United Methodists over the past 12 months have marked the passing of the bishop who developed a popular Bible study, an influential LGBTQ advocate ordained on his deathbed, the first Native American woman to become a United Methodist elder and the last surviving World War II flying ace in the U.S.
Here are 26 remembrances, listed in order of date of death. This list includes three deaths from late 2024.
The Rev. Anita Phillips
The Rev. Anita Lynn Phillips proudly identified as both a Christian and a Native American. Throughout her ministry, she wove these identities together as she promoted justice, nurtured hope and shared the good news of Christ’s love with everyone she met.
Phillips, a member of the Cherokee Nation, led The United Methodist Church’s Native American Comprehensive Plan for 14 years before retiring in 2019. She died Dec. 9, 2024, at the age of 70.
Born in Tahlequah, Oklahoma, Phillips initially set out to be a social worker. She worked as a counselor in Tulsa and executive director of Murrow Indian Children’s Home in Muskogee before discerning a call to ordained ministry. She went on to earn a Master of Divinity from Phillips Theological Seminary and serve as a pastor and district superintendent in the Oklahoma Indian Missionary Conference.
In 2005, she accepted a position as executive director of the denomination’s Native American Comprehensive Plan, a role in which she developed Indigenous leaders across the denomination. During her tenure, she oversaw the increase in U.S. conferences starting their own committees on Native American ministries. She also helped guide the “Act of Repentance toward Healing Relationships with Indigenous Peoples” at the 2012 United Methodist General Conference.
She and other Native American church leaders stressed that repentance should not be a one-time act but requires United Methodists to face their painful history, including the Sand Creek Massacre, and work for healing.
Friends say Phillips always acted with integrity and deep faith. On her retirement, Phillips wrote that despite the painful inheritance most Indigenous people share, she had hope for the future. “God has not given up on us,” she wrote in a farewell letter.
Great Plains Conference Bishop David Wilson, the denomination’s first Native American bishop, regarded Phillips as a mentor and friend.
“Anita was beloved in every sense of the word in our tribal communities and in The United Methodist Church,” said Wilson, who is Choctaw and Cherokee. “She had a great passion to advocate for Indigenous peoples and talk of our value and worth as people of God. She left a lasting impression upon our denomination as a great Native leader, and she is so missed by me and so many.”
The Rev. John Bergland
The Rev. John Bergland, known affectionately as “Dr. John,” grew up working summers as a cowboy on ranches in North Dakota and Montana. He eventually traded his saddle for the pulpit, becoming a preacher and professor who influenced sermon-writing across The United Methodist Church. But throughout his ministry, he retained a cowboy’s love of the outdoors.
Bergland died Dec. 9, 2024, in Davidson, North Carolina, surrounded by family. He was 94.
The son of an Evangelical United Brethen pastor, Bergland made the decision to follow Christ at an old-time camp meeting. Following high school graduation, he attended York College in York, Nebraska, where in chapel he met Barbara Benfer — his future wife of 68 years. He also began studying for the ministry, eventually graduating from United Theological Seminary in Dayton, Ohio, and being ordained in the Evangelical United Brethren Church.
He was a delegate to the 1968 Uniting Conference when the Evangelical United Brethren and Methodists merged to become today’s United Methodist Church. He was also a delegate to the 1972 General Conference and later served on the legislative assembly’s crucial Committee on Correlation and Editorial Revision.
In 1973, he joined the faculty of United Methodist-related Duke Divinity School in Durham, North Carolina. He subsequently earned his Doctor of Divinity from Florida Southern College. He served at the divinity school for 10 years, eventually becoming professor of homiletics and associate dean. He authored numerous books on sermons, published monthly sermon helps for six years in The Circuit Rider, and wrote about United Methodist history.
He went on to be executive director of the North Carolina Conference’s United Methodist Foundation before returning to the role of church pastor. One of his enduring contributions is leading the way in establishing what became the Bergland Center at Camp Rockfish. The center now hosts worship services, leadership retreats and community programs that embody his belief in the power of camp ministry to transform lives.
The Rev. Jason Boggs, Camp Rockfish director, said Bergland had a gift for getting laypeople engaged in ministry. Before he retired, Bergland served as lead pastor of Haymount United Methodist Church in Fayetteville, North Carolina, and motivated members to volunteer to take kids to the camp.
“He was an incredible influence in the community,” Boggs said. “He understood the value of finding God in nature, particularly finding the opportunity for faith development to happen outside of what your normal life is.”
Bishop George Bashore
Bishop George W. Bashore, a mentor to many and renowned for his baritone singing voice, died Dec. 13. He was 90.
Elected a bishop in the Northeastern Jurisdiction, Bashore led what is now the New England Conference from 1980 to 1988 and what is now the Western Pennsylvania Conference from 1988 to 2000.
Born in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, Bashore graduated from Princeton University and United Theological Seminary. He was ordained in the Evangelical United Brethren Church and served as a delegate to the 1966 special General Conference that took crucial steps toward the 1968 denominational merger that formed today’s United Methodist Church.
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Bashore was the pastor of Inner City Parish in Reading, Pennsylvania, where he forged an innovative inner-city and interracial ministry, for 14 years. He became a district superintendent in 1973 and served in that role until his election to the episcopacy in 1980.
As bishop, he served as board president of what is now Discipleship Ministries as well as a member of the denomination’s Board of Higher Education and Ministry and the Board of Publication. He also served as president of the Council of Bishops.
Friends and fellow bishops particularly remember Bashore’s gift for music and his desire to share the light of Christ with everyone he met.
Bishop Sandra Steiner Ball, who now leads the Western Pennsylvania Conference, said that even in his final days, Bashore wanted to continue his witness to Christ.
“I can’t go anywhere within the Western Pennsylvania Area where I do not hear a George Bashore story,” Steiner Ball said in a eulogy for Bashore at the Council of Bishops spring memorial service. “And it’s all about Jesus, and it’s all about light, and it’s all about the relationship that George had with the people. While George was superb at seeing the big picture and strategic planning, for him, it was all ultimately about connecting persons and their needs — spiritual and temporal — with the light of God.”
The Rev. Richard Hays
The Rev. Richard Hays — a renowned New Testament scholar, United Methodist elder and former dean of Duke Divinity School — became widely known for his books on Christian ethics. He also made national headlines last year when he publicly changed his views on what Christian ethics says about same-sex relations.
“We advocate for full inclusion of believers with differing sexual orientations not because we reject the authority of the Bible,” he and his son, Christopher, wrote in “The Widening of God’s Mercy: Sexuality Within the Biblical Story.” “Far from it: We have come to advocate their inclusion precisely because we affirm the force and authority of the Bible’s ongoing story of God’s mercy.”
