NEW YORK (UMNS) — Seventeen new missionaries will be commissioned in August by the United Methodist Board of Global Ministries.

Pending orientation and final approval, nine adults and eight young adults will be the first in their service categories to be commissioned since a moratorium on new mission personnel was imposed at the end of 2002 because of financial shortfalls.

The Aug. 22 service will take place at the Church of St. Paul & St. Andrew, United Methodist, in New York.

“The new regular missionaries will fill emergency personnel needs,” said the Rev. R. Randy Day, the chief executive of the agency. “The commissioning service in August does not mean that we have returned to our regular pattern of missionary recruitment, training and assignment. It does mean we are deliberately moving in that direction.”

Last March, the mission board commissioned 27 deaconesses who work for a variety of church-related institutions, and four church and community workers who are missionaries supported jointly by the board and local organizations in the United States.

The young adult missionaries, called US-2s, will serve in the United States through United Methodist and ecumenically sponsored institutions and programs, according to the Rev. Edith Gleaves, who heads the board’s mission personnel unit.

“We are delighted and relieved to have a new class of US-2s,” she said. “This 53-year-old program is historically one of the lifelines to professional mission service in our church.”

The new regular missionary candidates and their expected assignments are: the Rev. Wesley W. and Leah J. Magruder, North Texas Conference, assigned to the United Methodist Church in Cameroon; the Rev. Jeffrey R. and Millie K. Frese, Iowa Conference, assigned to the Methodist Mission in Cambodia; the Rev. Millie Kim, North Georgia Conference, assigned to the Mongolia mission initiative; and the Rev. Diane Wimberley, Texas Annual Conference, assigned to the Bolivian Methodist Church.

Also, Rukang Chicomb, layperson, Southern Congo Annual Conference, assigned to the Aviation Ministry in his conference; Barbara Jacobsen, layperson, California-Nevada Annual Conference, who has served as a Missioner of Hope in the East Africa Annual Conference, assigned for six months to Kenya and then to Sierra Leone; and Violetta Talandis, layperson, North Central New York Annual Conference, who has been serving in Lithuania in a special capacity, assigned to Lithuania.

Young adult missionary candidates and their expected assignments are Amy Brown, North Alabama Annual Conference, assigned to Central United Methodist Church, Detroit; Emily Harry, Virginia Conference, assigned to the National Interfaith Committee for Worker Justice, Chicago; Rachel Harvey, Eastern Pennsylvania Conference, assigned to First United Methodist Church, Vermillion, S.D.; and Andrew Jordan, Tennessee Conference, assigned to Pfeiffer University, Misenheimer, N.C.

Also, Elizabeth Matthews, Texas Conference, assigned to Crossroads Urban Center, Salt Lake City; Taek-Gi Min, Greater New Jersey Conference, assigned to Tacoma Community House, Tacoma, Wash.; Kandis Samuels, Peninsula-Delaware Conference, assigned to Hampden Family Service, Baltimore; and Donna Wheeler, Central Pennsylvania Conference, assigned to the Wilkinson Center, Dallas.

*Wright is the information officer for the United Methodist Board of Global Ministries.