Global Ministries

Gary Dilley
Director of Global Ministries

I'm thankful for the opportunity to serve as Director of Global Ministries over the last six years. With one foot in the US and the other foot in the international world, it has given me a unique perspective on the church, ministry, and life. I'm excited to see:

An increasing number of UB individuals being sent out for service by Global Ministries and other agencies.
Purposeful partnerships being set up by North American UB churches with international entities to advance Kingdom work.
Thoughtful short-term mission teams considering how they can best interact and serve in cross-cultural settings.
Generous financial investment toward missionaries, various need across the world, and strategic projects.

About Global Ministries

The Role of Global Ministries

Global Ministries is an arm of the United States National Conference. We work in partnership with national churches in 16 countries. We send a limited number of missionaries (12 fulltime individuals) into the world from Global Ministries. But we also assist in developing partnerships with many, many other UB missionaries (currently 42 endorsed missionaries) serving with like-minded agencies such as Wycliffe Bible Translators, Operation Mobilization, and Food for the Hungry. And we also work with over 200 North American churches like yourselves, encouraging you to fulfill the contribution that God desires your congregation to make in redeeming the world.

Global Ministries exists for you, the local church. Our commitment is to assist churches in any way we can in their efforts to be obedient to the cross-cultural side of the Great Commission. The questions that concern us include:

"What kind of burden is God giving you for His world?"
"What will be your part in God's story?"
"How can we help you in that pursuit?"

Sometimes that may involve partnering with us on things we are doing together for the Kingdom. Sometimes it may mean working with other agencies and groups as a result of the vision God has given your church. We just want United Brethren churches and individuals to actively pursue the mission God has planned for them.

Whether the congregation is large or small or in between, we want to help churches with meaningful ways they can make a difference reaching lost people and can partner with God's people in the world. Ways such as these:

Church planting in places like Thailand, India, Mexico, Haiti, and beyond.
Helping pastors be trained for ministry.
Taking on a project assisting a local church in another land.
Relief work and feeding programs.
Giving opportunities to children.
Sending out short-term or long-term missionaries.
Sending out a team from the congregation.
Receiving missions training for your local church.
Involvement in denominational trips such as a medical team to Central America, teaching English as an outreach to young people in Eastern Europe, helping with evangelistic crusades in the Philippines, or helping Sierra Leone in its recovery from war.

Many mission agencies today have special niches. They may specialize in specific ministries such as Bible translation, aviation services, broadcasting, or orphanages. They may minister in specific locations across the world. For example, if a church has a particular interest in Bible translation, Wycliffe Bible Translators is an excellent group to partner with. We don't want to reinvent the wheel.

As a denomination working together, I believe we can provide opportunities for UB churches to extend their witness, opportunities they wouldn't have by themselves. There will be many things that we can't and won't do, but we will be the one organization particularly focused on helping United Brethren churches.

Purpose Statement of Global Ministries

Global Ministries follows this purpose statement, which was adopted by the Global Ministries Leadership Team.

The purpose of Global Ministries is to help United Brethren churches fulfill the global mandate of the Great Commission (Matthew 28:18-20).

We will do this by:

Mobilizing the local churches in the United States and Canada by encouraging and assisting them in fulfilling their global great commission mandate.

Sending United Brethren individuals and families to serve within United Brethren National Conferences or to other countries through partnerships with qualified sending agencies.

Partnering with local churches, missionaries, mission agencies, and United Brethren National Conferences to fulfill the great commission by praying, encouraging, equipping, and sharing resources.

Pioneering unreached and lesser reached people groups for Christ by partnering with United Brethren churches.

Key Initiatives in 2005-2007

Global Ministries is involved in many pursuits, but two items are priority initiatives.

1. Leadership Development

In 2006, we set leadership development as a strategic initiative. We stated our desire to become more intentional about building into people.

During the last year, we've received repeated requests from UB countries and mission fields for help in this area. This was an important decision made by the GMLT, and our ability to follow-up has become profoundly important. A task force has been formed for prioritizing and providing resources in leadership development in these countries. A specific example is our work in Sierra Leone, West Africa.

Sierra Leone

In 2006, Global Ministries launched a major leadership development initiative with Sierra Leone. The civil war in that country cut short many things, including the training and development needed for them to move successfully from a "mission field" to a "national conference" that could stand on its own. Amidst the war and the ensuing chaos, they also faced a series of leadership challenges. And with Islamic nations in the Middle East moving aggressively into Sierra Leone, they have a major evangelistic task before them. The country is 60% Muslim, 30% tribal religion, and 10% Christian. The country continues hovering near the bottom of the United Nations list of the poorest nations.