The elder Hays died Jan. 3 from pancreatic cancer at the age of 76.
The graduate of Yale, Yale Divinity School and Emory University was previously well-known known for his 1996 book, “The Moral Vision of the New Testament.” In that book, he argued that same-sex relationships were “one among many tragic signs that we are a broken people, alienated from God’s loving purpose.”
In reversing course years later, after his 2018 retirement from Duke, he told Religion News Service he hoped to offer contrition. He acknowledged that the new book could not undo past harm, but he prayed it might be some help. He and his son published their book on mercy the same year that Hays’ beloved United Methodist Church also rescinded longtime denomination-wide bans on gay clergy and same-sex marriage.
“In the final years of his life, Richard demonstrated in a public way that confidence about one’s work needs to be coupled with the ability to change one’s mind,” wrote his friend Beverly Roberts Gaventa in a tribute for RNS.
She added: “Richard knew who his Lord was, and he knew what his own vocation was. The church and the academy have been the beneficiaries of that life.”
The Rev. Russ Richey
Colleagues, friends and former students praised the Rev. Russell E. “Russ” Richey as an amiable yet exacting historian who changed the way United Methodists tell their story.
Richey, who taught at United Methodist-related Drew, Emory and Duke universities and served as dean at Emory’s Candler School of Theology, died Jan. 19 at his home in Durham, North Carolina. He was 83.
The ordained United Methodist elder graduated from Wesleyan University in 1963 and earned advanced degrees at Princeton University and Union Theological Seminary. He was dean of Emory University’s Candler School of Theology from 2000 to 2006 and then returned to the faculty to teach until his retirement in 2012.
He liked to tell the story of how he and his friend David Gergen, as young men, once snuck into a Ku Klux Klan meeting with a tape recorder, and recorded what was going on. Gergen, who also died this year, went on to become a national political commentator and adviser to U.S. Presidents Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton.
Recording people’s lived experiences — even when disturbing or cruel — was part of Richey’s legacy as a church historian. Throughout his ministry, Richey stressed that slavery was the original sin of Methodism.
Before Richey, histories of Methodism focused on General Conferences, denominational divisions and other institutional developments.
Richey helped change that focus to how people prayed, sang and experienced revival at camp meetings and beyond, said the Rev. Ted Campbell, a friend and retired Wesley studies professor at Perkins School of Theology at Southern Methodist University. Together, he and Richey founded the online journal “Methodist Review.”
Other historians shared Campbell’s assessment.
“His amount of scholarship, depth of knowledge and love of Methodist history is almost insurmountable,” said Ashley Boggan, the top executive on the United Methodist Commission on Archives and History. She worked with Richey, Kenneth E. Rowe and Jean Miller Schmidt on the revised and updated “American Methodism: A Compact History,” published in 2022.
“I fell in love with Methodist history because of a Russ Richey book, and I was so honored to get the privilege of working alongside him in recent years. He will truly be missed, but he will live on through the joy of his written words.”
Mitzie Dew
Mae Marie “Mitzie” Eggers Dew loved music, children, her family and her husband, the late Bishop William “Bill” Dew. She died Jan. 27 at age 88 in her retirement home in Elk Grove, California, surrounded by her family.
Retired Bishop Warner H. Brown Jr., a longtime friend of the Dews, recounted how her life offered a testimony to how God makes a way where there appears to be no way. She grew up in Kentucky’s coal-mining country, where opportunities were few. An older sister once told her: “Women don’t need to go to college.” She responded: “This one does.”
She went on to attend what is now United Methodist-affiliated Union Commonwealth University (formerly Union College) on a music scholarship. To pay for college, she worked three jobs and even still started three weeks late after securing a $35 loan from the librarian that helped her pay tuition. But upon her arrival, she met fellow student Bill Dew, who was part of the committee that welcomed her to campus. She later got to know him when she practiced in the music building late into the evening. He was on the school maintenance staff and often needed to convince her to leave so he could lock up.
Instead of attending a conservatory after graduation as she initially planned, she wed the future bishop. They were married more than 52 years. She accompanied her husband as he took on appointments at churches both small and large. She learned to play pipe organ and often would lead his congregations’ music, directing musicals and performances of Handel’s “Messiah.” She also valued children and helped them grow in faith. Together, she and her husband raised three children of their own.
She continued to support her husband’s ministry when the Western Jurisdiction elected him to the episcopacy in 1988. He went on to serve as bishop first of the Oregon-Idaho and Alaska conferences until 1996, and then of the Desert Southwest Conference until his retirement in 2004. The bishop died in 2010.
Mitzie Dew’s memorial was scheduled at The Table United Methodist Church in Sacramento, California, where she and her husband’s elder daughter, the Rev. Linda Dew-Hiersoux, was co-pastor. However, Dew-Hiersoux died Feb. 16 after a long battle with cancer — just days before the service.
“And so that congregation had to remember Mitzie without Linda, and then a few weeks later, remember Linda without Mitzie,” Brown said at the Council of Bishops spring memorial service. “But the witness of love and faithfulness and resilience throughout all travails is a witness to the power of our God. So, to these saints who from their labors rest, we thank you for the witness of love as Jesus would love.”
Willard Douglas Jr.
Willard Douglas Jr. broke new ground as a judge in his native Virginia and went on to shape church law in his beloved United Methodist Church.
After he died Feb. 16 at the age of 93, the Virginia House of Delegates adopted a resolution celebrating Douglas as “a renowned attorney and judge whose faith and legacy of excellence, leadership, and service inspired all who knew him… .”
His commitment to public service began early. After service as a Marine during the Korean War, Douglas earned a bachelor’s from Virginia Union University in 1957 and a law degree from Howard University in 1960.
He used his legal skills first as a United States Civil Rights Commission attorney in Richmond, Virginia, then at the law firm of Hill, Tucker and Marsh. In 1969, he became the first Black assistant commonwealth’s attorney in Richmond, the equivalent of a state prosecutor.
In 1974, the Virginia General Assembly elected him as presiding judge of the Richmond Juvenile and Domestic Relations Court, making him the commonwealth’s first full-time Black judge.
Beyond his professional accomplishments, Douglas was an active member of Big Brothers Big Sisters and the Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity. He and his late wife, Jane, were married 62 years and raised two children, Willard III and Wendelin.
He also led at all levels of The United Methodist Church, from his local congregation of Wesley Memorial United Methodist Church in Richmond, to district lay leader to a multiple-time delegate at General Conference, the denomination’s top lawmaking assembly.
