves.  These were the days just after the Boxer Rebellion of 1898-1901–times in which more than 200 Christian missionaries were killed.  But Emma Service Lester, a member of St. James Methodist Church, felt strongly led to become a missionary and serve on foreign fields.  She watched the church papers for new missions; and in 1903 she saw an appeal to the Woman’s Missionary Board for unmarried missionaries.  “If the church means to do anything for the people in China we must have workers,” read the communique.  Emma was listening, felt her heart thrilled, and readily volunteered for service.

After graduating from Peabody College and Scarritt Bible and Training School, she went to China and served in Moka Garden Mission as a Bible teacher, and later as an English teacher in McTyeire School in Shanghai, serving a total of twenty five years.

In China, Lester taught some of the most influential people in the Far East.  One was a young girl who later invited Emma to her Dec. 1, 1927 wedding to her country’s leader, Gen. Chiang Kai-Shek.  (A biography about Madam Chiang in later years relates how she spoke to diplomats in flawless English, but with “a Georgia accent.”)

Lester would be away from Augusta for decades, but came back regularly to report on her work and to encourage others toward Christian service.  While on furlough in 1930 she spoke to a group of women at St. James, saying “It thrills me to come back to America and mingle with the Christian women, because I know I am looking at the most privileged women in the world.”

In 1932, Miss Lester returned to the States, where she married late in life to college professor Lewis Chase. They lived in New York and Washington.

Emma Service Lester Chase passed away in 1978 at age 95.

Sources:  Bill Kirby, The Augusta Chronicle, Aug. 15, 2014; St. James Methodist Church Chronicle of Christian Stewardship, 1856-1967

Harris, Thomas and Jennie

Missionaries To The Iban People Of Sarawak

Thomas and Jennie Harris applied for missionary service in 1947, answering a call by Bishop Creighton Lacy to serve the people of China. They were the first African-American couple to be assigned to China by the Methodist Board of Missions. Born and educated in Florida, they were members of the American Methodist Episcopal Church (AME). Thomas A. Harris majored in agricultural studies and worked as a county agricultural agent. Jennie Lee Harris was a teacher and social worker and worked with migrant field workers. After additional studies in anthropology and cultural studies at the Kennedy School in Hartford, Connecticut, they were sent as missionaries to a developing middle school in Nanping (also known as Yanping) China. But, because of political tensions in China, they were soon among scores of missionaries who were evacuated from the country in the early 1950s.

In 1951, Thomas and Jennie were reassigned to Sarawak, Borneo, as agricultural missionaries and teachers. A number of Methodist missionaries who had worked in China, as well as some Chinese missionaries, transferred to what was then the Malaya-Singapore Methodist mission to serve among a large ex-pat Chinese community in Sarawak. This community began forming as early as 1900 with refugees from the Boxer Rebellion. But the Harris couple did not end up in this established Chinese community. Thomas’s agricultural skills were needed up river, in the heart of the longhouses of the Dayak Sea people, known as the Ibans, the largest aboriginal group in Sarawak. Relying on rice as their one-crop staple, they were struggling to survive. In a 1952 newsletter, Thomas Harris wrote: “One-crop farming is always a risky business, even under the best of conditions. It is decidedly out of place in Dayakland. One purpose of our mission is to lead the people into a more diversified farming as we point out the Christ Way.” The only way to reach the Iban was by river boat, up the Banyao River to Nanga Mujong, which became the Harris’s home.

The Harris family followed Methodist missionary Burr Baughman, who moved to Sarawak after World War II to work among the Iban. Both Thomas and Jennie were strong spiritual leaders who were accepted and trusted by the people. Many among the longhouse leadership – the Iban lived communally with as many as 20 to 25 family in one very long house – welcomed Thomas and Jennie into their homes. Eventually, the missionary couple built an agricultural center and demonstration farm where they introduced diversified crops and animal husbandry. Mrs. Harris opened a school for Iban children and they hosted a clinic when visiting missionary doctors made it up river. Thomas worked with the doctors and Iban farmers to determine how diet and agriculture could improve the well-being and health of the community.