The conference (55 churches with about 5000 members) essentially came to Global Ministries and said, "Help." Early in 2006, two Global Ministries team members, Ruth Ann Price of Wycliffe Bible Translators and Pastor Randy Fennig, traveled to Sierra Leone to conduct a needs assessment and bring recommendations to Global Ministries. They met with over 200 persons from Sierra Leone Conference. Their impression was that the war left such devastation and trauma that the Sierra Leoneans lacked the ability to "rebuild the walls" without help.

This is something of an "intervention," and it comes only at the request of Sierra Leone Conference. The conference realized its need for outside help and called to us for that help. The most important needs were identified, and Global Ministries set about assembling a team to travel to Sierra Leone for the next step. This trip started a three-year effort to bring renewal and strength to Sierra Leone Conference. This includes training, a series of short-term teams, plus projects that UB churches in North America can help accomplish.

On July 13, 2006, six persons from the US National Conference traveled to Sierra Leone, where they participated in a week of training. Those persons were:

Ruth Ann Price, team leader (missionary-in-residence at Huntington University, Wycliffe missionary).
Jeff Sherlock (professor at Tri-State University, former missionary to Macau).
Randy Fennig (pastor of Prince of Peace UB church in Springfield, Ohio; former missionary to Mozambique).
Luke Fetters (professor at Huntington University, former missionary to Macau).
Todd Fetters (pastor of Devonshire UB church in Harrisburg, Pa.).
Billy Simbo (pastor of Evangel UB church in Kendall Park, New Jersey; former president of Sierra Leone Bible College).

All of these persons, except for Todd Fetters, were members of the Global Ministries Leadership Team during the 2005-2007 period.

These US leaders spent six days meeting with about 70 African pastors and lay leaders. They interacted on leadership development, biblical decision-making, preaching, and principles of financial management. Presentations were given, case studies were considered, and then the participants broke into small groups to discuss specific ways to implement what they had learned. The overall theme involved drawing lessons from the life of Joseph. At the conclusion, each participant was challenged to make a personal action plan for growing as a leader.

During that week, the Sierra Leonean pastors identified their most important need of all: a leader they could rally around, who would walk with them in "rebuilding the walls," and who would help them prepare for the future.

At the annual conference meeting for Sierra Leone Conference in September 2006, conference delegates (lay and clergy alike) unanimously asked Rev. Billy Simbo and his wife, Mamei, to return to Sierra Leone to serve as the conference's highest leader for the next three years. In that role, Rev. Simbo would lead the conference through this transition and preparation period. He would also mentor a person to succeed him. Billy Simbo, a native of Sierra Leone, has been in the States since the early 1980s.

God has unfolded his plan in a way we could not have imagined. We have affirmed Billy and Mamei for missionary service with the UB church for the next three years. This is a unique situation, in a very needy time, and Sierra Leone Conference and Global Ministries are excited about the chance to partner with each other.

Randy Fennig, another Global Ministries team member, was also sensing God calling him and his wife to Sierra Leone. This was discussed during the fall 2006 Global Ministries meeting, and Randy and Toni were approved as fulltime missionaries for Global Ministries during the spring 2007 meeting.

Randy and Toni served 13 years in Mozambique with Africa Inland Mission. They returned to the States in 1998, and Randy became pastor of Prince of Peace UB in Springfield, Ohio. Randy has been invited to teach at The Evangelical College of Theology (formerly Sierra Leone Bible College) and assist with agricultural development, as possible. The school has been notified of their desire to be in Jui (where the school is located) by January 2008, and they look forward to their arrival. Discussions continue about Business as Mission opportunities for Toni.

2. Continue God's Call Toward Unreached or Unengaged Peoples

Global Ministries desires to move into new territories not yet touched with the gospel. In fact, it makes our pulse quicken to think about getting the life-changing message of Jesus into areas that have not heard. We, of course, will not neglect our partnership in the gospel with our current United Brethren brothers and sisters in Christ, but we are burdened by those who have not heard the message for the first time.

We're excited about the inroads we've made into areas with either no or very little witness:

The witness to the Akha tribe in northern Thailand through Teacher Lee.
The new churches our endorsed missionaries assist in reaching out to Burmese people.
The persistent evangelism being done among the people of Macau by our missionaries. Opportunities also exist among unreached Islamic and tribal groups in northern Sierra Leone and the Philippines.

We continue to initiate networking with UB endorsed missionaries in spiritually needy areas. I met with three of those couples in May 2007 (all church planting in Europe) about ways North American UBs could partner with them.

China

God also opened some relational doors for us in the school system of a major Chinese city. We are preparing to start this summer. A teacher training team is currently preparing to go to southern China to a city of over a million people to work with their school system, and particularly with elementary and middle school English teachers. We are going at the invitation of a communist school system to help them develop their English language training.

