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By United Methodist News Service*
7:00 A.M. ET Dec. 14, 2012 | NASHVILLE, Tenn. (UMNS)
In 2012, church members marked the passing of a number of United
Methodist leaders who made significant contributions in their Christian
walk.
Those to whom we said goodbye include bishops and agency executives,
an evangelist in Sierra Leone, a pioneer in rural ministry and a
former U.S. Senator who even out of office remained committed to
fighting world hunger.
Here are eight remembrances.
Bishop Paul A. Duffey
Bishop Paul Andrews Duffey died March 18 in Georgia after a brief illness. He was 91.
In 1980, the Southeastern Jurisdictional Conference elected Duffey
to the episcopacy. He was assigned to the Louisville Area and served
eight years. He also was secretary of the Council of Bishops from 1984
to 1988.
“Bishop Duffey was truly one of God’s humble servants,” said the
Rev. Karl Stegall, now retired from the Alabama-West Florida Annual
(regional) Conference. “He was a Christian gentleman in the highest
sense of the word. He always lifted our spirits to the higher, nobler
things of life. He modeled for all of us in a unique way Christian
piety and social action.”
The Rev. Edward W. Paup
The Rev. Edward W. Paup,
a former United Methodist bishop and top executive of the
denomination’s mission agency, died March 21 after a long battle with a
brain tumor.
He served as bishop of the Portland (Ore.) Area from 1996 to 2004
and bishop of the Seattle Area until 2008, when he resigned from the
episcopacy to become the top staff executive of the United Methodist
Board of Global Ministries. He served only a year as the mission
agency’s general secretary before resigning from the position on Sept.
1, 2009, because of health concerns.
“We know that through God, Ed was formed, called, ordained and
commissioned — and now has been called to rest. As resurrection people,
we hold fast to Jesus’ promise that there will be for each of us an
eternal home,” said West Ohio Area Bishop Bruce Ough, president of the
United Methodist Board of Global Ministries.
Nancy Mikell Carruth
Nancy Mikell Carruth
A web-only photo.
Nancy Mikell Carruth,
an inaugural member of United Methodist-related Africa University’s
advisory development committee and planned giving council, passed away
April 1 in Bunkie, La. She was 84.
Many affectionately knew her as “Mrs. Africa University.” As chair of the Division of Higher Education of the United Methodist Board of Higher Education and Ministry,
Carruth became a key proponent of the Africa Initiative, supporting
African bishops and church leaders. She traveled to Liberia and
Zimbabwe as part of the site-selection committee to investigate
possible locations for the university. Carruth presented the formal
proposal to found and support Africa University to the 1988 United Methodist General Conference in St. Louis.
“She worked to realize a dream which is destined to change the face
of leadership in Africa from now until eternity,” said Bishop Eben
Nhiwatiwa of the Zimbabwe Area.
The Rev. Isaac Momoh Ndanema
The Rev. Isaac Momoh Ndanema
A web-only photo.
The Rev. Isaac Momoh Ndanema, the oldest evangelist and church builder in the Sierra Leone Conference, passed away June 1. He was 107.
“Pa” Ndanema, as he was fondly called, spent a good deal of his life
building schools and developing congregations for the denomination.
His team established 14 churches and 10 schools in eastern Freetown,
Sierra Leone’s capital, and the hinterland. The annual conference
honored his work in 2010 when he was given the title of “conference
evangelist” — the first in the conference to receive the title.
“He lived a life of self-denial. He loved a simple and humble home,”
said the Rev. Moses Massaquoi, Ndanema’s former assistant, at the
funeral service June 19. “With the support of his children, he would
have lived a better life in the United States … or a far better home
elsewhere in Freetown. But he preferred to live a simple lifestyle in
the Ginger Hall Community in eastern Freetown.”
The Rev. Harold W. McSwain
For 50 years, the Rev. Harold W. McSwain
played a pivotal role in the church’s rural ministry network. McSwain,
who died June 17 in Columbus, Ohio, at age 87, had been in ill health
since suffering a stroke in December 2007.
In 1964, he was hired as the first full-time director of Hinton Rural Life Center,
where he expanded on the parish-staff approach of linking small
churches to existing administrative, service and religious structures.
The center offered
resources and training on the model, established volunteer and youth
programs and provided facilities for religious retreats. McSwain
also helped form the Appalachian Development Committee, which
coordinated United Methodist ministries across that region.