He served on the board of the denomination’s Commission on Religion and Race as well as the boards of two United Methodist-related schools, Ferrum College and Virginia Wesleyan University. The Virginia Council of Churches in 2016 recognized him with its Lifetime Ecumenist Award.
Perhaps his most influential role was as a member of the Judicial Council, The United Methodist Church’s equivalent of a supreme court, contributing to its decisions from 1984 to 1992.
“Willard was a very active participant in Judicial Council meetings,” said Sally Curtis AsKew, a fellow Judicial Council member and current Judicial Council clerk, whose service on the church court overlapped with Douglas’.
“His thoughts were well put together and well received,” she added.
Neill Caldwell
Neill McKeithen Caldwell Jr., who possessed a journalist’s eye and believer’s heart, died in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, from an unexpected illness March 13. He was 65.
During his more than 40-year career in journalism, he worked as editor of publications for the Virginia Conference and a reporter for United Methodist News — most recently at last year’s General Conference.
Born in Raleigh and raised in Aberdeen, North Carolina, Caldwell grew up attending Bethesda Presbyterian Church where he sang in the youth choirs, and played on Bethesda’s church league basketball team and the church’s softball team. He graduated from Appalachian State University and went on to work as a reporter and editor for several North Carolina newspapers.
While at The Dispatch in Lexington, he did a feature story on a Christmastime choral group and decided to interview the only singer he didn’t already know. That’s how he met the love of his life, the Rev. Lynne Blankenship. The two wed on April 5, 1997, at First United Methodist Church in Forest City, North Carolina, where Blankenship Caldwell was serving as senior pastor. They would have celebrated their 28th anniversary a week after Caldwell’s memorial service.
Now married, Caldwell adapted his journalism career to move alongside his wife in her career as an itinerant United Methodist pastor. He also earned a master’s degree in liberal studies at University of North Carolina at Greensboro, a certificate from Northwestern University and was named a Lilly Fellow at Northwestern’s Medill School of Journalism and United Methodist-related Garrett Evangelical School of Theology.
When the couple moved to Richmond, Virginia, in 2006, Caldwell brought his journalism skills to the Virginia Conference. He also began working with United Methodist News, where he took on the hefty task of covering the Judicial Council, the denomination’s high court, and explaining complicated matters of church law.
He became a mentor and friend to other United Methodist communicators, volunteering each year to help organize the annual meeting of the United Methodist Association of Communicators. In a testament to his gifts, then-Virginia Conference Bishop Charlene Kammerer presented him with the honor as the denomination’s Communicator of the Year in 2004.
Even after his time in Virginia and return to North Carolina in 2018, Caldwell continued to support the church with his journalism skills. He already had made plans to cover the Southeastern Jurisdiction’s Peace Conference in April this year before he died.
“Neill never ceased to surprise me with his range of talents,” David A. Snipes, president and chief executive officer of the United Methodist Foundation of Western North Carolina, told the Western North Carolina Conference. “Not only was he an avid sports fan, especially when it came to his beloved Appalachian State Mountaineers, but he was also a gifted storyteller, singer, stage performer, humorist, cheerleader, connector and, most importantly, partner to Lynne.”
Bishop Benjamin A. Justo
Friends and colleagues remember Bishop Benjamin A. Justo for his humility, integrity, humor and grace with no pretensions. The Philippines Central Conference bishop died March 28 at age 84.
Filipino United Methodists shared heartwarming memories and empowering moments from his life’s witness and faith journey. His survivors include his wife, Elizabeth Justo, and his children, Karl Barth and Liza Nympha Justo-Qazi.
Justo was elected to the episcopacy from the Northeast Philippines Annual Conference on Dec. 16, 2000. He was assigned to serve the Baguio Episcopal Area in the northern Philippines, where he remained until his retirement in 2008.
The bishop received his Bachelor of Divinity and Doctor of Ministry from Union Theological Seminary. He also held a Master of Theology from Southeast Asia Graduate School of Theology. Before being elected bishop, Justo served as a local pastor for 12 years and for more than five decades held a variety of leadership roles in education and the Philippines Central Conference.
Bishop Carlo A. Rapanut, who leads the Desert Southwest and New Mexico conferences in the U.S., said the elder bishop took a chance on him when Justo appointed Rapanut as the bishop’s clergy executive assistant, despite his young age and limited ministry experience.
Rapanut also remembered how Justo always sought to conserve denominational resources, sharing a room with his assistant whenever they needed to travel for work.
Bishop Rodel M. Acdal, who now leads the Baguio Area, said Justo was more than an episcopal leader.
“He was a shepherd, mentor and pillar of faith,” Acdal said. “Bishop Justo’s impact extended beyond his role as a leader. He empowered many to embrace their calling. He reminded others that ministry is not about titles or recognition but about faithfulness to God.”
Bishop Hans Växby
Bishop Hans Växby believed and taught that with Christ, all things are possible. He demonstrated that faith by revitalizing Methodism in countries behind the Iron Curtain where the church struggled or had been entirely defunct for decades.
Växby served as a United Methodist bishop in Nordic and Baltic countries from 1989 to 2001 and served again as bishop in Eurasia, which encompasses countries that were previously part of the Soviet Union, from 2005 to 2012.
He died on March 30 in Helsinki at age 80, with his wife, Kaikka, and two sons by his side.
Växby was born in Nässjö, Sweden, and planned to become a clergy member in what was then the Sweden Annual Conference. However, he met and fell in love with his future wife, a Helsinki native.
The two moved to Finland after their marriage in 1968. He was ordained an elder in the Finland Swedish Provisional Annual Conference, which serves Swedish-speaking United Methodists in Finland. Before his first election as bishop in 1989, Växby was pastor of churches in Jakobstad and Borgå.
He served 12 years in the Nordic and Baltic Area, the maximum allowed under the term rules of what was then the Northern Europe Central Conference. In the waning days of the Cold War, he worked with United Methodists in Estonia to restart the Methodist presence in Latvia and Lithuania. Both Baltic countries still had a handful of people who had grown up Methodist before Soviet occupation in 1944 shut the church down.
With the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Växby extended his revitalization work to Russia and Ukraine. Russian United Methodists asked Växby, after his first term, to run for bishop again so he could serve as their official episcopal leader. In 2005, Växby became the second United Methodist bishop to reside in Moscow, following the late Bishop Rüdiger R. Minor.
Retired Bishop Christian Alsted, who previously led the Nordic-Baltic-Ukraine Area, was a young United Methodist pastor in Denmark when Växby was first elected bishop.
“Bishop Hans brought a fresh wind of the Spirit when he became our bishop,” Alsted said.