A group of teacher trainers (from the UB church and Huntington University) will lead a three-week professional development seminar for Chinese teachers of English. Additional persons from the US will join them in the second week and lead a two-week camp for Chinese elementary and middle school students to help them develop English skills, as well as provide a practical experience for seminar participants. The Chinese teachers will use the strategies they learn to teach lessons to children who attend the camp. One of the additional components of the seminar is conversation groups for the Chinese teachers to practice conversational English.

The UB personnel in Macau have worked with English teachers in China off and on for 15 years. Our follow-up vision includes fulltime workers in the school system in this city.

Notes on UB Conferences and Mission Fields

New National Conferences

At the 2005 General Conference, the churches of two countries were granted full National Conference status in the United Brethren Church International: Mexico and the Philippines. Rev. Denis Casco is the bishop of the Mexico churches, and Prudencio Lim is the superintendent of the Philippine Conference.

Mexico and the Philippines join Canada, Honduras, Hong Kong, Jamaica, Nicaragua, Sierra Leone, and the United States as autonomous national conferences. The highest leader of each country serves on the International Executive Committee.

New Mission District in Germany

A new mission field was officially established in the fall of 2006—a mission field of Sierra Leone Conference. During the civil war of the 1990s, Sierra Leoneans fled to many parts of the world. One place was Berlin, Germany. Ten years ago, likeminded people formed a United Brethren church. Last fall, at the Sierra Leone National Conference meetings, this congregation applied to be an official extension of the work of Sierra Leone Conference. That was approved, and a new mission field was born.

Leadership of National Conferences

Very little change in leadership has occurred in our international conferences, apart from Billy Simbo taking on his role in Sierra Leone.

In our mission districts, Miriam Prabhakar (along with a co-worker) has taken on responsibility for supervision of the tribal churches in India after Richard Prabhakar's death in August 2005. And new leadership has evolved in Costa Rica and El Salvador.

Macau

In 2006, Jen Blandin celebrated ten years of service in Macau.

David and Melissa Kline (along with daughter, Mia) are on furlough until late summer 2007, and will then return to Macau to resume teaching high school students at Pui Va.

Carlson Becker is giving good leadership to Living Stone, the new church in Macau, and is working diligently to prepare Michael Chan and other Chinese members to lead and continue the work. This is congregation number three in Macau, and the first on Taipa Island.

In January, a team from the US will be sent to Macau to work in concert with the Macau staff in developing vision and implementation steps for the changing work in that area.

Missionary Updates

New Fulltime UB Missionaries

In the last two years, Global Ministries accepted three couples and a young lady for service.

Carlson and Naomi Becker went to Macau to work with our missionary team and to help plant the Living Stone congregation.
Billy Simbo left for Sierra Leone to provide transitional leadership and leadership development in this war-torn country. His wife, Mamei, will join him in the months to come.
Randy and Toni Fennig are raising support for service in Sierra Leone. Randy will teach at the Evangelical College of Theology outside of Freetown.
Abby Waterbury, from Element UB church of Blissfield, Mich., is raising support to serve as a Global Ministries missionary on loan to World Gospel Outreach. She will serve outside Tegucigalpa, Honduras, teaching at-risk children. She hopes to be on the field later this summer.

New Endorsed Missionaries

Over the last two years, several new families and individuals were accepted as endorsed missionaries of the UB Church:

Mike and Jennifer Burtnett (Hillsdale UB, Hillsdale, Mich.) in Florida with Wycliffe.
Fraser Churchill family (Grace UB, Sherkston Ontario) in Canada with Operation Mobilization.
Abby Farmer (Blue Rock UB, Waynesboro, Pa.) in Papua New Guinea with Wycliffe.
Jami Fiedler (College Park UB, Huntington, Ind.) in Arizona with Food for the Hungry.
Anna Geivett (Emmanuel UB, Fort Wayne, Ind.) in Peru with Food for the Hungry.
Marshalee Loerch (Jamaica Conference) in Germany with NEST.
Melissa Woodrum (Blue Rock UB, Waynesboro, Pa.) in Asia with Wycliffe.

Persons Leaving Missionary Service

The following families ended their service with their respective agencies:

Alan and Doris MacDonald served many years with Wycliffe Bible Translators in the Far East and in several state-side roles. They left Wycliffe in late 2006 so that Alan could become Pastor of Global Engagement at Fairfax Community Church in Fairfax, Virginia. Doris is from the Glendale UB church in Glendale, Calif.
The Dave and Jane Arends family will return from Belize in mid-2007. They have been serving as endorsed missionaries with Mission to the World.

