WPA Woman Works in, Takes Dresses to Cambodia
Who is your neighbor? For Karen Vanderhoff of Bethany UMC in Johnstown, answering that question involved her second trip halfway around the globe.
Karen traveled to Cambodia with a Volunteers in Mission (UMVIM) team from Virginia in January of 2005 and returned for follow-up work with the Methodist Mission in Cambodia this year.
During her 3-week mission trip, Karen worked with Irene Mparutsa, a UMC General Board of Global Missions (GBGM) missionary from Zimbabwe who has worked in Cambodia the past 12 years. Together with other GBGM staff, Karen and Irene helped to train pastors and church workers in a specialized ministry called “Good Samaritans,” and also offered ongoing training to pastors about their role in mobilizing the church in the community.
The Good Samaritans are a group of dedicated Christians who are working to bring health care awareness to people in the remote villages of Cambodia. This includes providing water filters to improve drinking water, assisting families who have loved ones in the hospital, and informing villagers about health care and medical facilities that are available to them. While meeting the very real need for health care, the Good Samaritans then offer spiritual care as well, sharing the gospel of Christ and seeking to connect people with a local church.
While there, Karen distributed 44 girl’s dresses that were made by WPA United Methodists through a ministry initiated during the Conference School of Mission, which helped her to connect with the Cambodian pastors. “Meeting people’s physical needs and then their spiritual needs is definitely a priority for the Methodist Mission in Cambodia,” Karen says.
The Methodist Mission in Cambodia is a recently established organization that has united several different churches under one umbrella, enabling a better structure for ministry to take place. Before this union,The United Methodist Church, the Korean Methodist Church, the Methodist Church of Singapore, and the World Federation of Chinese Methodist Churches all worked independently in Cambodia, planting churches and training their own pastors.
“With all of these separate organizations, there was a lot of overlap in the ministry that was taking place,”Vanderhoff said. “Together, they are all now known as the Methodist Mission in Cambodia and they are able to accomplish so much more.”
Irene Mparutsa visited Western PA in 2007, speaking at several of our conference churches. She will return in the fall of 2009 to share more about the exciting ministries taking place with the Good Samaritans and the Methodist Mission in Cambodia.
To invite Irene to come to your church, or for more information, e-mail Karen Vanderhoff below .
Karen Vanderhoff Email