Holston Conference has been in a partnership with a community of United Methodists in Yei, South Sudan, since 2005. Over the years, Holston congregations and church members have invested more than $3 million to build churches, establish orphanages, provide education, dig wells, offer medical care and multiple other life-giving services throughout the East African nation.
In 2016, civil war again erupted in South Sudan. Escaping violence and starvation, many of the people that Holston members are closest to ran to neighboring Uganda.
Since then, they’ve been living in a refugee camp in the Arua District of northwest Uganda, waiting to go back home. The people include 37 orphans, 15 pastors, and about 20 staff who Holston Conference has committed to keeping safe.
Read the Latest News from South Sudan
You may give online now or mail a check to:
Holston Foundation
P.O. Box 900
Alcoa, TN 37701
For more information about giving to South Sudan, please email Paul Bowman, Holston Foundation president.
For more information about Holston Conference's South Sudan mission, please email Rev. Mike Sluder, director of connectional ministries.
ALCOA, Tenn. -- In the last five years, Paul Bowman has visited East Africa five times. On the last two trips, he wondered if he would ever go back. And yet, in March 2020, Bowman is scheduled to lead a mission team to again visit the South ...
LAKE JUNALUSKA, N.C. (June 13, 2018) -- The Mission Celebration concluded with energetic music and message last night after a busy day of discussion and decisions. The Rev. Fred Dearing and Libby Dearing shared updates and hope for “our South ...
KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (Dec. 20, 2016) -- The 36 orphans in Holston Conference’s care are better off than many South Sudanese children, and each will receive a gift on Christmas Day. Yet the United Methodist church member who just returned from visiting...
ALCOA, Tenn. (Aug. 31, 2016) -- With the news of South Sudan’s crisis breaking their hearts, church members all over Holston Conference are preparing for a 24-hour prayer vigil on Sept. 1 and a special offering on Oct. 9. “It’s a God-size problem,...
Special prayer vigil, offering to be announced ALCOA, Tenn. (Aug. 21, 2016) – The plight of some 35 orphaned children from South Sudan has captured the praying hearts of Holstonians who read on Facebook about the dangerous efforts to move them to...
ALCOA, Tenn. (July 18, 2016) -- While heavy gunfire and violence escalate in South Sudan, missionaries related to Holston Conference have evacuated and are returning to the U.S. Rev. Fred Dearing and Libby Dearing, a husband-and-wife team serving ...
ALCOA, Tenn. (June 20, 2016) -- Botrous Tutu has been a preacher for many years -- since the 1990s when he was tortured in Sudan for refusing to renounce his faith -- and for the last four years, in a little church in Alcoa. On June 11, 150 people...
By Marci Gore/ Kingsport Times News KINGSPORT, Tenn. (June 5, 2016) -- Last year, three area United Methodist pastors used their love of riding bicycles to make a difference in the lives of children. This year, Tom Hancock, Lew Kizer and Brad ...
Print and share this story in English or Spanish ALCOA, Tenn. (Dec. 14, 2015) -- Holston Conference has been sending mission teams to South Sudan since 2006, but Danny Howe believes the most recent teams are witnessing a “season of harvest” ...
KINGSPORT, Tenn. -- Mickey Rainwater was sitting in the Farmers Market building in downtown Kingsport last summer, watching the mayor auction off cakes to build a school in South Sudan. Rain pounded the metal roof, and the cakes outnumbered the ...
Rev. Michael Blake has just returned from South Sudan, where he visited with 14 orphans he met on previous trips. He saw for himself the new home built for them and the two “mamas” hired to take care of them. He saw how healthy the children ...
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Aug. 26, 11:30 a.m. (EAT) -- Entebbe, Uganda The team is on its way back to the United States, after visiting more United Methodist churches and even a "church start-up" in South Sudan. Watch for "The Call" to post photos and provide stories about...
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missions, South Sudan, Annual Conference, Dearing
Every story that Brett Burris tells ends up being a story about Africa. At least, that’s what his three sons say. That's because Burris is passionate about South Sudan and the people he has come to love. “I talk about it constantly,” he says. “...
After agonizing and observing from a distance the fighting that began in South Sudan just before Christmas, Diantha Hodges now has a Feb. 13 plane ticket to take her as far as Uganda. From that neighboring nation, Hodges will assess if it’s safe ...
"They support what we're doing and they realize we have not abandoned them. Holston has not abandoned them." -- Libby Dearing ALCOA, Tenn. (1/9/14) -- Missionaries Fred and Libby Dearing have postponed their return to South Sudan after deciding ...
January 8, 2014 Dear Members of the Holston United Methodist family, You are dearly loved by God and called to be God’s people. Grace to you and peace from God our father and the Lord Jesus Christ. I am writing to ask you as the covenant community...
"We cannot tell the people to have faith and stay strong when we turn and high-tail it out of there in the face of adversity. Instead of running away, Christians ought to be flooding the place." -- Rev. Fred Dearing More than a week after deadly ...
Holston Conference leaders are sending an Advent message of peace and reassurance to ministry supporters concerned about this week’s military clashes in South Sudan. “Realizing that all of Holston holds the people of South Sudan dear to our ...
KNOXVILLE, Tenn. -- Eighty-two people attended a dinner for Holston Conference’s mission work in South Sudan on Friday night, Dec. 7. When they departed Bearden United Methodist Church into the cold, driving rain two hours later, they had learned ...
After years of prayer and preparation, the South Sudan orphanage built by Holston Conference opened its doors for 19 children on Sept. 9, according to missionary Libby Dearing. "It finally arrived," Dearing wrote in a Sept. 9 blog. "After so much...
