Missionary to Africa to speak at Lt. Luke's UMC

St. Luke's United Methodist Church will celebrate its annual Faith-Promise Weekend January 25-27 with a series of activities concluding with messages delivered by missionary Kathie L Mann, a life-long active member of the United Methodist Church.

Mann serves in a missionary capacity as an individual volunteer and as an Ubuntu Team Leader and in numerous other leadership capacities in Kenya, East Africa.

Mann has served in Africa since 1997, but prior to that had extensive experience in the missionary field, both in the United States as a board member, project coordinator, or trainer for various mission projects in the U.S. and worldwide, as well as field work in Kenya, Zimbabwe, and Tanzania. She has organized 127 teams to Costa Rica where they completed 17 church buildings throughout the country, sent 25 teams to the Rio Grande Valley to build church buildings, and for a time trained over 200 individuals each year to be short term mission team leaders.

Mann received her Bachelor of Arts degree in Anthropology and Sociology from Colorado State University in 1971, spent two years as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Kenya, then returned to Colorado State to earn her Master of Science in Anthropology and Archeology in 1975. After serving as a teaching assistant and research assistant in Tanzania for ten years, she returned to the Houston area and among other projects served as a Houston Area volunteer for the Heifer Project which uses donated funds to send agricultural animals to individual needy families in countries worldwide.

She has been a member of Friendswood United Methodist Church since 1989 where she chaired the Missions Committee for ten years, chaired the Council on Ministries, and participated in and led many other ministries of the church. She has an extensive background in disaster relief work, having served as executive director for Katrina and Rita Hurricanes.

Ann Rosson, chairperson of the Missions Team, says she is excited about the arrival of the Faith-Promise Weekend, a celebration to raise awareness of the efforts of St. Luke's and the Missions Team in support of various mission activities in Kilgore, the state, the United States and worldwide.

Activities for the Faith- Promise Weekend include a twelve-hour prayer vigil from six a.m. to six p.m., Friday, January 25.

Mann will arrive in Kilgore on Friday and will be received Saturday evening at a Missions Team dinner in the Family Center at St. Luke's church. On Sunday, January 27, Kathie will speak at both the 8:30 a.m. and 10:30 a.m. services. Following services there will be a covered dish Celebration Luncheon in the Family Center. All who are interested in this ministry are invited to attend.

In 2007, St. Luke's and the Missions Team provided financial support to such activities as the Wesley House at Kilgore College, Kilgore Habitat for Humanity, Newgate Ministries in Longview, Asbury House Child Enrichment Center in Longview, a missions team in Bolivia, the Nothing But Nets Project to combat malaria in Africa. The Missions Team also conducts a program called God's Hands at Work, in which church members work on construction/ remodeling projects in Kilgore and elsewhere.