MISSION STAFF

The Outreach Foundation employs several mission staff who serve in geographic areas with which they are familiar. Many years of field experience make our mission consultants experts in a variety of ways. They help facilitate specific projects in these regions, guide groups to visit with our international partners, and provide information and other assistance to congregations seeking to become more involved in mission.

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BILL AND NANCY WARLICK
Southern Africa (focus on evangelism and children in crisis)

Bill and Nancy Warlick served as Presbyterian missionaries in Africa for more than 27 years. They worked most recently as coordinators of the Presbyterian Church (USA) Project of Evangelism and Church Growth in Africa (PECGA) from 1984 until their retirement in 2002. In their new role as mission consultants for The Outreach Foundation, they continue to travel to southern Africa, including Zimbabwe, Zambia, Malawi, Madagascar and Mozambique, effectively supporting the work of evangelists and pastors of our partner churches. They also work with several children-in-crisis projects.

Bill is a graduate of Davidson College and Columbia Theological Seminary. He served as organizing pastor for two new Presbyterian congregations: Good Shepherd Presbyterian Church in Anniston, Alabama, and New Hope Presbyterian Church in Chattanooga, TN. Nancy is a graduate of Rhodes College with a teaching certificate from the University of Tennessee in Chattanooga.

Bill is an ordained PC(USA) pastor. Nancy, a trained educator, is especially involved with children affected by the AIDS crisis in Southern Africa. In the Democratic Republic of Congo (formerly Zaire), where the Warlicks lived from 1966-73 and again from 1984-91, Bill managed the construction of many church buildings and schools in Kinshasa and in the two Kasai regions, as well as pastoral training. He also did a great deal of traveling with African pastors. Nancy taught rural pastors and high school students in French. Prayer has also been an important part of Nancy's ministry.

Bill and Nancy work very effectively as a team. Bill has a keen insight and true gift for effectively working in partnership with the local leaders of the churches he visits in Africa. He was distinctively honored by being named an "honorary chief" in both Ghana and Cameroon. Nancy saw the plight of the street children in Harare, Zimbabwe, and was the catalyst for seeing that a house (called the Lovemore Home) was purchased in 1995 and a program devised to help to get children off the streets and into a Christian environment. At Lovemore Home, children receive counseling, education, and training. She spearheads continuing efforts to nurture the children, giving them a chance at a better life. The program is different from others in the area, in that it aims to provide quality individual care to the former street children, while also working with their families with the hope of returning the children to their communities and families where possible.

Bill and Nancy led a team to Siavonga, Zambia, where over 5,000 orphans and abandoned children (primarily due to the AIDS pandemic) had been identified. There, they visited with elder Munjongo Namuyamba and his wife, Esther, of the United Church of Zambia. They had taken five orphaned and abandoned children into their home, in addition to their own large family, to care for them as their own. Bill recommended that The Outreach Foundation help with funding for the building of the Namumu Orphanage, a ministry to care for 100-150 AIDS orphans. In Lusaka, Zambia, Nancy was instrumental in linking The Outreach Foundation with project coordinators for several crisis nurseries, designed to care for children orphaned when both their parents have died of AIDS.

To many, the Warlicks epitomize the real meaning of the term "partner." They empower churches of the region, but are always sensitive to the claim of Christ on their lives and those to whom they minister, and of their own need to be faithful to the calling of our Lord. In 1996 at the General Assembly meeting in Albuquerque, New Mexico, the Warlicks received the Bell-Mackay award, given to the PC(USA)'s most outstanding mission workers. They were also awarded honorary doctorates from Montreat College in 1998.