Växby encouraged and trusted young clergy. “His teaching and preaching, and his presence with us, focused us on Christ,” Alsted said.
“Bishop Hans truly was a servant leader, and he served faithfully all the way until the very last weeks of his life. We are many who will thankfully remember him with great joy and affection.”
Jay Byers
Jay Byers, a graduate of United Methodist-related Simpson College who became the Iowa school’s president in 2023, died April 17, at age 54. He also was a member of Indianola First United Methodist Church, where he sought to live the Wesleyan values of faith, learning and service.
The Iowa native earned his bachelor’s in 1993 from Simpson College, followed by earning a law degree from the University of Iowa College of Law in 1996. He counted as his greatest accomplishment convincing Katherine Miller, whom he met in law school, to accept his proposal. The two wed in 1998 and went on to have two daughters, Sophie and Charlotte.
In his early career, he worked at a law firm in Indianapolis and as a congressional staffer for the late U.S. Congressman Leonard Boswell of Iowa. He then served for 18 years with the Greater Des Moines Partnership, including 11 years as president and chief executive officer. His work played a critical role in the transformation of Greater Des Moines into one of the fastest-growing metro areas in the U.S. Midwest in terms of population, productivity and job growth.
But even as he worked to promote local businesses, he maintained his connection to Simpson College. He served on his alma mater’s board of trustees for 11 years, before becoming its president. In his brief tenure, the college saw its largest first-year student enrollment in more than a decade and increased first-year student retention.
“Throughout his life, Jay used his many gifts to serve the common good — whether through civic leadership, education or the nurturing of strong community partnerships,” Iowa Conference Bishop Kennetha J. Bigham-Tsai said in a tribute to Byers.
“His presence brought energy, wisdom and hope to every space he entered.”
David Draeger
Most people instinctively run from danger, but David Draeger spent much of his life running toward it as a missionary for The United Methodist Church in Haiti.
At a time of violence and shortages in the Caribbean nation, fellow United Methodists say Draeger offered a beacon of hope for Haitians.
Draeger died on April 19 after returning to Vincennes, Indiana, to deal with multiple health issues. He was 77.
The lifelong United Methodist spent time as a chemical engineer, horse trainer and handyman. He also dedicated his life to God through service to others by running a soup kitchen, building wheelchair ramps and completing too many projects to list with the Haitian people.
He began taking numerous mission trips to the island nation more than 40 years ago. When his wife became ill and knew she was dying, she told her husband that he should move permanently to Haiti after she passed away.
He followed his wife’s wishes, becoming mission volunteer coordinator for Eglise Methodiste D’Haiti, the Methodist Church of Haiti. He told United Methodist News in 2023 that his work changed dramatically as the increase in gang violence prevented mission teams from traveling to the country. By 2023, he was spending most of his days bringing food donations funded by the United Methodist Board of Global Ministries to people in desperate need.
“He brought a selfless and passionate presence to the work. There were times when he would pay for things people needed out of his pocket,” Haiti-Florida Partnership Coordinator Tom Vencuss told the Florida Conference.
The missionary also was willing to risk a gun pointed at his face to continue ministry.
“He created a lot of good relationships with different organizations within the church,” Vencuss said. “He was not afraid to travel. He was smart about it, but he was going to go where he was needed.”
Bishop Richard Wilke
Newly elected and assigned to Arkansas, United Methodist Bishop Richard Byrd Wilke hoped to overcome years of declining church attendance by helping people grow in faith and community.
That evangelistic zeal led the bishop, who went by Dick, and his wife, Julia, to develop the popular Disciple Bible Study series — leading millions of people around the world to delve deeper into Scripture. During the 1990s, when the Bible study was at its peak in popularity, The United Methodist Church also saw its overall U.S. attendance grow.
After his retirement, he became a voice for full LGBTQ inclusion in the life of the church, believing Jesus’ teachings, expressed in the Bible, direct Christians to create a loving and inclusive community of faith.
Surrounded by family, he died in Winfield, Kansas, just as the sun began its rise on April 20 — Easter Sunday this year. He was 94.
His family marveled that he died on what was also the 24th anniversary of the founding of the Richard and Julia Wilke Institute for Discipleship, housed on the campus of United Methodist-related Southwestern College in Winfield. The institute, which continues to offer online courses on Christian faith matters, was founded with funds from the sale of Disciple Bible Study.
The bishop’s four children — Steve Wilke, the Rev. Paul Wilke, Susan Wilke Fuquay and Sarah Wilke — all remain active United Methodists who are working together to bring Disciple Bible Study to new audiences as an app for the digital age.
The bishop, born in El Dorado, Kansas, gave his life to Jesus at age 16 and never wavered in his sense of calling. He earned a degree in history from Southern Methodist University, where he was student body president and met his future wife of more than 60 years. He went on to earn master’s degrees from Yale University and Dubuque Theological Seminary in Dubuque, Iowa.
For more than 30 years, he served as a pastor of Kansas churches before being elected to the episcopacy in 1984. He served in Arkansas until he reached mandatory retirement in 1996. But even in retirement, he continued to equip new leaders through his work at the institute.
While a prolific writer, he will remain most associated with helping people encounter the words of Scripture in fresh ways. Altogether, more than 3 million people around the globe have participated in Disciple Bible Study. The study also has been translated into several languages, including Spanish, Russian, German and Mandarin Chinese.
“In all the roles he held — pastor, bishop, author, advocate for inclusion — Bishop Wilke radiated genuine love for Jesus and a humble, prayerful spirit,” said Horizon Texas Conference Bishop Ruben Saenz Jr., incoming Council of Bishops president. “We honor a life that helped millions to know, love, follow and serve Christ more deeply.”
Tim Vermande
Tim Vermande, a faithful advocate and member of the United Methodist Disability Ministries Committee, died April 24 at age 70 after a brief illness.
Vermande also was a member of the United Methodist Committee on Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing Ministries and a devoted member of The Garden United Methodist Church in Indianapolis. The United Methodist Commission on Religion and Race credited his work with helping advance the church’s ongoing efforts to dismantle ableism, racism and sexism.
Born in South Bend, Indiana, with cerebral palsy, he also had polio as a child. A physician said he wouldn’t live to be 5 and would never be able to read. His parents were told to institutionalize him. They refused. Instead, they supported their child and advocated for him with doctors and school boards.
He went on to earn degrees from Indiana University in Bloomington, Southern Methodist University in Dallas and United Methodist-related United Theological Seminary in Dayton, Ohio.
