Bishop Ward and Edith Gleaves talk about Mission of Hope, a joint ministry of the NC Conference and the Sierre Leone Conference to bring healthcare to women and children in one of the poorest countries on the continent of Africa.
Grace and peace to you in the name of Jesus Christ.
We celebrate the mission of The United Methodist Church in all the world. Rev. Edie Gleaves is superintendent of the Harbor district. She’s a phenomenal mission leader in North Carolina and around the world and we give thanks for your leadership and energy in the Mission of Hope. Tell us about it.
REV. GLEAVES: Mission of Hope is exactly what it says. It’s a mission of hope. It’s a partnership between the North Carolina Annual Conference and the Sierra Leone Annual Conference. Together, we are rebuilding a hospital in RotiFunk in Sierra Leone, which is part of West Africa. The hope is that women and children will receive renewed health care in the name of Christ through our partnership. In Sierra Leone, which is one of the poorest countries on the continent of Africa, only about up to 8 percent of children don’t make it to their first year of life and then, if when they become 5 years old, about 18 percent of those won’t make it to 5 years old. So this is an effort to help our brothers and sisters, hand in hand with them, to minister health to the children and to the mothers of the children in this hospital with the ultimate hope of making it a full service hospital, but at this time, we’re focusing on maternity, on women and mothers and their babies.
BISHOP WARD: Thank you Edie, and thank you Harbor district for leading us all. We invite your generosity to the RotiFunk Hospital Mission of Hope work and to other places to which you are called out into all the world.