As the years progressed, the Harrises adopted two children and moved down river to the larger community of Kapit. Their expertise was needed for other missions in Sarawak. They oversaw eight primary schools in the Kapit District and expanded a school for the blind in Kapit. Richard and Caring Schwenk took over the mission in Nanga Mujong in the late 1960s. Over their 23 years of missionary service, Tom and Jennie watched as children from their house schools went on to receive secondary and college education, some becoming pastors of the church and teachers of Methodist and government schools.

Thomas Harris reported to the missionary board when Iban Methodists were accepted as a provisional annual conference in the Singapore and Malaya mission church in 1952. They celebrated in 1968 when the autonomous Methodist Church of Malaysia and Singapore was born. Today, the Iban Annual Conference is one of four in the Methodist Church of Malaysia. When the Harris family retired from missionary service and returned to Florida in 1970, Thomas became an ordained elder of the Florida Annual Conference. Jennie died in 1999 and Thomas, a year later in 2000.

Sources: Mission papers of Thomas and Jennie Harris, General Board of Global Ministries; World Outlook, April 1954, “Rural Work in Sarawak,” pp. 19-26; and World Outlook, November 1957, “Mission Station in Sarawak,” pp. 24-34.

Danmallam, Saratu

Gracious Host And Teacher To Missionary Community

There she was – a petite woman decked out in a colorful African wrapper, T-shirt, head scarf and smile.

As we stepped out of the mission airplane onto the dry, brittle grass covering the dusty village airfield, she stepped up and welcomed us “home”. Saratu DanMallam lived across the sandy road from the hanger that housed the Cessna 206 six-seater airplane named Bishara (“Good News”) that my husband flew in Nigeria between 1979 and 1988. Our job during those years was to help the Nigerian church stay connected as the Benue River divided the church area in two. During the 6 months of rainy season, the river flooded for miles in every direction which made it very difficult for people and supplies to get from one side of the church area to the other.

Back in the 1920’s, Bambur was the site of an Evangelical United Brethren mission station which hosted a mission hospital and a Bible School. By the time we arrived, the hospital was in the process of being nationalized and the missionary medical staff was leaving as new Nigerian staff was coming in. For a newly married and newly arrived foreigner, Bambur was a whole new world, but one with hardly a missionary in sight to provide help, orientation and perspective. Because of the closeness of Mama Saratu’s house to the airfield, we saw her quite often. Even though English is the national language for Nigeria, the Bambur locals generally preferred Hausa, the trade language for the northern part of the country. We worked hard to pick up Hausa, but language learning wasn’t one of our best gifts. Our formal Hausa lessons give us enough vocabulary to get us started, but Saratu was the one who worked patiently with me to help me use it fluently. When talking with her, Saratu would use the simplest Hausa words, but if she needed to use one she thought we didn’t know she would ask, “Do you know this word?” If I said that I didn’t, she would find a way to explain it to me with a simple explanation, hand motions or an appeal to her children for the word in English. Although I didn’t realize it at the time, her children became part of my language lessons as she spoke about Kefas, Joel, Lois, Gladys or A’i. Oftentimes they were around to chat, help or laugh with us.

After a few years, my husband and I finally started a family. Not being much of a baby person myself and not having babysat much, raising a child didn’t come naturally. I saw how easily the women around me seemed to care for their children – they were all quite relaxed and easy-going since they had learned how to carry and care for their younger brothers and sisters from a quite early age. So, once again Saratu came to my rescue. She babysat for me when I got tired of sitting at home or frustrated with my misbehaving children. Saratu would just love on them and laugh with them and even discipline them as needed as she taught me by example about how to be a good mom. Very quickly she changed from Mama Saratu to Kaka Saratu as our little girls counted her as their very own grandmother. She taught them important things like how to use the outdoor bathroom and how to wash hands using very little water (water was often scarce during the dry season). Oh, she was patient! Her youngest daughter, little A’I, played with our girls and helped keep an eye on them.

