Ardell Graner

Ardell Graner

A missionary with the Board of Global Ministries of The United Methodist Church, Ardell Graner is serving in solidarity with the Evangelical Methodist Church in Bolivia.

The Graners were first assigned to Bolivia in 1989 to serve at the Tiu Rancho retreat and discipleship center located in a rural community 20 miles outside the city of Cochabamba. That project was established in 1960 as a retreat center for Methodist youth and as an agricultural center.

Ardell directs the Thiu Rancho Center along with her husband and a Bolivian Methodist pastor. Together they work and minister in the areas of pastoral formation providing discipleship and preparation for over 150 lay-pastors in the Bolivian Methodist church. They also minister in cross-cultural mission awareness with volunteer-in-mission teams who come to the center. Ardell oversees young adult tutors and teachers from the Tiu Rancho community offering a rural Montessori school for 3-5 year old children from the local farming community. She also organizes a library, an after-school tutoring program, and wholistic health services for the children and their families.

Co-leading the national Sunday School teachers and pastors as they have adapted, prepared and written materials in order to share the Good News of Jesus Christ through a culturally appropriate and sensitive Sunday School curriculum is another way Ardell serves the church.

A native of McHenry, N.D., Ardell holds a Bachelor of Science in Horticulture from North Dakota State University (NDSU) in Fargo. She completed a Masters of Education at the University of Minnesota in 2000.

While living in Chicago Ardell and husband Gordon worked for the World Relief Refugee Program. During that time they sponsored a young Vietnamese refugee in their home and assisted him in resettling in Chicago. Ardell taught English as a second language to newly arrived refugees at a private college and a public college in Chicago. She worked at the University of Kentucky in Lexington for two years doing tomato research while Gordon was attending seminary. Prior to that, Ardell worked a number of years as a laboratory technician in entomology at North Dakota State University doing research on sunflower insects.

Ardell and Gordon have three children: Jenny, Samuel, and Hannah. Hannah was born in Cochabamba and holds dual US and Bolivan citizenship.

Missionary code: 10836Z
Last update: 1/09
E-mail: bolgraner@hotmail.com

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See also
Gordon Graner
Other missionaries working in | Bolivia | South America |
Other missionaries working as | GBGM MISSIONARY |

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