CCP "Is a Way of Extending Our Mission Beyond Our Local Church"

For the Reverend Donald Dial and his wife, Christine, the decision to support the CCP program was a simple one based on the Wesleyan theology teaching that “the world is our mission.” It was a way to extend the mission work they began during his ministry.

Rev. Dial served as a United Methodist pastor in the Florida Annual Conference for 40 years before retiring in 2008. Throughout his many appointments across the conference, Rev. Dial faced—and overcame—challenges, some even similar to those the Church continues to experience today, including balancing different perspectives.

He began his first appointment in Belleview, Florida, where, for nine years, he and his congregation worked to see a new church built.

Years later during his appointment in Fort Lauderdale, Rev. Dial was tasked with guiding the church community through its first pastoral transition, which was challenging due to dissonance between staff and the new leadership. “The good news is, we were able to have 15 wonderful years there.”

At the same time, Mrs. Dial was retiring from teaching middle school special education. As God’s plan would have it, she received an invitation from the Bishop Tim Whitaker’s wife, Melba, to join her on a mission trip to Guatemala. When she returned from the trip, Mrs. Dial was overcome with the call to lead missions.

Since then, Rev. and Mrs. Dial have led eight mission trips to Central America and the Caribbean with the help of the United Methodist Volunteers in Mission. To this day, they maintain the close connections they established over the years on their missions. “We are incredibly grateful to Melba for starting us on this journey, and for Wespath ffor supporting retired clergy and families across the world,” stated Mrs. Dial.

When Rev. Dial and his wife first read the stories of pensioners and their families in the CCP Newsletter they receive from Wespath, they were inspired. Those stories, along with their first-hand experiences on their mission trips, moved them to donate to the CCP program. Rev. Dial shared that when he was in Haiti, people were sharing stories that some folks had to walk several days to get to the district meetings. “We saw how difficult it can be to serve in different parts of the world, and we just want to say, ‘thank you,’” said Rev. Dial. “Wespath has been a tremendous blessing and asset in allowing us to accumulate a stable retirement income, so we want to pay it forward by helping the CCP program support others in global ministry.”