wfn.org | Women's commission will get two new leaders Sept. 1

[NewsDesk <NewsDesk@UMCOM.ORG>]

April 25, 2002   News media contact: Tim Tanton7(615)742-54707Nashville,
Tenn.  10-31-35-71BP{185}

NOTE: Photographs are available. For further coverage of the General Council
on Ministries' meeting, see UMNS stories #183-184 and #186-187.

OKLAHOMA CITY (UMNS) - Two top staff executives have been approved to lead
the United Methodist Commission on the Status and Role of Women, beginning
this fall.

The Rev. Soomee Kim and the Rev. Raponzil "Ra" Drake were approved by the
General Council on Ministries during an April 19-23 meeting in Oklahoma
City. The council elects general secretaries (top staff executives) of most
of the denominationwide agencies.

The new co-general secretaries will take office Sept. 1, becoming the first
two clergywomen of color - Kim is Korean American, Drake is African American
- to lead the agency. They will succeed the Rev. Stephanie Anna Hixon, still
on staff, and laywoman Cecelia Long, who now serves as GCOM's conciliar
officer. The change in leadership was dictated by the denomination's 12-year
term limit for general secretaries.

Hixon will stay at the women's commission until Dec. 31 to help with
transition. Long left at the end of 2001 to join the GCOM staff in Dayton,
Ohio.

The commission advocates the empowerment of women and monitors gender
inclusiveness in the church's institutions. Based in Evanston, Ill., it is
the only churchwide agency with two general secretaries.

Kim, 45, pastor of First United Methodist Church of San Fernando, Calif.,
has served on COSROW's governing commission since 2000. Drake, 43, pastor of
Newman United Methodist Church in Lincoln, Neb., previously worked with the
Memphis and Nebraska conference commissions on the status and role of women.

Born in a Buddhist home in South Korea, Kim moved with her family to
California when she was 18 and converted to Christianity at age 22. Eight
years later, as an elementary school teacher, she heard the call to
ministry. "My call came from God, and everybody else thought I was crazy,"
she said.

As a first-generation Christian and a Korean-American woman, she became a
trailblazer. She received her master of divinity degree from Claremont
(Calif.) School of Theology in 1993.

Drake has been active in the church since her childhood in Memphis. As she
sat in the front pew of Golden United Methodist Church, she never thought
that a woman could or should preach, she said. That changed when she was a
sophomore in high school and ran in an 880 relay. In the third leg of the
race, her foot hurting, she heard God speaking to her. "The clouds were
breaking, there was beautiful sunlight. ... God said, 'I am with you. You
can do this.'" At that moment, she said, she heard God calling her to
ministry.

Though her pastor encouraged her to answer the call, members of her family
were against the idea. Respecting her family's wishes, she got an accounting
degree but remained active in the church. The call became so strong,
however, that she finally responded, getting her master of divinity degree
from Memphis Theological Seminary in 1987 and her doctorate of ministry two
years later.

Before approving the candidates on April 20, GCOM members discussed the fact
that both are clergywomen and expressed concern about ensuring the
representation of laywomen. The council was told that COSROW had launched a
second search in hope of drawing lay candidates, and that the search
committee ultimately felt both Drake and Kim would serve laywomen well.
Though Hixon and Long represented clergy and laity, that mix has not always
been the case at COSROW. The agency's first general secretariat was filled
by three laywomen.

Drake has two daughters in college and a son at home.

Kim and her husband, the Rev. Keith Andrew Hwang, an associate director of
connectional ministries and conference secretary in the California-Pacific
Annual Conference, have a son who is preparing for a teaching career and a
daughter in college.
# # #

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United Methodist News Service
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