Kaka Saratu became the sole provider for peanut butter for the local missionary community, United Methodist and otherwise. Nigeria was known for its prolific production of peanuts and Saratu knew how to make the very best peanut butter. She would buy the peanuts raw, soak them in salt water, and let them dry in the hot sun. Then she would gather sticks together and make a hot fire in her outdoor kitchen in order to heat a large oval headpan full of sand. Once the sand was nice and hot, she poured in the peanuts and stirred and stirred until both she and the peanuts were roasted to perfection. After removing the paper skins by hand, the peanuts were ground on a well-worn grinding stone and out came the best peanut butter in the world. Saratu sold it by the gallon in old powdered milk tins, which often found their way onto the plane to be flown to the big city for distribution among the expatriate community. In her own loving, caring way, she taught me each step of the peanut butter making process including how to grind the peanuts on her grinding stone. It was hard and arduous work, yet she counted it all as a labor of love.

If there was one thing Saratu made better than peanut butter, it was the local tuwo da miya (pounded yam and sauce) dish which we ate whenever possible. She had a way of cooking the toughest of meats that made them tenderer and tastier than anything that came out of a missionary’s pressure cooker. There was nothing resembling a restaurant in the Bambur area, so Saratu’s little place was the haven where we could go for food I didn’t have to fix – a luxury of the highest order.

Fast forward to 2019 and Saratu’s youngest daughter A’i is now the Coordinator for the Maternal Neonatal Child Health Care Unit, a sponsored project of the Global Ministries Global Health Program for the Nigerian UMC. Wow, what a long way she has come – incredibly impressive, yet not surprising considering the stock she came from.

Kaka Saratu accepted us as her own and loved us as she loved her own children. She suffered loss with grace, lived out her faith by everyday example, ministered to me in love, and was the most patient of teachers. In my thinking, she was the perfect missionary to this very imperfect one.

Blessings dear Saratu!

This story submitted by Gail Quigg.

Valencia, Jose Labarrette (1898-1994)

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 the U.S. after the Spanish-American War and was executed by the Americans. Nevertheless, Valencia determined to learn English and even joined the U.S. Navy. This military service brought him to the U.S., where he completed his high school education and entered Cornell College in Iowa, a Methodist school. Here as throughout his life, Valencia worked his way through school. While at Cornell, he became a Methodist through the influence of Enjie Tsukasaki, a former Shintoist from Japan. After a stint at Garrett Biblical Institute, he decided to enter the ministry. He entered Drew Theological Seminary and received a B.D. in 1929.

He returned to the Philippines and entered the pastoral ministry in the northwest part of the country, near his birthplace. He married and as a pastor received very low pay in his early churches. His biography relates journeys like those of a veritable Saint Paul: He walked, rode horses and carabao (a type of domesticated water buffalo), traversed flooding rivers on rickety ferries, and endured typhoons as he went from village to village. Although his theology was conservative, he believed the church should alleviate the plight of the poor. He became a district superintendent in 1938 and, during the Japanese occupation of the Philippines during the Second World War, reported many encounters with the Japanese, who were often searching for guerrillas.

After being elected bishop in 1948, he attended the meeting of the Council of Bishops held in 1950 and was dismayed to learn that the central conference bishops were not allowed to vote. On learning the reason for his unhappiness, Bishop Francis McConnell asked the council to reconsider this practice. The council immediately approved the right of all active bishops to vote, a change formally approved at the 1956 General Conference. Filipino bishops were elected for four-year terms, and Valencia was re-elected for four additional terms and served until 1968. During his tenure, a new arrangement was made with the United Church of Christ in the Philippines regarding comity. A number of educational, health, and social service institutions were established, and the Filipino church grew steadily under his administration. He died in 1994.

Taken from Linda Gesling, Mirror and Beacon: The History of Mission of The Methodist Church, 1939-1968. (New York: General Board of Global Ministries, The United Methodist Church, 2005), p. 183

Zunguze, Escrivao Anglaze (1914-1980)

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), where he studied theology. During the early part of the twentieth century, African Methodists in Mozambique agitated from control. In the 1920s and 1930s, the Portuguese colonial government placed restrictions on Methodists because of their sympathy with forced laborers. These dynamics undoubtedly influenced Zunguze’s thinking as a young man and prepared him well for the struggles ahead. He entered the ministry in 1946 and was ordained elder in 1950. He served as pastor of the Cambine Methodist Church, one of the largest churches in Mozambique. He was a delegate to the Africa Central Conference three times from 1948 to 1956 and was elected bishop in 1964, the first African to become a bishop in The Methodist Church. Although the Portuguese government had prohibited him from leaving Mozambique in 1964, he was named to the Commission on Ecumenical Affairs at the 1968 General Conference. He died October 26, 1980.

