Bill is currently a special representative for SIM in North America. God is using Bill’s gifts and rich experience in Ethiopia as a conference speaker to challenge and reaffirm the priority of world missions.

His ministry focuses on mobilizing students, laymen and churches to be part of God’s heartbeat for the nations. The ministry of Bill and Grace Harding began in Ethiopia in 1983. Because Ethiopia was a Soviet satellite under a communist dictatorship, Bill entered the country as a water engineer.

Through drilling wells and capping springs in drought stricken Ethiopia, Bill was not only able to give clean physical water but introduce many to the “Spring of Life,” the Lord Jesus Christ. For eight years, Bill and Grace served the Gedeo people of southern Ethiopia through a ministry of evangelism, discipleship and church planting.

Later, as Outreach Administrator for SIM-Ethiopia in the capital city of Addis Ababa, his main goal was to serve the Lord in facilitating the development and expansion of SIM”s overall outreach in cooperation with the Kale Heywet Churches (the SIM related churches which now number over four thousand.)

Bill’s responsibilities included developing strategy and mobilizing resources to reach the unreached people groups of Ethiopia. Bill was involved in an extensive conference ministry, speaking in Amharic. Grace served in a rewarding ministry of outreach to the Ethiopian community through Bible studies and her gifts of hospitality.

How can I help support our missionaries

• Pray for you missionaries each day.
• Make a financial contribution at our annual offering in December
• Support events supported by Sunday school classes that go for missionary support:
  • Miller class breakfast every 2nd Sunday at 9:00 am in Evans Hall.
  • After church lunches sponsored by classes. These are held at various time throughout the year.

Jacques is a missionary with the General Board of Global Ministries of the United Methodist Church assigned to the Wings of Caring Aviation Ministry in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo. As a pilot-mechanic and program director of the Wings of Caring Aviation Ministry, Jacques flies people and supplies to various missions in the region.

When I fly missionaries, pastors and church leaders, we carry the Good News to where the Gospel is needed,” Jacques explains. “When I fly doctors or medical teams, which I fly sick persons to the hospitals where their lives are saved, when I fly seminary or college professors to teach, I think I am doing God’s will. In some cases if we don’t fly in supplies like salt, soap or matches, there is no other way such supplies will get to the population. Many of our mission stations depend on aviation ministry for survival. Through aviation, children can get shots for immunization. It’s not just a means of transportation, but it is a whole ministry – the Gospel – that is preached in different ways.”

Born in Yamba-Yamba, Congo, Jacques has been a mission pilot-mechanic based in Kananga, Congo, since 1990. From 1992-97, he served as a Person in Mission through the Board’s Global Mission Partners program. Before becoming a pilot, Jacques worked as an aviation-mechanic helper in Kananga from 1985-87, and as an assistant technical director in Lodja, D.R. Cong, 1983-85. He also worked as a math teacher for a time in Wembo-Nyama, D.R. Congo, after graduating from high school in the ‘70’s.

Jacques is married to Poto Valentine Shutsha, who is also a GBGM missionary. They have three sons: Akasa Umembudi Mignon, 21; Shamba Umembudi Gigi, 17; and Otoko Umembudi Dennis, 15. His father, Akasa Okitowa Alphonse, now deceased was a pastor with the United Methodist Church. Jacques is a member of the Paroisse Francophone congregation in Kananga.