A wheelchair user who grew up before the Americans with Disabilities Act, Vermande became keenly aware of where accessibility was lacking. He initially planned to be a history professor but was denied a job at one community college because it required a professor to be able to carry 50 pounds of books up a set of stairs. After that and other similar incidents, Vermande made it his goal to help the church become more inclusive of all people.
He managed the disability ministries committee’s many social media platforms and website, wrote a weekly news summary, maintained a newsletter for the Deaf Committee, kept databases in order and advocated on behalf of both individuals with disabilities in the churches and for ministers with disabilities. Despite his efforts, he never had a full-time job. He said prospective employers worried about giving him a role that came with health insurance, under the assumption that the disabled are more costly to insure. Fortunately, he said, he received insurance through his wife, Sherrie.
While recognizing his good fortune, he also continued to urge more accessibility and inclusion for others.
“Tim embodies the message of Timothy 6:12, ‘Fight the good fight of faith,’” his friend Darolyn “Lyn” Jones wrote in a tribute during his life. “He is fighting to make sure that everyone is welcome to pray, worship, serve, and lead in the church.”
The Rev. William “Paw Paw” Robinson
As the U.S. prepared to host the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, the Rev. William H. Robinson Jr. had the honor of carrying the Olympic Torch through the city of Little Rock, Arkansas.
The distinction made sense. By the time the United Methodist pastor was chosen to bear the torch, his ministry had already brightened his native city.
Robinson, known affectionately as “Paw Paw,” died May 16 at age 91.
In 1980, with the support of the late Bishop Kenneth W. Hicks, Robinson took over a vacant church building left behind as white Little Rock residents moved out of the city’s Highland community after it became open to Black homeowners. Robinson started a new congregation, the influential Theressa Hoover Memorial United Methodist Church.
He started the church with support from the United Methodist Board of Global Ministries’ Community Developers Program and named the church for the first Black woman to serve as head of what is now United Women in Faith. Like Robinson, Hoover also hailed from Arkansas.
The Rev. Deborah Bell, Robinson’s daughter who succeeded her father as the congregation’s senior pastor, said the church’s namesake had three rules for the new congregation. Hoover, who died in 2014, told Robinson the church should always serve its community, always maintain an active United Methodist Women’s group and never ask her for money. Bell said her father heeded all of Hoover’s directives, and every December, she gave generously to the congregation without being asked.
The church started with 23 people, Bell said, and more than half were his children and their spouses. Robinson and his late wife, Sara, had eight children, four of whom still survive.
The church launched a day care and started to grow, expanding its services to include after-school programs, a homeless shelter, addiction recovery and an HIV/AIDS ministry. That outreach led to what is now Better Community Development Inc., formerly Black Community Developers. The nonprofit addresses problem areas such as unemployment, depression, illiteracy, homelessness, poverty and despair.
Long before most people were talking about affordable housing, Better Community Development was using its property to put more roofs over people’s heads. At this point, the nonprofit has built more than 100 homes.
Today, both the church and Better Community Development, now also led by Bell, are going strong. They both also have helped revitalize Little Rock’s now-bustling, multiethnic Midtown neighborhood.
“It just took one spark for people to see what could happen in the community that had been left behind,” Bell said.
She added that Robinson continued to inspire people until the end of his life, including at the annual Christian Ministerial Alliance luncheon that gives a social-justice award named for him.
“The last one that he attended, he said, ‘My grandchildren keep asking me, When am I going to sit down?’” Bell recounted. “He said, ‘I tell them I’m gonna sit down when you stand up.’ At that particular luncheon, there were two people who came to him and said, ‘I’m ready to stand up. Where do you want me to serve?’ Those two are on our board now and doing amazing work.”
The Rev. Elizabeth S. Tapia
The Rev. Elizabeth S. Tapia, a pioneering United Methodist theologian from the Philippines and noted ecumenical leader, died June 5 at the age of 75. Her husband, the Rev. Alan Cogswell, survives her.
An ordained elder of The United Methodist Church in the Philippines, Tapia served as dean of Union Theological Seminary, professor at John Wesley College and Harris Memorial College, and director of mission theology at the United Methodist Board of Global Ministries.
She was the first Asian female theologian to serve as professor of mission and contextual theology at the group’s Ecumenical Institute at Bossey. In that role, she led seminars, lectured, and participated fully in academic planning and preparation. She remained actively involved in the life of the students of Bossey through informal contacts, counseling and worship.
She was also the first women’s concerns program secretary for the Christian Conference of Asia.
In a message celebrating her life, Union Theological Seminary said she created pathways for women to enter influential spaces and redefine them. Under her leadership, the seminary said, using inclusive language in liturgy and term papers became a policy.
Whether mentoring young women, writing curriculum or preaching, friends say she lived what she taught.
“Dr. Tapia was a very refined ecumenical colleague who always dealt with others with pastoral care and personal warmth,” said the Rev. Mathews George Chunakara, the top executive of the Christian Conference of Asia. “She consistently demonstrated her commitment to the transformative witness of the Gospel and was a steadfast advocate for justice and inclusion.”
The Rev. and Dr. Rick Huskey
The Rev. and Dr. Rick Huskey finally got long-sought affirmation from The United Methodist Church on his deathbed at a Pennsylvania hospital.
The longtime LGBTQ advocate was ordained an elder in full connection on June 14, earning the “Reverend” title nearly 50 years after he was turned away from the ordination process after telling his bishop he was gay.
After General Conference removed the denomination’s decades-long ban on gay clergy last year, Huskey requested to re-enter and complete the ordination process. In dramatic events starting the evening of June 12, the clergy session of the 2025 Minnesota Annual Conference in St. Cloud, Minnesota, approved Huskey for ordination.
After the annual conference ended June 13, Bishop Lanette Plambeck and her team rushed to Geisinger Medical Center in Danville, Pennsylvania, to conduct Huskey’s long-awaited ordination ceremony there.
Huskey, who was seriously ill after “a medical episode,” was aware of what was happening during the ceremony, Plambeck said. He “laughed in joy” and said “Hallelujah” and “Amen.”
He died the following day, June 15. He was 75.
After being denied ordination, Huskey attended and graduated medical school in the Dominican Republic. Spending part of his medical career in Washington, he taught geriatrics at George Washington University and advised three mayors on issues around elderly health and nursing home administration.
But he never abandoned his advocacy for LGBTQ people in The United Methodist Church.
Huskey, along with Gene Leggett, founded the United Methodist Gay Caucus, which soon changed its name to Affirmation UMC. To organize the movement in local churches, Affirmation UMC launched the Reconciling Congregations Program, which eventually evolved into Reconciling Ministries Network. The advocacy group played a key role in persuading last year’s General Conference to remove all language condemning homosexuality from the denomination’s Book of Discipline.
