“The greatest religious problem today is how to be both a mystic and a militant; in other words how to combine the search for an expansion of inner awareness with effective social action, and how to feel one's true identity in both” Ursula K. LeGuin

Friday, March 11, 2016

Clementina Butler

Rev. William and Clementina Butler became two of the first missionaries of the Methodist Episcopal Church when they were sent to India in 1856. They arrived shortly before the Sapoy Mutiny and were forced into hiding for eight months. When they returned to their post in Bareilly their first priority was to found a home for the children orphaned during the fighting.
When the Butlers returned to Boston in 1864, Mrs. Butler raising money and support for their mission work. When another missionary couple returned in 1864 she was joined in her efforts by Lois Parker, they began recruiting women's groups for help in their work, forming foreign missionary societies first in the Congregational Church in 1868 and in the MEC the following year.
It was Mrs. Butler and Mrs. Parker who called for the meeting at Tremont Street MEC on March 23, 1869 where the Women's Foreign Missionary Society was begun. She was an officer for many years and her daughter, also named Clementina, continued her work by writing and publishing material for mission education.
The orphanage the Butlers founded is still a GBGM-supported organization! Read more about it here http://www.umcmission.org/…/Search-for-Pro…/Projects/3021561

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