Taken from Linda Gesling, Mirror and Beacon: The History of Mission of The Methodist Church, 1939-1968. (New York: General Board of Global Ministries, The United Methodist Church, 2005), p. 262.

Thomas, James S.

Educator And Leader For Abolishing The Central Jurisdiction

Thomas was born in Orangeburg, South Carolina, and was ordained and became an elder in the South Carolina Conference of the Central Jurisdiction in 1944. After serving as a pastor, he taught at Gammon Theological Seminary. He became associate director of the Department of Education Institutions of the Board of Education of The Methodist Church in 1953. During these years, he wrote thoughtful articles about the Central Jurisdiction, suggesting that its existence contradicted American principles of equality.

Thomas was chair of the Committee of Five, which was created by the 1960 General Conference to develop a plan of desegregation for the denomination. The committee was the group that initiated the call to the Central Jurisdiction’s leaders to discuss desegregation. The meeting that took place in Cincinnati in March 1962 was decisive in the approach the church finally took toward desegregation. By rejecting the previous plan that divided the Central Jurisdiction among the other jurisdictions, the conference effectively called for the abolition of the Central Jurisdiction.

Thomas was elected bishop in 1962 and was assigned to the Des Moines Area of the Iowa Conference in the North Central Jurisdiction. He subsequently served as bishop of the East Ohio Conference, from which he retired in 1988. He published Methodism’s Racial Dilemma in 1992.

Taken from Linda Gesling, Mirror and Beacon: The History of Mission of The Methodist Church, 1939-1968. (New York: General Board of Global Ministries, The United Methodist Church, 2005), p. 292.

Sommer, Ernst, J.W. & Ernt C. 

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 Turkey. On his return to Germany, he became dean of a missionary training college, then professor of Old Testament and Ethics at Frankfurt Methodist Theological Seminary. He became president in 1936 and was elected bishop by the Germany Central Conference in 1946. During the war, he refused to release rooms for the use of the National Socialist Party, saying that he needed them for the student body, which consisted of a single Bulgarian student, Zdrako Beslov. While serving as president of the seminary, he continued to pastor a circuit.

He was responsible for coordination relief work in Germany after the Second World War. He wrote graphically about the damage incurred by the church during the war, both the destruction of buildings and the physical and spiritual demoralization of humans. His attitude remained positive and hopeful. He emphasized the possibilities for evangelism and the church’s witness in numbers and influence. He also led the church to maintain relations with those under Communist domination in the East. The church built houses near Lubeck for refugees from East German. He also worked with Martin Niemöller in the Cooperative Fellowship of Christian Churches in Germany, a Protestant organization. Sommer died in 1952.

His son, C. Ernst Sommer, was born in 1911 in Turkey. He received his education in Germany and served in the Germany army in France and North Africa during the Second World War. He became professor of Christian education and church history at the Frankfurt Methodist Theological Seminary in 1950 and wrote extensively on the Bible and church history as well as serving as a member of the Methodist General Conferences of 1964, 1966, and 1968. He was elected bishop by the Germany Central Conference in 1968, becoming the first bishop elected by a central conference of the new United Methodist Church. He died November 7, 1981.

Taken from Linda Gesling, Mirror and Beacon: The History of Mission of The Methodist Church, 1939-1968. (New York: General Board of Global Ministries, The United Methodist Church, 2005), p. 96.

McKenzie, Ann

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; the focus was on being assistants to others in ministry. But she heard the call and answered it, attending Scarritt and becoming a commissioned deaconess in 1948.

Her first position as a rural worker was with an elderly country preacher who served small churches. She was the only such worker in her conference, so she had not colleagues with whom to discuss her experiences. After the preacher retired, she moved to a new assignment – seven churches on the other side of the conference. Her pay was low, as it was for most deaconesses, but she often was invited to a Sunday dinner along with the preacher. Her days were varied. One day a parishioner invited her to bring her laundry along; together the two tackled the chores of washday. As they were hanging out the clothes, they discussed some of the issues before them, particularly the need for Sunday school rooms. They decided to approach one of the women in the church who had some land to see if they could use it for the Lord’s Acre program.

