wfn.org | Bevins to become director of Latin America fund

[NewsDesk <NewsDesk@UMCOM.ORG>]

June 10, 2002  News media contact: Linda Bloom7(212) 870-38037New York
10-32-71B{247}

NEW YORK (UMNS) -- A director of financial development has been named for
Encounter with Christ in Latin America and the Caribbean, a mission
initiative of the United Methodist Board of Global Ministries.

Effective July 1, the Rev. C. Rex Bevins will help lead the $25 million
fund-raising drive for the board's permanent fund, No. 025100, which is
designed to support mission partnerships with Methodist churches throughout
the Southern Hemisphere. Bevins is retiring at the end of June as senior
pastor of St. Paul United Methodist Church in Lincoln, Neb.

His assignment will include strengthening the denomination's partnership
with the Council of Evangelical Methodist Churches of Latin America and the
Caribbean, known as CIEMAL, according to the Rev. Wilson Boots, a missionary
interpreter for the fund. About 19 of the autonomous Methodist bodies in the
region are CIEMAL members.

"Along with looking East and West, we're moving to a very important time of
looking South," Boots said. More than 20 CIEMAL bishops are expected to meet
with members of the United Methodist Council of Bishops when the council
gathers in November in Puerto Rico.

United Methodist Bishops Joel Martinez of San Antonio, Elias Galvan of
Seattle and Sharon Brown Christopher of Springfield, Ill., have given
particular support for the initiative, he added. 

Encounter for Christ received $50,000 this year from the Board of Global
Ministries to devise ways to meet the fund-raising goals set by its advisory
board. Boots said that financial support for the fund would soon reach $1
million, at which point its income will be used to provide annual support
for mission work. He expects the first designation of income for various
projects to occur in 2003, through joint consultation among the leaders of
CIEMAL, the Methodist Church of the Caribbean and Americas, and the Board of
Global Ministries.

Bevins currently serves on the Judicial Council, the supreme court of the
United Methodist Church. Before his appointment to St. Paul's in 1980, he
was executive director of ministries in the Nebraska Annual Conference. He
served as a director of the Board of Global Ministries from 1976 to 1984 and
of the United Methodist Board of Discipleship from 1984 to 1992. His
fund-raising experience has included successful capital campaigns for St.
Paul's Church, resulting in more than $8 million for new construction and
renovation.
# # #

*************************************
United Methodist News Service
Photos and stories also available at:
http://umns.umc.org