“I had known of Rick’s legacy, but it was only in recent months that I came to know him personally,” Plambeck said. “In our conversations, I encountered a man who had carried pain but not bitterness. He radiated peace and grace, just a very gentle soul.
“He was honest about the harm he had endured. You hear in him the prophetic and the pastoral and priestly voices, and his ongoing love for the church, the kind of steadfastness that is nothing shorter than Christ-like. He had a gracious understanding that he believed that the church would catch up to what he already knew.”
Donald McPherson
During the final years of World War II, Donald Melvin McPherson served as a Navy fighter pilot aboard the aircraft carrier USS Essex, where he engaged Japanese forces.
He shot down five enemy planes, and ultimately earned the Congressional Gold Medal and three Distinguished Flying Crosses for his service.
When he died on Aug. 14, at the age of 103, The Associated Press reported that multiple military organizations listed the United Methodist as the conflict’s last living U.S. flying ace.
For all his military distinctions, loved ones said McPherson most wanted to be remembered for his dedication to family, community and the Christian faith.
He grew up in Adams, Nebraska, and that’s where he returned after the war. He married his beloved wife, Thelma, on Aug.17, 1944, and together they raised two sons and two daughters on their farm.
McPherson spent most of his life working as a farmer and over 20 years as a rural letter carrier. He was a lifelong member of Adams United Methodist Church, where he held multiple leadership roles.
Active in the community, he was a leader of the Adams Veterans of Foreign Wars and American Legion and scoutmaster for Troop 280. He also was an organizer, promoter and coach for the Adams summer baseball and softball leagues. The community later named the ballfield McPherson Field in honor of Donald and Thelma, who often kept score and ran the concession stand during games. His wife of more than 50 years and his son Steve preceded him in death.
The Rev. Dean McPherson, his son and a former United Methodist pastor, spoke at the funeral about how important faith was to his father.
Whenever his parents visited, he said, they would attend worship at whatever church he was serving at the time. His mother typically would then return home after the first service to spend more time with her grandchildren. His dad, however, would continue to join the pastor at every service he led, even when that involved traveling to other congregations in a multi-point charge. Once the elder McPherson joined his son in the laying of hands, praying with each worshipper no matter how long it took.
The younger McPherson recounted how his father’s guidance for driving a tractor plow also taught him about faith.
After he struggled with driving the machine in a straight line, his father told him to drive the plow while keeping his head and his eyes pointed straight ahead at the tree at the other end of the field.
“When I got to the other end of the field, it was the straightest row I’d ever plowed,” McPherson said. “That was the day that Dad taught me the importance of fixing your eyes on what is important. For Dad, that was Jesus Christ.”
Helen Ryde
Helen Valerie Ryde, a United Methodist home missioner and longtime leader in advocacy for LGBTQ equality, died unexpectedly Sept. 2 at home in Lake Junaluska, North Carolina. Ryde, who used they/them pronouns, was just nine days shy of their 60th birthday.
For 13 years, Ryde worked with the advocacy group Reconciling Ministries Network, which sought LGBTQ inclusion in all aspects of United Methodist life. Ryde — elected in 2019 as part of the Western North Carolina Conference’s delegation to General Conference — also was co-convener of the United Methodist Queer Delegate Caucus, which represented LGBTQ voters at last year’s lawmaking assembly.
Ryde’s organizational skills contributed to the historic General Conference that voted to end denomination-wide bans on the ordination of “self-avowed practicing” gay clergy and the officiation of same-sex weddings. The gathering also eliminated a 52-year-old church stance that called “the practice of homosexuality … incompatible with Christian teaching”
In the immediate aftermath of last year’s General Conference, Ryde celebrated the changes but also mourned that they took so long.
“It’s a bittersweet moment because there is the sweetness that all of that language is now finally gone,” Ryde told United Methodist News. “There’s also the sadness for all those who are no longer here, who left for all kinds of reasons.”
Ryde was born in Cuckfield, England. After earning degrees at Canterbury Christ Church College, they began their career as a teacher at a U.K. boys’ school. They received a U.S. work visa and took a teaching job in Rutland, Massachusetts. There, Ryde met future wife Kate Schiappa, whom they affectionately called “Mrs. Lovely.”
The couple in 2005 moved to Provincetown, Massachusetts, where Ryde worked as technology trainer, and the two found a nurturing spiritual home at Providence United Methodist Church.
Looking to do more with life, Ryde applied after seeing an ad for a position with Reconciling Ministries Network. This year, they took on a new role as the group’s director of mission impact.
At the time of Ryde’s death, they were already helping the denomination to build a more inclusive future. They were helping to launch Love First Haywood United Methodist Church, an emerging faith community. Ryde also was secretary of the United Methodist Board of Church and Society, the denomination’s social-witness agency, and a member of the Methodist Federation for Social Action’s racial audit team.
“In their community, they were a stalwart friend to people marginalized by oppression,” Jan Lawrence, executive director of Reconciling Ministries Network, wrote in a tribute. “They were uniquely courageous — in spite of or perhaps because of the harm they experienced at the Church’s hand. In a world where we too often segregate ourselves by our convictions, Helen Ryde forded the waters with grace time and again.”
The Rev. Abisay Lameck Juwakali
The Rev. Abisay Lameck Juwakali, director of the Sebring Mwanza Mission Center and an influential leader in Tanzania, died Oct. 5 at Bukumbi Hospital following a traffic accident. He was 69.
The accident occurred in the evening near the mission center, when he was struck by a vehicle while attempting to cross the street to his home.
Juwakali was a passionate advocate of the Gospel lived out through concrete acts of service, friends said.
Appointed in March as the bishop’s representative and director of the Sebring Mwanza Mission Center, he was the driving force behind a vision that integrated spiritual growth with educational, health and community development.
Under Juwakali’s leadership, the Sebring Mwanza Mission Center strengthened its education programs, St. Lazarus Hospital, and commitment to interfaith cohesion.
Bishop Mande Muyombo, who oversees the Northern Katanga and Tanzania Episcopal Area, praised his commitment.
“Rev. Abisay was an inspiration to young pastors in terms of dedication to The United Methodist Church,” said Muyombo, who is also president of the United Methodist Colleges of Bishops in Africa as well as president-designate for the denomination’s Council of Bishops.
“He embodied a holistic understanding of the gospel of Jesus Christ through personal and social holiness.”
Dorothy Lindman Ogle
Dorothy Lindman Ogle, a United Methodist missionary who served in South Korea alongside her husband, the Rev. George E. Ogle, died Oct. 30 in Boulder, Colorado. She was 89.
