US-2s to celebrate 50th anniversary in August
6/27/2001 News media contact: Linda Bloom · (646) 369-3759 · New York By United Methodist News Service When Nancy Grissom Self found she didn't have the money to go to seminary after graduating from Ohio University, she searched for another way to serve the church.
The answer was the Methodist US-2 program, which offered Self a firsthand experience in mission through work at the Frances de Pauw Home for Latin American School Girls on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood.
That was 50 years ago. Since then, the US-2 program, which is administered by the United Methodist Board of Global Ministries, has trained about 1,300 young adults between the ages of 20 and 30 to serve in U.S.-based programs.
Participants from that first group, the Class of 1951-1953, through the current group, the Class of 2000-2002, are invited to a celebration of the program's half-century mark Aug. 2-5 in Birmingham, Ala. The registration deadline has been extended to July 15.
The Rev. Tex Sample of Phoenix, who helped train US-2s during a 20-year period in the 1970s and 1980s, considers it "the under-sung program in the United Methodist Church."
"You're dealing with people who are deeply committed to the church and particularly to mission," said Sample, professor emeritus of Saint Paul School of Theology and coordinator of the Network for the Study of U.S. Lifestyles. "These are some of the finest and most faithful people in the church."
Sample has witnessed not only how the US-2s make a contribution to the church but also how the program impacts their own lives for years.
For Self, the program provided a practical experience that she could later share with students as a campus minister, and it opened her eyes to the diversity of the world around her. "I learned how biased the church was and how magnanimous the church is," she said.
Eventually, she was able to enroll in seminary, graduating from Claremont (Calif.) School of Theology in 1966 and serving in campus ministry at California State University in Long Beach. In 1973, she joined the founding staff of the United Methodist Commission on the Status and Role of Women and stayed for 18 years. After serving as a local church pastor in California, she retired in 1999, but remains active in the California-Pacific Annual Conference and as a consultant for church agencies and organizations.
Self still occasionally re-connects with someone from her US-2 past. She remembered being approached at a reception for her retirement by a woman she hadn't seen in nearly 50 years, who had come to the Frances de Pauw Home as a girl.
"It astounds me how the linkages continue to be there," she said. "You make connections that last a lifetime."
She's excited about the networking opportunities at the 50th anniversary celebration and the opportunities for the older generations of US-2s to interact with newer recruits.
Self will lead a memorial service during the Birmingham conference. Sample will reunite with his good friend and former US-2 teaching partner, the Rev. William B. McClain, for the keynote presentation. McClain is a professor at Wesley Seminary.
A social justice panel will feature Renae Extrum-Fernandez, Class of 1979-1981; Lynette Fields, Class of 1989-1991; M. Sheila McCurdy, Class of 1966-1968; and Joanne Reich, Class of 1988-1990. Peggy Hutchison, Class of 1978-1980, will serve as moderator.
Participants in a "Through the Decades" dinner will include Polly Lassiter Cook, Class of 1954-1956, and Mary Z. Longstreth and Marcia Knight, from the 1960s. The US-2 Class of 2001-2003 will be commissioned at the end of the conference.
More information on the Birmingham celebration is available by sending an e-mail to rpeagler@aol.com or calling Robin Peagler at (212) 870-3661. A special Web page, http://gbgm-umc.org/news/2001/june/pioneering.htm, has forms for registration, accommodations and schedule.
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