UMCOR’s Sam Dixon remembered for life of service
By Linda Bloom*
UPDATED 12:15 AM EST | Jan. 22, 2010
RALEIGH, N.C. (UMNS)
Hundreds of worshippers this morning celebrated the life of the Rev.
Sam Dixon, the leader of the United Methodist Committee on Relief who
was on a mission of mercy when he died in the rubble of the Haitian
earthquake.
Friends and family, United Methodists from agency leaders and bishops
to North Carolina colleagues and missionaries in the field, gathered at
Edenton Street United Methodist Church to remember a life given in
service to others.
“Do you not know that a prince and a great man has fallen this day in
Israel,” the Rev. William Simpson said in a moving eulogy referring to 2
Samuel 3:38.
The Rev. James Gulley said Dixon
had “a gentle, kind spirit.” A UMNS photo courtesy of Bill
Norton.
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Simpson, Dixon’s former pastor and a close friend, noted that Dixon
died on the birthday of the slain civil rights leader, the Rev. Martin
Luther King Jr.
“Dr. King said the ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands
in the moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands in times
of challenge and controversy. I believe that fits Sam Dixon,” Simpson
said.
The Rev. James Gulley, an UMCOR consultant who was trapped with Dixon
and four other colleagues in the rubble of the Hotel Montana after the
earthquake, told the story of their ordeal in a voice occasionally
broken by emotion.
“There were moments of hope, moments of anger, moments of humor,
moments of despair,” Gulley said. Gulley said Dixon’s last words to him
were, “Please tell my family I love them,” and he named his family
members one by one.
Dixon, Gulley said, possessed a can-do attitude “undergirded by a
gentle, kind spirit.”
Throughout the service, from the opening hymn of “Holy, Holy, Holy!
Lord God Almighty” to the white-robed choir’s powerful rendition of the
“Hallelujah Chorus,” participants expressed gratitude for Dixon’s life.
“You could not be in his presence and not have a sense of his passion
for his faith and for his work,” said Bishop Gregory Palmer, president
of the United Methodist Council of Bishops.
Bishop Joel Martinez, interim top executive of the Board of Global
Ministries, said Dixon didn’t take himself seriously, but took his
mission seriously.
“Sam would be on the road somewhere today, probably in Haiti, if he
hadn’t been there at the beginning,” Martinez said.
In his eulogy, Simpson said Dixon had little patience for “paltry”
politics. “One of his most courageous acts was fostering a partnership
between UMCOR and Muslim AID. That has not been entirely popular, but
Sam knew it was right.”
Diet Coke and chocolate
Simpson married Dixon and his wife, Cindy, and the couple, he said,
seemed to be more in love than ever in recent years. He remembered Dixon
as a gentle, humble, joyous man who “knew how to use the ways of the
world for good” and couldn’t live without Diet Coke and chocolate.
“He was not pious by the world’s standards, but he was pious by God’s
standards. His faith was genuine,” Simpson said.
The Rev. Sam Dixon greets children in Indonesia in this file
photo. A
Web-only photo courtesy of UMCOR.
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Mourners solemnly recited The Lord’s Prayer and sang the doxology
after the eulogy. At another point in the service, the congregation said
words of praise to God “for Sam, whom you have graciously received into
your presence.”
Dixon, 60, had served as the United Methodist Committee on Relief’s
top executive since 2007.
A world traveler for the business of mission, Dixon went to Haiti to
discuss projects to improve life in the impoverished island nation. When
he walked into the lobby of the Hotel Montana on Jan. 12 — just moments
before the earthquake would bring the building crashing down around him
— he was anticipating a working dinner with five colleagues.
Instead, he was trapped for several days in the rubble of the hotel,
pinned under a concrete slab. Rescuers eventually found the group and
four colleagues were saved. They worked to free him, but it was too
late. Dixon’s death was announced on Jan. 16. A fellow Global Ministries
staff member, the Rev. Clinton Rabb, was pulled out but died later from
his injuries.
‘In God’s hands’
Thomas Kemper, a United Methodist from Germany, whose election to
lead the Board of Global Ministries was announced shortly before Dixon’s
death, expressed his sorrow Jan. 21 on the board’s “tribute blog.” But
he advised those in mourning to “leave the image of entrapment for one
in which we see Sam and Clint in a good and secure place—in God's hands,
and covered by his love.”
Condolences for the loss of both men have poured in from around the
world. Among those offering words of tribute were representatives of the
Mennonite Central Committee, the Council of Methodist Educational
Institutions of Brazil, the Vietnamese National Caucus, and the
Methodist churches in Bolivia, Latvia, Britain and Honduras.
A North Carolina native, Dixon had served for 24 years as a pastor
before joining the Board of Global Ministries’ staff in 1998 as a staff
executive in the UMCOR non-governmental organization. He became
executive director of the United Methodist Development Fund in 2001,
then was elected to lead the board’s unit on evangelization and church
growth two years later. In that role, he also supervised programs in
mission education and relations with mission partners.
Vocation and passion
Elizabeth “Brooke” Conklin, a director of the Board of Global
Ministries, remembered Dixon’s certainty as he spoke during a meeting
last summer about what propelled him to devote his life to the church.
“Sam spoke that he knew without a doubt that God had called him to be
doing exactly what he was doing,” she said. “His life, his work, his
ministry, his vocation, his passion—all was about responding to God. He
knew he was right where he should be and serving where he was supposed
to be serving.”
Dixon and his wife, the former Cindy Leapley, are the parents of four
grown children, Christy, Amy, Josh, and Molly. He also is survived by
his mother, three sisters and two grandchildren.
*Bloom is a United Methodist News Service news writer based in New
York. Ted Avery, a freelance writer from Durham, N.C., contributed to
this story.
News media contact: Linda Bloom, New York, (646) 369-3759 or newsdesk@umcom.org.
Video
Dixon Eulogies: "Sam leaves big shoes to fill."
The
Rev. Jim Gulley: “My last walk with Sam was tragically short.”
Shannon
Trilli, UMCOR: “He was born knowing he would be a pastor.”
Shannon
Trilli, UMCOR: "He believed what we did was immeasurable."
WRAL:
Family remembers selflessness of minister
Sam Dixon's daughter on MSNBC
Sam Dixon video
slideshow
Photos from team in Haiti
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