Stamford, CT: Fourteen United Methodists--ten of them African bishops--were honored tonight with the first ever Awards for Distinguished Mission Service. Presented by the denomination's General Board of Global Ministries at its annual meeting in Stamford, Connecticut, the awards bear the names of mission pioneers and recognize exemplars of twentieth-century mission leadership as models for a new millennium.

At a banquet celebration sponsored by the Board's Millennium Fund for Mission--a GBGM initiative, chaired by Bishop Felton E. May, which provides funds to support church growth and the restoration of church buildings in Eastern Europe, Africa, and US inner cities--the following presentations were made:

• The Anna Eklund Award--named for the Swedish deaconess who served in Russia from 1908 until 1931, feeding and clothing the needy of St. Petersburg and keeping the Methodist Church there alive for two decades after the Russian Revolution--to...

  Dr. Christiana (Chris) Hena, a native of Liberia and a medical doctor trained in Russia, who in 1991 became the first United Methodist missionary to serve the church full time in Russia in more than 70 years.

• The Frank Mason North Award--named for a foreign missions executive of the early 1900s who wrote the hymn, "Where Cross the Crowded Ways of Life"--to two recipients who helped make the 1968 union of The Methodist Church and the Evangelical United Brethren Church a success:

  Dr. J. Edward Carothers, age 92, a pastor, teacher, author, and national mission executive with the former Methodist Church Board of Missions, who established the Methodist Urban Service Training (MUST) program in the 1960s...and

  Dr. Norman W. Klump, age 89, an ecumenical leader and urban ministry executive of the former EUB Church, who helped to inaugurate the EUB second-mile giving program for missions.

• The Everell Stanton Collins Award--named for the late owner and manager of the Collins Pine Company, who in 1940 left 60 percent of his timberlands to the Methodist Board of Foreign Missions, a gift that has yielded over $100 million to fund missionary pensions--to...

  Maribeth Wilson Collins, his daughter-in-law, a civic leader, philanthropist, and president of the Collins Foundation, who was recognized for her faithful, committed support of the mission program of her church.

• The Distinguished Peacemaker Award - Africa--dedicated to the strengthening of the leaders who maintain the unity of the church in times of conflict and hardship--to...

  The United Methodist Bishops of Africa:

  Bishop Fama Onema of Central Congo, who accepted the award on behalf of his colleagues;

  Bishop Emilio De Carvalho of Western Angola;

  Bishop Done Peter Dabale of Nigeria;

  Bishop Joseph C. Humper of Sierra Leone;

  Bishop Christopher Jokomo of Zimbabwe;

  Bishop Kainda Katembo of Southern Congo;

  Bishop Arthur F. Kulah of Liberia;

  Bishop João Somane Machado of Mozambique;

  Bishop J. Alfred Ndoricimpa of East Africa;

  Bishop Nkulu Ntanda Ntambo of North Katanga, Congo.

Dr. Randolph Nugent, General Secretary of the GBGM, cited the African bishops for their courage in life-threatening conditions and their work as a reconciling force.

The festive dinner was preceded by a reception attended by many former presidents of the GBGM and other special guests who had come to honor the award recipients. The award celebration was intended not only to celebrate past and present mission achievement but to stimulate future mission giving. To this end, the General Board of Global Ministries provided directors and guests with an informational packet, including an instruction sheet encouraging United Methodist jurisdictions, conferences, districts, and local churches to sponsor their own Millennium Fund Mission Recognition Dinners. The funds raised at such a dinner can be designated for specific Millennium Fund projects, with the GBGM matching the amounts raised at the jurisdictional and conference events.

The Millennium Fund is part of the General Advance. General monetary contributions can be made to Advance No. 9822200-0. Gifts for US projects should be directed to Advance No. 982701-2; for Africa, Advance No. 011111-0 XX; and for Europe, Advance No. 000396-OR-A. Gifts can be made through local churches or forwarded to Advance GCFA, P. O. Box 9068, GPO, New York, NY 10087-9068.

Seven million of the nine million dollars allocated by the GBGM as seed money for the Millennium Fund has already been spent. After all the introductory and acceptance speeches at the banquet had ended, Curtis Henderson closed the event with an anecdote about a church contributor who asked her pastor if a check for $50 was enough. "If it represents you," he responded, "then it's all right." She came back repeatedly, asking the same question and getting the same reply as she offered substitute checks, first for $500, then for $5000, and finally for $50,000. The church was similarly challenged to build a Millennium Fund for Mission that represents United Methodist commitment to church growth and evangelism in the third millennium of Christendom.

*Alma Graham is Editor of New World Outlook, the Mission Magazine of The United Methodist Church.