United Methodists remember her as a tireless advocate for workers’ rights, democracy, human rights and peace on the Korean Peninsula.
Born in Chicago in 1935, she grew up in a Swedish American family and worked as a public health nurse serving urban poor communities. Her life changed when she met George Ogle, a young Methodist missionary. After their marriage in 1959, the couple traveled by cargo ship to South Korea, beginning 15 years of ministry during a time of rapid industrialization and political unrest.
In Incheon, she and her husband helped establish the Incheon Industrial Evangelism project, the forerunner of the Incheon Urban Industrial Mission, alongside Korean Christian leaders. While her husband ministered among factory workers, she raised their four children, taught English and supported local women and working-class families.
Their ministry confronted injustice directly. During the authoritarian Yushin era, George Ogle advocated for political prisoners connected to the Inhyeokdang case. For his public prayers and support for their families, he was expelled from South Korea in 1974. The family returned to the United States shortly before the execution of eight defendants — an event that deeply grieved George Ogle for the rest of his life.
Even after their expulsion, the Ogles continued their advocacy for Korean democracy and human rights. Her husband taught at Emory University and later served with the United Methodist Board of Church and Society. She became executive director of the North American Coalition for Human Rights in Korea, where she tirelessly informed U.S. churches, the U.S. Congress and civic groups about Korea’s human rights struggles. She visited North Korea in 1984 with the American Friends Service Committee, affirming her lifelong commitment to peace.
The couple returned to South Korea several times after democratization and received honors, including a human rights award in 2002. After retirement, the Ogles settled in Colorado, where she cared for her husband through his final years until his death in 2020.
Korean church leaders remember Dorothy Ogle as a courageous, principled Christian who stood with workers, farmers, prisoners of conscience and the marginalized.
Bishop Hee-Soo Jung, a Korean American who leads the East Ohio and West Ohio conferences, said her life embodied the Gospel’s deepest demands for justice, reconciliation and compassion.
“I was blessed to know Dorothy as a friend and mentor — someone who always reminded me that leadership in the Church must flow from the same moral courage that she and George lived out every day,” he wrote. “Her kindness was steady, her faith unshakable, her commitment to the least and the lost unwavering.”
He added that “her life continues to speak — a song of peace that crosses borders, a witness of love that endures beyond time.”
Bishop Violet L. Fisher
Bishop Violet L. Fisher made history as the first Black woman elected bishop in The United Methodist Church’s Northeastern Jurisdiction.
Friends say she never hesitated to go where she felt the Holy Spirit was leading, even down paths others feared to tread.
Retired Bishop Susan M. Morrison recalled that when Fisher was still a relatively new United Methodist pastor in the late 1980s, she reached out to Morrison — then a new bishop — to ask for help in comforting a pastor dying of AIDS. Morrison was so impressed by her willingness to do all she could to extend pastoral care that the bishop soon named Fisher as a district superintendent in the Eastern Pennsylvania Conference. In that role, Fisher served on the cabinet that advises the bishop and became widely known for her leadership skills.
Fisher had just stepped down as the conference’s cabinet dean when the Northeastern Jurisdiction elected her bishop in 2000.
The trailblazing bishop, called Vi by her friends, led what were then the Western New York and North Central New York conferences until her retirement in 2008. She died Nov. 17 at Homestead Manor in Denton, Maryland, on the state’s Eastern Shore. She was 86.
Fisher was born into a Methodist family in Easton, Maryland — about 25 miles from where she died.
She recounted that she became a born-again believer at age 11, felt called to preach at 14 and delivered her first sermon at 16. But she experienced her call at a time when ordained ministry was largely inaccessible to women, especially in what was then the Delaware Conference in the segregated Central Jurisdiction.
So, she began her career as a teacher after earning a bachelor’s degree from Bowie State University in Maryland and a master’s degree in education from George Washington University in D.C. She taught in public schools in Virginia and Maryland for 22 years. She also received ordination in what is now the King’s Apostle Church World Ministries, part of the Pentecostal tradition. With that denomination, she was a national evangelist and a short-term missionary in East Africa, Haiti and Jamaica.
She ultimately felt called to return to what is now The United Methodist Church, where women finally could receive full clergy rights, and the segregation of Black members was no longer church policy.
Fellow United Methodists remember Fisher not only as a caring pastor but also as a powerful preacher and trusted mentor who charted a path for other church leaders.
“Bishop Violet Fisher was a pioneer whose ministry broke barriers and built bridges,” said Council of Bishops President Tracy S. Malone in a statement. Malone, who also leads the Indiana Conference, is herself the first Black woman to be the bishops’ president.
“Her unwavering faith, prophetic voice and deep compassion left an indelible mark on our church and on all who were blessed to walk alongside her. We give thanks for her life and legacy.”
The Rev. Øyvind Helliesen
The Rev. Øyvind Helliesen’s name might not be familiar to many United Methodists, but they know the impact of his ministry.
Helliesen — a Norwegian church leader first elected to the denomination’s top court in 2016 and re-elected in 2024 — helped guide The United Methodist Church through one of the most turbulent periods in its 241-year history.
With a calm presence and deep understanding of church law, he contributed to Judicial Council decisions dealing with the denomination’s disputes over homosexuality, delays caused by COVID-19 and, eventually, the disaffiliation process used by thousands of congregations to leave.
Helliesen died Nov. 25 in his native Norway at the age of 69. His survivors include his wife, Tove, whom he married in 1979, as well as their three children and their families. At the time of his death, he was the Judicial Council’s vice president.
Influenced by the Jesus movement — an evangelical revival that began in California and spread to Europe in the 1970s — he became a committed Christian and also felt the call to pastoral ministry. He went on to serve as a pastor of multiple churches, as a district superintendent for two terms and as a hospital chaplain.
Even before his tenure on the Judicial Council, Helliesen served the denomination in a variety of international leadership roles. He was a delegate to General Conference and a member of the denomination’s General Council on Ministries and its successor, the Connectional Table, which coordinates denomination-wide ministries. He also was a member of the European Methodist Council and World Methodist Council.
He was among the relatively few Judicial Council members from the former central conferences — church regional bodies in Africa, Europe and the Philippines. Multiple Judicial Council members said his central conference experience proved critical to the church court’s deliberations.
“His death leaves a hole in our hearts and leaves the absence of a sage and graceful voice in the Judicial Council,” said the Rev. Susan Henry-Crowe, current Judicial Council president and previously the church court’s president from 2008 to 2012.
“He was knowledgeable, wise, prudent and faithful. He loved The United Methodist Church and did all in his power to help it flourish.”
