Upon This Rock Cooperative Parish

Three United Methodist Churches Cooperating for Jesus Christ

Dear Friends,

 Life continues to be a great adventure & challenge as God leads and, with His Help, I follow. From January through April I visited many support churches in the Desert Southwest, Yellowstone and EOH UMC Conferences, renewing friendships and making new friends. Some churches hosted cluster groups—enabling me to share and fellowship with the Christian Families from over 100 East Ohio UM Churches while in the East Ohio UMC Conference February through April!

Then the unexpected happened—I lost my balance, fell and broke my right ankle on May 5. Needless to say that interrupted my itineration schedule and I had to cancel 13 engagements in WOH, IN, IL, WI, TN, and WPA. My computer crashed shortly after the injury and I had to erase my hard drive losing current files. Fortunately, I had some back up CDs and addresses that had to be painstakingly reentered! After the computer was fixed I sent out a “Breaking News” Bulletin (my broken ankle) by email that many of you received. I had surgery on May 23 to insert two screws in my ankle allowing me to bear some weight on my leg and get around better. Thanks to the many prayers and much concern by family/friends including numerous Get Well Cards and email messages, I have progressed well. I spent 7 weeks in Ohio with Clarence and Sandy Green (my brother & sister-in-law) and 4 weeks in Connecticut with my son, Gregory, his fiancée, Nancy, and her daughter, Sara de Oliveira. With the help of Rev. Dave Powell, Bob Freeland, Dan Armstrong II, Walter Kula and Glenn & Shirley Johnson from my home church (Newport UMC, Tuscarawas County, OH), the EOH UMC Conference Staff and Lakeside Staff, I was a first-time attendee at the East Ohio UMC Annual Conference in June. During his Episcopal address, East Ohio Bishop John Hopkins proposed an EOH Team be sent to Sierra Leone & Liberia to investigate health care needs and what the East Ohio Conference might do to help meet those identified needs.

July 27 was a liberating day for me!! My x-ray revealed my fracture was 75% healed and the doctor released me to resume my itineration schedule, warning me to be careful and not do anything “stupid.” The Oct. 2 x-ray revealed progress but not completely healed yet—another x-ray will be done in 4 months.

July 31, I left Ohio in my motor home and traveled to IL, AL, GA, OK, TX and, NM, visiting churches that have been supporting God’s Mission in Sierra Leone. It was VERY HOT in all the areas I traveled through. A welcome break came in August. Volunteer in Mission (VIM) friends, Lowell & Grace Pieper, arranged for me to park my motor home at the home of another VIM friend, Charlotte Melton, in Flower Mound, TX while I flew to New York City August 20-24 to attend a meeting of the Conference Global Ministries Secretaries & Mission Interpreters in Residence from the North Central, South Central and Western Jurisdictions. This meeting was sponsored by the General Board of Global Ministries to provide basic information and a planning opportunity for Mission Interpretation in 2007. Thank God I had recovered enough to be able to navigate the subway system with my trusty walking stick--although it was rather slow going-J.

I spent a week in Tucson in early September visiting family and having a medical appointment follow up for the skin cancer I had removed in January—PTL, all was okay!

My first Mission Interpreter in Residence (MIIR) engagement was in Western North Dakota Sept. 19-25. I had a great time visiting and sharing with the Christian Family in several churches about my missionary experiences in Mozambique, Sierra Leone & the Worldwide Mission Outreach of the UMC. I encourage each of you to check out the video, “Here I Am Lord” (in DVD or VHS Format)—there should be a copy in each UM Church—they were distributed in 2004. The initial fourteen minutes of the video are short clips of 11 missionaries around the world in their places of assignments. Additional segments are longer with more detail about UMC Mission Service in various areas around the world. On the DVD, these segments can be viewed simply by clicking on the continent/country of interest, i.e. Africa, Asia, USA, etc.

UPDATE on CHICUQUE RURAL HOSPITAL, Mozambique, Southern Africa:

The hospital is continuing to provide a caring Christian witness in Inhambane Province, Mozambique, under the Christian Leadership of Hospital Administrator, Jeremias Franca. In July and August 2006 while visiting Mozambique VIMs in Troy UMC Conference and North UMC Texas Conference I received updates and shown photo albums depicting progress at the hospital. Praise the Lord, Chicuque has been returned to control of the UMC. It had been under Mozambique Government control from 1975 to 1988, then under a joint venture agreement between the Mozambique Government and UMC from 1988 until control was recently returned to the UMC. Chicuque Rural Hospital is one of several hospitals world wide that is receiving special attention/support from the Health and Relief Unit of the General Board of Global Ministries. Thank you for your faithful support for Chicuque Rural Hospital in so many ways over the years!!

SIERRA LEONE and LIBERIA (West Africa):

From Nov. 1 to Nov. 18, I will be part of the East Ohio UMC Conference Team journeying to Sierra Leone and Liberia. In the next newsletter I hope to report on our findings and the exciting things God has planned as His Will is sought for the East Ohio Conference involvement there.

Through the wonders of email, cell phones and VIM Teams from NIN and VA, I have been able to communicate with my friends at Manjama UM Health Center and with the Community-Based Health Workers that had attended the 2004 & 2005 Community-Based Health Training the Trainers Courses. It will be great to visit with them in November and see how things are going, what the challenges/needs are and to encourage them to “keep on keeping on.”

MISSION INTERPRETER IN RESIDENCE (MIIR):

As of September 1, 2006, I am officially the MIIR in the North Central Jurisdiction (NCJ) and will be traveling throughout a nine-state area (OH, IN, IL, IA, MN, WI, MI and the Dakotas) in 12 UMC Conferences. I continue to be a GBGM Missionary, only my place of assignment has changed. I am looking forward to this challenging assignment as I meet and share my personal missionary experiences from Mozambique and Sierra Leone as well as the Worldwide Mission Outreach of the UMC with Missionaries and Mission Projects in over 100 countries around the world.  When not “on the road” I will be living in Naperville, IL, and working out of the NCJ Advance Office: address 710 E. Ogden Ave., Suite #630, Naperville, IL 60563; phone number 630-357-0170 and Toll Free 877-655-8980. My email address remains the same beth_ferrell2001@yahoo.com . My home address is: 1333 Modaff Road, Unit B-1, Naperville, IL 60565; Phone (H) 630-946-6024 and cell phone 520-203-2092. Your prayers are so important to any mission venture especially when significant changes are involved—thanks for your faithfulness!!­­­­­­­­­ ­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­Please pray for me to be an “enabler” in my work.

­                The Gospel of Jesus Christ urgently needs to be told throughout the world. The Gospel includes salvation that is free to all who accept and believe. It also involves sacrifice by believers who live with plenty (like USA Christians) while the majority of the world’s people live in abject poverty. Through personal sacrifice the Gospel can be spread, the poor fed, the sick healed, the

women/children educated, the oppressed given hope and peace realized among all the world’s peoples. My prayer is that God will guide and enable you to do your part individually and collectively to help God’s “Kingdom come on Earth as it is in Heaven.”