Mary Louise Escobar now serving in Paraguay. 

Born in the United States, Mary Louise Escobar serves as director of the Mary Jo Phillips Daycare Center in the underserved Santa Rosa neighborhood of Asunción, the capital of Paraguay. She draws upon her experience as a bilingual teacher and educational diagnostician, showing God’s love for the single mothers and families who rely on the center’s subsidized services. 

“We provide a safe, clean, loving Christian environment,” she says. “The daycare is like an oasis in a desert. There’s always a waiting list!” Read about the work that is empowered by your generosity.

Rev. Olga González now serving in the United States. 

For the Rev. Olga González, following God’s call to serve Hispanic communities in the United States meant leaving home and family behind in Puerto Rico, and then saying goodbye once again—this time to the New York church she and her husband Andres A. Gonzalez had loved and served for 10 years. 

“I can identify with the call of Abraham,” she says. “God called Abraham to leave his country, his family, and all that was known to him for a new place he did not know.” 

Today, at Lehman Memorial United Methodist Church in Hatboro, Pennsylvania, Rev. González works with Spanish-speaking migrant persons from Mexico, Nicaragua, Guatemala, and Honduras, using her own experience with grief to help them manage theirs as she connects them to interpreters, Bible studies, and necessities like food and clothing. 

“They need to feel welcome and to know that God loves them,” she says.

Rev. Dexter Ceballos and his wife Laraine Abobon-Ceballos now serving in Mongolia. 

For Rev. Dexter Ceballos and his wife Laraine Abobon-Ceballos—and for many missionaries—one of the hardest challenges of the work is living apart from family. Leaving the Philippines for Mongolia meant saying goodbye to their family and community. 

But as the grandson of a longtime Methodist minister, Rev. Ceballos has long felt called to share his Christian faith with people from different cultures and faith traditions. 

In addition to teaching Wesleyan studies at Mongolia Trinity Bible College, Rev. Ceballos helps oversee twelve United Methodist churches, two children’s ministry centers, a detention ministry, and a hospice ministry. 

“By God’s grace, I hope to help the people I serve become more self-reliant and self-sufficient as they grow in discipleship and in the Wesleyan tradition,” he says. 

So far in 2022, 54 Global Ministries missionaries have been commissioned around the world. Make the story of new missionaries like those below a part of your own story of furthering God's life-giving work around the world with a gift today.

Janice Sehyung Lee now serving in Cambodia. 

Janice Sehyung Lee feels a deep burden for the welfare of young people. Hailing from the United States, Ms. Lee serves with her husband and two young daughters in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, where she coordinates a university dorm ministry for young women from remote provinces and organizes vocational training for young women who are middle school and high school drop-outs. 

The country’s underdeveloped medical system is one reason Ms. Lee finds serving in Cambodia challenging. But Ms. Lee and her husband believe in God’s care in the midst of difficult situations. 

“Serving God sometimes entails overcoming demanding circumstances,” says Ms. Lee. “But God has been good to us and kept us safe, and we continue to trust in his protection.”