The Rev. Lois V. Glory-Neal
The Rev. Lois V. Glory-Neal, the first Native American woman ordained an elder in The United Methodist Church, died Nov. 29 in Blanchard, Oklahoma. She was 94.
The trailblazer, who was proud to be a full-blooded Cherokee, pursued ordination relatively late in life.
For three decades, she was lay partner in the ministry of her husband, the Rev. Oliver B. Neal Jr. She accompanied her husband — a Chickasaw and member of the Oklahoma Indian Missionary Conference — as he pastored 12 United Methodist churches in Oklahoma and another on the Fort Yuma Indian Reservation in Arizona. She also joined him in accepting the late Bishop Charles Golden’s request to plant a Native American church in Los Angeles. The two moved to California in 1975 and cultivated the new church even as they raised their seven children.
However, Glory-Neal’s life forever changed when four years into their time in Los Angeles, her husband died suddenly. After his passing in 1979, she later recounted, she received a “sacred, intimate call” to ordained ministry. She knew her call would require four years of college followed by seminary.
At age 50, she enrolled at United Methodist-related Oklahoma City University with support from the Oklahoma Indian Missionary Conference. She earned a bachelor’s degree in 1984, followed by a Master of Divinity from United Methodist-related Saint Paul School of Theology in 1988.
That same year, when she was 58, she made history when the Oklahoma Indian Missionary Conference approved her as an elder in full connection. In 1992, she made history again as the first Native American to serve as district superintendent.
Her dedication to the faith manifested in other leadership roles — as lay leader, United Methodist Women president at the local and district levels, and as the first Native American board member of the United Methodist Commission on the Status and Role of Women.
She also was Native American speaker and liaison for the United Methodist Board of Global Ministries and mission interpreter for the Oklahoma Indiana Missionary Conference. Her many honors included a distinguished alumni award and honorary doctorate from Oklahoma City University and a Distinguished Graduate Award from Saint Paul School of Theology.
Friends remember Glory-Neal for opening the way for other women to lead.
“She always talked about being the only woman on the cabinet, but she held her ground on what she felt was a calling upon her heart as a woman district superintendent,” said the Rev. Margaret Johnson, a Mississippi Choctaw who regards Glory-Neal as a mentor. Johnson is the assistant to the bishop for the Oklahoma Indian Missionary Conference.
“She went forth, and she did what needed to be done.”
Ann Bedsole
Ann Smith Bedsole, the first woman elected to the Alabama State Senate and founder of the Alabama School of Mathematics and Science, died Dec. 1 in Mobile, Alabama. She was 95.
Many in the state described Bedsole as a renaissance woman and barrier breaker. Before serving in the state senate from 1983 to 1995, she was the first Republican woman to serve in the Alabama House of Representatives from 1979 to 1983.
In Bedsole’s honor, Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey ordered flags to be flown at half-mast on Dec. 5.
As committed as Bedsole was to her state, she also was committed to her spiritual home of more than 60 years — Dauphin Way United Methodist Church in Mobile.
She and her late husband, Palmer, first came to the church somewhat unwittingly, said the Rev. Gillian Walters, the church’s senior pastor, during Bedsole’s celebration of life service.
Her two older children, Mary and John, had started attending Dauphin Way so they could go to church with their friends. When the two decided to officially join the church, the pastor at the time — the Rev. Carl Adkins — invited the Bedsoles to come to the service. Upon receiving the youngsters as new members, Adkins then announced to the congregation that their parents were joining too. The two parents were stunned. Neither had made a request to join the church.
But as Bedsole later recounted, she was delighted to be back in the Methodist fold. She had grown up at what is now First United Methodist Church in Jackson, Alabama.
Walters said Bedsole — a graduate of the University of Alabama and United Methodist-related University of Denver — lived out her faith in her public service. As chair of the Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry Committee, Bedsole championed the wise stewardship of Alabama’s natural resources, living out her belief in caring for God’s creation.
She also championed two pivotal bills that changed lives in the state. The first gave more rights to widows whose husbands died without a will. The second created the 911 system in Alabama.
Her passion for education led her to establish the Alabama School of Mathematics and Science in Mobile, the first fully public residential high school of its kind in the state. The school continues to be ranked among the best public high schools in the U.S. The library on campus bears her name.
She also was the driving force in establishing the Sybil Smith Family Village, a local shelter for women and children, and volunteered countless hours to its work.
Proceeds from her appropriately named autobiography “Leave Your Footprint” go to support the Sybil Smith Family Village.
“Through every act of service in the church, the statehouse and the community,” Walters said, “Ann has embodied what it means to live one’s faith in the public square, serving with grace, wisdom and a deep love for God and neighbor.”
The Rev. Eugénio Tomás Mbulo
When Bishop Joaquina Filipe Nhanala made history in 2008, so did her husband, the Rev. Eugénio Tomás Mbulo.
In July 2008, Nhanala became the first woman to be elected a United Methodist bishop on the African continent and her husband became the first African man to take on the role of United Methodist bishop’s spouse.
Tomás was a United Methodist pastor in his own right. He served the church in Mozambique in a number of leadership roles. Most recently, he was director of the Ricatla Ecumenical Seminary in Maputo and as a lecturer, shaping and forming future generations of Christian leaders.
But he also supported his wife as she took on the role of leading United Methodists in Mozambique, South Africa and eventually Madagascar. She retired earlier this year.
Tomás died Dec. 3, following a long period of illness. He was 77.
He and Nhanala married in 1976. The 1985 Mozambique Annual Conference accepted them both as theological students, and they both received sponsorship from the Women’s Fellowship.
They attended Gbarnga School of Theology in Liberia. When the civil war in Liberia disrupted the couple’s studies, they moved to Ghana and then Kenya to continue their education. The two have four adult children.
Bishop João Filimone Sambo, who succeeded Nhanala as bishop of the Mozambique-South Africa-Eswatini-Madagascar Episcopal Area, remembered Tomás as “a humble and caring man.”
Sambo also described Tomás as “a giant who knew how to put love in action in every place where he served. A teacher, a pastor and counsellor par excellence, whose legacy will continue to impact The UMC and those with whom he served.”
“Rev. Eugenio will be missed for countless things, including his humility,” Sambo said.
Hahn is assistant news editor for UM News. Contact her at (615) 742-5470 or [email protected].
Information for this story was compiled from UM News reports by Jim Patterson, the Rev. Thomas E. Kim, Gladys P. Mangiduyos, Asaph Sungura Ally and Chadrack Tambwe Londe. Ken Garfield of the Western North Carolina Conference and Joe Henderson of the Florida Conference also contributed.