“Dr. McSwain had the deepest of commitment to all things rural,”
said the Rev. Owen Gorden, dean of the denomination’s Rural Chaplains
Association. “He dedicated his powerful intellectual and organizational
abilities to advancing the causes of the rural church and community.”
Bishop Leontine T.C. Kelly
Bishop Leontine Turpeau Current Kelly,
The United Methodist Church’s first African-American woman bishop, is
remembered as a trailblazer, a spiritual mother, a standard-bearer for
women of color in leadership and a gift to The United Methodist Church.
She died at age 92 on June 28.
Although a member of the Virginia Conference, Kelly was elected to
the episcopacy by the Western Jurisdictional Conference in 1984. She
was assigned to the San Francisco Area. Among Kelly’s many
contributions to the denomination was as a founding member of Africa
University, the first United Methodist university on the continent of
Africa. Kelly was the presiding bishop when the 1988 United Methodist
General Conference approved the African Initiative, which later became
Africa University.
“She made a bold journey from the Southeastern Jurisdiction to the
Western Jurisdiction. It was as audacious as her whole life,” retired
Bishop Judith Craig said. “She never ran from challenge or controversy,
and she also stood fast in her convictions.”
Former U.S. Sen. George McGovern
Many United Methodists knew former Sen. George McGovern
not as a politician but as a faithful church member who emulated John
Wesley in his quest to overcome hunger and poverty and promote peace
and justice. McGovern, the son of a Wesleyan Methodist pastor, died in
the early morning hours of Oct. 21 in Sioux Falls, S.D. He was 90.
As a senator, McGovern wrote legislation to initiate the food stamp
program, the school lunch program and supplemental food assistance to
women and children (WIC). Later, as a U.N. ambassador, he recruited his
former political rival-turned-friend, Sen. Bob Dole (R-Kansas),
to sponsor an international school lunch program to feed the hungry
children in less economically developed nations. Both men were honored
with the prestigious World Food Prize in 2008.
“For him, the social gospel was not just a theory, but the core of
his faith in seeking to make the world a better place,” said the Rev.
Donald Messer, executive director of the Center for the Church and
Global AIDS and a longtime friend of McGovern.
Bishop Mack B. Stokes
Bishop Mack B. Stokes,
who taught thousands of preachers and helped desegregate Mississippi
United Methodists, died Nov. 21 in Perdido Key, Fla. He was 100, just a
month shy of his 101st birthday.
Before his election to the episcopacy, he taught for 31 years at Emory’s Candler School of Theology
in Atlanta, where he was the school’s first Parker Professor of
Systemic Theology, associate dean and later acting dean. The
Southeastern Jurisdictional Conference elected Stokes a bishop in 1972 and assigned him to the Jackson (Miss.) Episcopal Area, where he served until his retirement as active bishop in 1980.
In Mississippi, he took on the task of merging African-American and
white annual conferences into two integrated conferences. “He served in
Mississippi at an important time,” said retired Bishop Kenneth Lee
Carder, who was the Jackson Area bishop from 2004 to 2008. “He brought
to that task not only a pastoral sensitivity but also a deep theological
grounding for reconciliation.”
Sen. Daniel K. Inouye
U.S. Sen. Daniel K. Inouye
A web-only photo by U.S. Senate Photographic Studio.
Many United Methodists remember Sen. Daniel K. Inouye
not just as a World War II hero and a longtime U.S. senator from
Hawaii but also as a fellow church member respected for his integrity
and commitment to fairness. Inouye, named for the biblical prophet and
the Methodist pastor who helped raise his orphaned mother, died of
respiratory problems Dec. 17 in Washington at the age of 88. The
Democrat was Hawaii’s first U.S. congress member after it achieved
statehood in 1959 and later its senator upon his election in 1962. He
was also the first Japanese American in Congress.
“Throughout his life and career, Sen. Inouye was an advocate for the
underrepresented and marginalized persons of society who took seriously
his United Methodist faith,” the Rev. Mark M. Nakagawa, chair of the
National Japanese American United Methodist Caucus, said in a statement.
*Contributors to this article include Barbara Dunlap-Berg, Linda
Bloom, Kathy Gilbert, Heather Hahn, Phileas Jusu and Andra Stevens.
News media contact: Heather Hahn, Nashville, Tenn. (615) 742-5470 or email newsdesk@umcom.org.
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