Under this program, farmers could devote part of their crop (an acre or more) to God, sell the harvest, and give the proceeds to the church. Informally they talked with various people in the church about what they could donate to help the project. As McKenzie tells it, women talked to their husbands, who then thought it was all their own idea and helped do the work. They grew cotton, selling enough to be able to make the money they needed for the Sunday school rooms. Word got around about this project, and other churches tried the idea, achieving success as well.

She spent six years at that assignment, with the help of a US-2 (a volunteer spending two years in mission in the U.S.) the last two years. Then she moved on to Wayne County, Tennessee. One of her new churches had never had a vacation Bible school. So she nominated three men to run it. After she explained to them what they were supposed to do, they went around and visited all the families, so that one hundred children participated in this first-ever program in the community.

McKenzie’s work with rural churches continued throughout her years of ministry. She claimed she got to know the power company very well because she paid many a bill for poor parishioners. But not all were poor. She took youth on trips to Methodist mission projects where they slept on the floor, cooking their own meals. Her stories and work typify that of many rural workers—day-in, day-out identification with people and their needs, willingness to take on a variety of responsibilities and tasks, and creativity in facing all sorts of situations and problems.

Taken from Linda Gesling, Mirror and Beacon: The History of Mission of The Methodist Church, 1939-1968. (New York: General Board of Global Ministries, The United Methodist Church, 2005), p. 60-61.

Varnado, Earnestine

Church And Community Worker Serving As Parish Nurse

My journey into Church and Community ministry began (without my knowledge), when I was a young teen. I enjoyed going to the local school on Sunday after church to help register community residents for oral Polio vaccinations. I thought it was an honor to be asked by my teachers to assist with this community activity. I always thought I was third, well really fourth (my elderly great aunt lived with us) in command at home until my three orphan cousins came to live with us. Then I was the oldest sibling.

I graduated from high school and received a scholarship to Alcorn A&M College (now Alcorn State University) and majored in chemistry, with the idea that I could work and then get a master’s degree in Sociology later. After attending Alcorn, I developed an interest in nursing and our local hospital was just being built. I was accepted into the first nursing class in 1971. I worked at the local hospital for six years and went to work at the McComb Children’s Clinic for the next 18 years. My duties included staff nurse, making rounds with the pediatrician, and instructing mothers about infant care at home.

I served as a Home Health Nurse and thought this is what I’d always wanted. Then I saw an advertisement in our local paper for a 12-hour per week opening for a part-time Parish Nurse at a local church mission. When we heard “parish,” we thought of Louisiana. I applied and was hired. The part-time status lasted four months, but I was already doing 40+ hours. The pastor/director called and asked if I would consider a full-time position, as funds had become available through a Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) grant. I prayed, accepted—and it has been a joy.

That project (Project Forward), now with St. Andrew’s Mission, was accepted as a United Methodist Project with General Board of Global Ministries and I was commissioned as a Church and Community Worker in 1998. Later, in 2006, I was consecrated and commissioned as a deaconess.

I serve at St. Andrew’s Mission as Parish Nurse and helped with the opening of the first Free-Health Clinic in our area. We have eight volunteer physicians, a nurse, and a receptionist, presently. I coordinate community health fairs (at schools, churches, malls), blood drives, screenings at our activity center, and as instructor for First-id/CPR, parenting, anger management, and Bible studies.

St. Andrew’s Mission has three thrift stores and a partnership with a fourth. It supports a food ministry that serves hot, balanced meals twice weekly and provides food subsidies to the elderly and handicapped. An activity center serves people 45 years and older. Other ministries include a free health clinic, Mission House for homeless men, and the most recent addition—the Job Incubator, with space and support for small business owners.

Throughout all these years, my mission statement, chosen in 1998, is still relevant to where I’m called: “Seek the peace and prosperity of the city to where you’re called. Pray for it. If it prospers, you too shall prosper.” (Jeremiah 29:7)

Taken from New World Outlook magazine, Fall 2017 issue. Used by permission.