Libby Dearing never gave up on her dream for a United Methodist orphanage in South Sudan, but she did begin to wonder if it would ever happen. “I began to think God had changed his mind and didn’t tell me,” says Dearing, who saw an urgent need for...
Bishop Mary Virginia Taylor and the Rev. Rusty Taylor will travel to South Sudan for the first time on a nine-member team departing April 4. The Taylors will visit the region where Holston Conference sent its first team in March 2006 before signing a...
When the leaders of Christ United Methodist Church dedicated their Christmas Eve offering to building an orphanage in South Sudan, they set the goal at $85,000. The amount seemed high, says Becky Hall, but the congregation is familiar with the ...
Two years ago, the Wytheville District agreed to partner with United Methodist churches in South Sudan. As part of that agreement, the Rev. RuthAnne Henley, co-chair of the district Missions Team, presented a $10,000 check to Fred and Libby Dearing, ...
Chattanooga District leaders voted Jan. 8 to covenant with a church in South Sudan, promising to send teams, raise money, and develop friendships to help an emerging community continue to prosper. Signed by District Superintendent Mike Hubble ...
On June 23, the Rev. Fred and Libby Dearing departed for South Sudan, where they will lead Holston Conference's mission work in fulfillment of a covenant partnership with the East Africa Conference. Fred Dearing will serve as district ...
The whole world is watching Sudan, where the 13th mission team from Holston Conference is now on the ground and helping to build a new nation. Five years after Holston quietly sent its first fact-finding team to South Sudan, 10 members of the most ...
As the nation grieved and prayed in response to Saturday's shootings in Arizona, many in Holston Conference also prayed for the long-expected referendum in South Sudan which began Sunday, Jan. 9. The East African nation will vote through Friday, Jan....
While the world expresses fear that violence will erupt in Sudan when the country participates in an historic vote on Jan. 9, church leaders have so far been assured that Holston mission workers in Sudan are safe and that protective plans are in ...
Anyone who has visited the hospital in Yei, Sudan, will understand what went through the Rev. Boo Hankins' mind after he fell and fractured his right shin. "As I sat on the ground, holding my foot in place with my shoelace, I wondered how this would ...
A team led by Dr. Mike Hartsell, including Lynn and Sharon Fogleman arrived in Kampala on Sunday October 24, 2010 and were received at the offices by Bishop Daniel Wandabula, Resident Bishop, East Africa Area on Monday October 25, 2010. Bishop ...
A mission team from Holston Conference comprised of six led by the Rev. Linda Bird Wright arrived in Uganda on Aug. 31 and spent the next three days in Kampala City shopping to furnish “The Captain’s House” in Yei, Sudan. The team is on a two-week ...
LAKE JUNALUSKA, N.C. -- The Holston Annual Conference followed up on bold decisions and giving of recent years by approving a tithe-based apportionment and collecting $154,625 in an offering for south Sudan. Meeting June 13-16 in western North ...
Jubilee Project will go on with new leaders For 21 years, Holston Conference has associated Diantha and Steve Hodges with the Jubilee Project in Sneedville. Soon, the couple who established and led a multifaceted mission in east Tennessee will be ...
The Rev. Linda Bird Wright has been through so much in the last two years, one would expect her to be changed. But here she is, on a good day between chemotherapy treatments, serving chicken salad sandwiches on her deck and talking about Sudan. She...
KINGSPORT, Tenn. -- For two days, 100 United Methodists put their heads together in an east Tennessee church with the goal of reducing the suffering of people in south Sudan. All the learning, planning, and praying became reality-based, however, ...
Earthquake survivor will serve in fallen leader's place The second-ever Sudan Summit will be held March 11-12 in Kingsport, Tenn., with the goal of pooling United Methodist efforts to address needs in south Sudan. Organized by the Holston Annual ...
Thanksgiving Day update: Ronnie Collins is running in Atlanta today! He has raised $1,250 to date. If you are full of Thanksgiving dinner and blessings ... please consider giving to children who may never know what it is like not to be hungry. ...
"A new well would make a great Christmas present." -- Rev. Boo Hankins Did you realize this morning that you took a few steps to get clean water? In the community surrounding Kupera United Methodist Church, people walk four miles to get water from a ...
Three months after departing Holston for Sudan, Boo and Phyllis Hankins are experiencing joy along with the aches and pains and frustrations of living in Africa. The clergy couple is in the midst of a two-year appointment to help Holston fulfill its ...
Edina walks seven miles each day to work at the United Methodist compound in Yei, Sudan. It’s a job for which she receives no regular pay. At night, she takes orphans and widows into her home, missing meals so she can share her food. She realized her...
March 31, 2009 | YEI, Sudan (UMNS) The tiny, frail child appeared to be asleep in his hospital bed. It was only when the mother wailed — and the nurse began to tie up the infant’s toes — that observers realized what was happening. The child had just ...
When Bishop Daniel Wandabula visited Holston Conference and other parts of the United States this summer, he repeatedly expressed gratitude for the gifts and mission work provided by Holston for the people of south Sudan. One of the gifts was ...
The 906 churches of the Holston Annual Conference have now raised $178,921 for its partnership mission in southern Sudan and $60,011 for children’s ministry, for a total $238,933 in record-breaking offerings during the 2008 annual conference session....
KINGSPORT, Tenn. (UMNS) – In the summer of 2005, United Methodist Bishop James Swanson and his staff talked about possible mission projects they could pursue. One staff member mentioned a book she had read over the weekend about the "lost boys" of ...
One year ago, the Sudan Action Team was formed after a conference staff member read a book over the Fourth of July holiday. Today, church leaders are urging others to read the same book – knowing they, too, will be moved to join a ministry that's ...