Missionary from Southwest
Texas returns to Chile

Ingleside UM goes
back to job she filled
for 3 years as volunteer

“…When we arrived at Stony Point, N.Y., the trees that filled these hallowed grounds appeared to be firm in their ‘greenness’ and stature. But, as the three weeks have passed, each and every tree has been touched at the root with an ever-changing soil and climate, which has affected their very being. And they have changed. They are no longer the bold standing towers of green. They have been colored, brilliantly colored, by all that touched them. They have sprung to majesty and ‘light’ that causes humans from all over the country to stop what they are doing and travel to the northeast to witness.”
—Becky Harrell
Oct. 7 newsletter

By Rachel L. Toalson
Staff Writer
The seasonal cycle of Stony Point’s trees is much like Becky Harrell’s life. Empty and broken. Green, yet firm. Full of color and light and majesty.
The pathway has been strewn with surprises, oftentimes frightening ones.
But Harrell, 56, a member of Ingle-side UMC, would never choose to forget any fragment of her past—not the divorce after almost 30 years of marriage, the battle with breast cancer or the 29 years she wandered away from the church—because all of it has brought her where she is today.
She is a United Methodist missionary in Chile, commissioned last month by the General Board of Global Ministries during a ceremony in Stamford, Conn., after spending four and a half years as a volunteer in mission.
Her story begins in a public library in Ingleside.

Rejoining the church
Harrell worked as the public library’s director, where she made friends with library board members who belonged to United Methodist Women and the local United Methodist church. Most of her library patrons were from the church—including Sandy Hoover, secretary for Ingleside UMC.
“Her son and my son used to swim,” Hoover said. “That’s where I first met her. She was a librarian, and I just adored her. I thought she was the sweetest person. I always thought, ‘What is this beautiful lady doing without a church?’
“I started developing a relationship with her, and I knew I could not let this one go. I just felt the push of God behind me.”
In 1998, Harrell was diagnosed with breast cancer, undergoing a mastectomy, radiation treatments and chemotherapy. Hoover stood right beside her.
It was Hoover’s gentle persuasion, Harrell said, that brought her back to the church.
“She was always there,” Harrell said. “So were the people from other churches in the community. They truly cared for me. So I got to a point during chemo where I turned myself back to the Lord.
“The cancer got my focus back on where it needed to be.”
Harrell had grown up in the Church of Christ and was baptized at 14. But a marriage at 21 to a “man who was not practicing his faith” left her wandering for 29 years.
She joined The United Methodist Church, and the closer she drew to God, the more her eyes were opened to the alcoholic tendencies of her husband.
They divorced the following year.
It was a “serious step to deal with,” Harrell said, but she held tightly to her relationship with Jesus and her church attendance.
Hoover began to talk to Harrell about attending a Walk to Emmaus.
It was there Harrell’s life would begin to change.

Recognizing God’s call
The walk—a spiritual renewal weekend—took place on the weekend that would have been her 29th wedding anniversary. It was also Mother’s Day.
Harrell almost talked herself into skipping the walk.
“But I went,” she said, chuckling. “And there I came into an intimate relationship with Jesus Christ. I truly felt him come into my heart, felt his hand on my shoulder. And the whole world looked very different.”
Not wanting the “spiritual high” to end, Harrell threw herself into Christian studies when she returned from the walk.
“I was like this dry sponge,” she said. “I couldn’t get enough of worship and Christian literature.”
A year later in July 2001, Harrell returned to serve on a Walk to Emmaus leadership team.
She learned two important truths.
“It’s hard to explain,” she said. “But I knew I needed to go into missions and that I needed to do that as a volunteer.”
The following Monday, Harrell visited with her pastor, who directed her to Volunteers in Mission office at the United Methodist mission board. She sent an e-mail expressing her interest.
Fifteen minutes later, Harrell’s phone rang, and she was told that a Methodist school in Chile had been waiting for a librarian.
Though originally wary about the assignment—because she didn’t know Spanish—Harrell accepted it.
She sold everything she owned—her house, her vehicle, her furniture—to make the trip.
“I remember saying to her, ‘Becky, what if things don’t work out?’” Hoover said. “And she said, ‘God will provide.’ She really believed it. She has such a strong faith.”

Living on faith
Harrell had enough money to support herself for two years. She traveled to Iquique, Chile, in 2002.
At the end of two years, one of her coworkers in Chile got sick. Methodist leaders asked if she could stay another year. Her local church and other congregations throughout the United States that had come to Iquique on mission trips began to support her monetarily.
She became coordinator of the Methodist Extension to Andean Youth in 2005.
The bishop in Chile submitted her missionary application to the General Board of Global Ministries. As a commissioned missionary, Harrell returns this month to her same coordinator position.
“I wrestled with whether I should continue serving as a volunteer,” Harrell said. “But this is a better way to get the word out about the project. And that, to me, is the most important thing.”
Harrell works with a Kusayapu Agricultural Institute, which provides training for farmers and people within pueblos.
The school has a library with a collection of agricultural books, and school leaders want to automate it. She’ll be helping with that.
The mission also provides an eyeglass program, Harrell said. Most pueblos are five or so hours away from each other, so residents don’t have transportation to get to the nearest city to buy glasses.
An ophthalmologist recently visited Chile and donated a handheld machine. It will allow Harrell and her team to know what people’s eyeglass prescriptions are.
A dentist set up a dental lab in 1999, and church leaders are always looking for volunteer dentists, Harrell said.
New projects for the year, she said, will concentrate on youths who have migrated to the city. The goal is to help avoid child prostitution, alcohol and drugs issues, and violence.
Chile is becoming home
Hoover said she is grateful to have a part in Harrell’s story.
“I cannot believe what she’s blossomed into,” she said. “Life is beautiful to her, and she’s grateful when she wakes up every day. She could accomplish anything, given half the chance.
“She’s just willing. That’s what I find great in her.”
Despite the distance, the two women said they have remained friends over the years. Hoover flew Harrell home last year, and Harrell has preached at Ingleside a couple of times—much to the delight of members there, Hoover said.

Chile has become her home, Harrell said.
She has gotten a firm grasp on Spanish now and even dreams in the language—but admits she still makes occasional mistakes. The Chilean people are very forgiving, she said.
They have brought her to a different place, she said. They are respectful and grateful for all that God has provided them.
And they accept her for who she is.
Harrell will never forget her first days in the country—in April 2002—when America was still suffering the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
The Chilean people have their own 9-11 tragedy, a historic day in 1973 when a military coup overthrew the democratically elected president, Salvador Allende.
But when she entered the country, it was America’s tragedy they acknowledged.
“The people of Chile came to me and were comforting me,” Harrell said. “And, in their quiet way and manner, they explained to me how they, too, remembered.”
For more information about Methodist Extension to Andean Youth, visit www.emana.org.