Paul Jeffrey will be itinerating in our conference November 19-15, visiting his sponsoring churches. The Rev. Paul Jeffrey is a missionary documenting the work of the church around the world as senior correspondent for Response, the magazine of United Methodist Women, and as a media specialist for Action by Churches Together (the ACT Alliance), a Geneva-based global alliance of churches and church agencies responding to emergencies. He has filed stories from more than 70 countries around the world, writing about everything from hurricanes to healthcare, massacres to indigenous rights, refugees to ecumenism. In the course of his work,

Helen Sheperd will be itinerating in our conference from January 4-20, 2014. Helen Sheperd is a missionary serving in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. Prior to her assignment to Mongolia, Helen served in Seoul, Korea from 1992 to 2001 as director of Severance Hospice (home-care program), a project of Yonsei University, College of Nursing. Her transfer was requested to help establish the United Methodist mission presence in Mongolia, with major focus on starting the hospice movement. Since her arrival to Mongolia in 2002, Helen’s goals have undergone frequent change. Initially, establishing a Global Ministries presence by obtaining property for the first mission center was a major task. Now, as a nurse, directing the Grace Hospice home-care program and building relationships are her main functions. Plans for expansion of the hospice program have changed not only due to financial constraints, but also due to the need for focusing on improvement of the quality of care and the depth of faith of the staff working in hospice. Leadership development is also a main concern for future management of the program.

Though Rev. Jeffrey’s schedule is full, Helen Sheperd still has a few weekdays open for churches who might want her to visit. Contact Kay Grimmesey, Missionary Itineration for the Cal-Pac Conference at kgrimmesey@hotmail.com if you wish to have Helen speak at your church.