Patrick Abro is a Global Missionary with the General Board of Global Ministries of The United Methodist Church serving as Health Operation Manager in the Burundi Annual Conference. He was commissioned in May 2016. Patrick is from Côte d’Ivoire, where he is a member of the Jehova Jire United Methodist Church in Abidjan in the Côte d’Ivoire Annual Conference. He holds a basic degree in literature from Félix Houphouët-Boigny University in Abidjan, a degree in communications and human resources from the College of Abidjan, and master’s degree in social science from the National High Institute of Social Science. He has additional training in project management and monitoring and evaluation. He has worked as a coordinator in the evaluation and monitoring of community projects in the annual conference’s program to control HIV/AIDS and other pandemic diseases. Born into a Christian home, Patrick was extremely active in the United Methodist Youth Fellowship on local, district, and annual conference levels. He was conference youth president and has also served the general church. He was a delegate to the 2012 General Conference in Tampa, Florida, and for the 2013-2016 quadrennium represented the West Africa Central Conference on the Division of Ministries for Young People (DMYP) of Discipleship Ministries (General Board of Discipleship). He also represented DMYP on the United Methodist Global AIDS Fund during same quadrennium. He is a member of the United Methodist Health Board of Côte d’Ivoire. His call to mission emerges from his faith journey. “God calls me at a young age,” Patrick says. “God called me in many ways during my journey, and I learned I can serve God in many ways. God opened my heart, my mind, my spirit, and my strength; God touched me and led me into his mission.”

Florence Kaying is a missionary with the General Board of Global Ministries of The United Methodist Church serving as a nurse practitioner in maternity and child health at the Cambine Hospital/Clinic in the Mozambique South Annual Conference. She was commissioned in May 2016. Her husband, John Nday, is also a missionary. Cambine Hospital/Clinic is part of a United Methodist mission station that includes two primary and three secondary schools and a theological seminary. The health facility serves a rural area and is under the medical supervision of the Chicuque Rural Hospital. Cambine is the site of one of Global Ministries’ Global Health pilot projects in maternal and child health. Florence is from Kamina in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and is a member of the Paroisse Ville United Methodist Church there in the North Katanga Annual Conference. Her nursing degree is from the Institut superieur des infirmieres in Lubumbashi, DRC. She has worked in a number of clinics in her home county. She grew up in a devoted United Methodist family that lovingly cared for her during serious illness in her early years. Her recovery as a teenager she attributes to God’s healing power, and at that time she made a decision to enter nursing studies. Her own experience as a patient, she says, gives her special empathy with those she serves as a nurse today. “As a nurse,” Florence says, “I can serve everywhere there is need. I have the skills to help in mission and think I will learn from others as they also learn from me.” Florence and John have three children, James, Yan, and John.