Deaths of Missionaries

Dr. Richard Prabhakar passed away in August 2005 and is greatly missed. His wife, Miriam, continues serving with the various ministries.
Archie Cameron, who started the Spanish work in Honduras, passed away on September 29, 2005, at age 87. He left behind the legacy of a strong Honduras Conference which has grown to over 80 churches. He first went to Honduras in 1952, and continued living there until his death.

Mobilization

I am impressed by the growing number of UB churches responding to the Acts 1:8 mandate to take the gospel to the uttermost parts of the earth. Many are looking beyond just giving their money and are seriously looking at giving of their lives as well. Part of our responsibility at Global Ministries is to help churches think through their part in God's redemptive plan, provide training, and assist with personnel, projects, and short-term opportunities. Some specific thrusts in the last two years include:

Day of Missions

We did three regional training days in 2006-2007: May 6, 2006 (Salem UB church, Chambersburg, Pa.), May 20 (PraisePoint UBchurch, Willshire, Ohio), and February 10, 2007 (Eden UB church, Mason, Mich.).

Networking

We are identifying congregations which have initiated partnership in various degrees with an area of ministry or country, and who desire other North American partners. This allows churches with similar interests to work together, rather than separately, and to not duplicate efforts. We will be placing these opportunities on our website. Examples include:

Brown Corners UB (Clare, Mich.), working in Nicaragua.
Our Canadian churches, working in Haiti.
Fowlerville UB (Fowlerville, Mich.), helping with church planting in the Copan region of Honduras.
Mt. Pleasant UB (Chambersburg, Pa.), working in Valle de Santiago, Mexico.

Denominational Trips

In 2005, we began regularly providing denominational opportunities for cross-cultural involvement. It is our plan to provide assorted experiences to allow people with various skills and giftedness the chance to make a contribution in the world. Examples include:

The Philippines: 2006, 2007. These trips assisted the new Philippines National Conference with evangelistic crusades in their efforts to plant new churches.
Poland: 2005, 2006, and 2007. Donna Hollopeter led trips to Poland, where participants from North America helped conduct an English camp for Polish teens in the city of Kutno, where missionaries Arek and Donna Delik serve. In this city of 50,000 people, there are approximately 70 evangelical believers. The 2007 trip is similar to the former STUMP program in that it is designed for UB high school students wanting to stretch themselves in ministry.
Brazil: March 2006. Donna Hollopeter led a group of five persons to Brazil, where they ministered alongside missionaries Wes and Jean Bell and Dave and Becky Spencer. This was the first team from our North American churches to minister in Brazil.
Honduras: medical mission trips in 2005, 2006, and 2007.
China: 2007. Luke Fetters, professor at Huntington University and chairman of the Global Ministries Leadership Team, is leading a group to train and interact with Chinese English teachers in the school system in a major southern city in China. We expect this to be a yearly endeavor for several years.

In 2008, we are planning our first endeavors into Sierra Leone and Peru.

Other Matters

Financial Standing

Through God's grace and the generous gifts of God's people, we are stable financially and seeking to pursue vigorously the mission God has for us. There are three facets of giving to Global Ministries:

General Missions. This is what allows our office to operate and to invest in areas that need our attention.
Missionary Giving. This includes the gifts designated for specific missionary support.
Project Giving. These funds are designated for specific projects across the world.

Appreciation

God has granted me a great staff that has had the chance to work together for several years. There are three of us at Global Ministries: Donna Hollopeter (Associate Director of Global Ministries), Darlene Burkett (Administrative Assistant), and myself.

Thanks also to Bishop Ron Ramsey and his faithful support for our work.

We are also blessed with the assistance of US church personnel in the areas of finance (Marci Hammel and Mabel Mundy) and communications (Steve Dennie), and for that we're grateful.

I also give thanks for my Global Ministries Leadership Team, chaired by Luke Fetters. They are not only astute, forward-thinking individuals who help set our vision and plan for the future, but they regularly "get their hands dirty" in Kingdom work across the world.

Conclusion

It's exciting to see that many of our North American churches are ready to be stretched and want to be involved in significant Kingdom work whether at home or abroad.

This would seem to be the time for our denomination to have some God-sized dreams on which to focus our vision and trust God for. We spend so much time on peripheral things that I believe we're missing out on some of the grand goals that God has for us.

As I think about God-sized dreams, especially in the area of missions, those dreams need not come from us, Global Ministries. They may come from local churches that are dreaming of doing significant things in the world for God. It would be our pleasure at Global Ministries to fan the flame in something like that, and help network like-minded people toward great Kingdom pursuits. Thanks for the opportunity to work in partnership with you.