Josephine Deere
Director, Women’s Division of the
United Methodist General Board of Global Ministries
Muscogee/Creek

I wasn’t very vocal. I sat back, and I listened. At one time, I served as conference president of Oklahoma Indian Missionary Conference United Methodist Women. I made a comment that [the Women’s Division] had consulted with other ethnic groups, but they had never had a consultation with Native Americans, and I wanted to know why. I never got an answer. When I got on the Women’s Division as a director, I guess you could say that was my soapbox. I wanted our Native women to be at least seen, at least acknowledged.

The Women’s Division has really helped me in becoming stronger in my beliefs. When I was elected a second quadrennium, I was nominated as secretary. When you see officers of the Women’s Division, you see all our ethnicities. …I am very proud of that. I think this has been a great step for us. Now, I am more vocal. I stand up for our women. I always say I represent all Native women across our church because that’s how I feel. What I do as a Women’s Division director is going to help our women. I don’t think I was held back, but I believe there were times I wasn’t heard; and there were other times I was heard by some but not by everyone. I think that goes for all ethnics. People may say they hear us, but they don’t. Serving as a Women’s Division director helped me to really grow as a person and as a Native woman.

Women are the backbone of our churches…maybe all churches are the same. Women are second mile, third mile, fourth mile givers of our churches because we support our churches, and we support United Methodist Women. If it weren’t for United Methodist Women, some of our churches would not exist. At a point, males were the ministers, and the only thing women did in the church was Sunday school superintendent secretary. We have overcome that. We have several lay missioners. I was a lay missioner. A lot of our clergywomen have come out of our conference United Methodist Women.

I am proud of my heritage. I am proud of who I am. And I think that every Native American is proud of who they are. I hope the church will see that and go forward with it, and not just embrace and say, “I accept you for who you are,” and that’s it. Instead, 10 years down the road, I hope the church will say, “She’s my sister.” That will help our sisters and brothers…in this great church of ours.