![\"Barbara](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/barbaraferguson_2014r.jpg\")
<\/a>\u201cBarbara is a marvelous example of living into our calling to be disciples of Jesus.\u00a0 She faithfully looks for ways she can make a difference in people\u2019s lives,\u201d said Bishop Brown. \u201cBarbara is a humble person and seeks no attention for herself.\u00a0 Instead, she encourages all of us to be the disciple we were baptized to be.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bishop Brown says he is encouraged by the creative ways in which people in the conference are getting involved in Imagine No Malaria. \u201cEven prior to Barbara\u2019s commitment we have saved more than 8,500 lives on the continent of Africa,\u201d said Bishop Brown<\/p>\n
Ferguson, and her late husband Earl Ferguson who passed away suddenly in 2003, both grew up in the farming community of Goldendale, Washington. She says they met at the age of 12, began dating when they were 14, and were married by the age of 23. Ferguson tells of Earl coming from humble beginnings with his family raising cattle of a ranch near the Columbia River with him being eight before they had electricity in the home.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe (Earl) always valued education and after high school attended Yakima Valley Community College, University of Washington, and the University of Michigan,\u201d said Ferguson.\u00a0 Earl Ferguson went on to have a successful career in the computer science industry and helped to develop two companies that were awarded four patents.\u00a0 Eventually, one of the companies, Foundry Networks, went public.<\/p>\n
Ferguson says when the first start-up was sold, the couple had $1 million. \u201cWe stood in the kitchen and said we must give back.\u201d She added, \u201cWe were richly blessed. We grew up in farm families where we didn\u2019t\u2019 have much money. After Earl\u2019s first company sold, we knew we could act on God\u2019s plan for us.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bishop Thomas J. Bickerton, who leads the Western Pennsylvania Annual Conference and the denomination\u2019s Imagine No Malaria efforts, said, \u201cI am overjoyed by the receipt of this gift\u2026I pray that is will be multiplied over and over.\u201d He added, \u201cThis gift represents the next wave of giving; the large gift connected to the grass roots giving strength of Imagine No Malaria is a winning formula.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ferguson, a lifelong Methodist, has been a member of Los Altos UMC since 1985.\u00a0 She was one of the leaders for the church\u2019s Stephen Ministry for 20 years, and has worked as a volunteer in the finance office for 17 years.\u00a0 \u201cThe individual person needs to think about what tiny bit more they can do to give back in whatever area they can support,\u201d says Ferguson.<\/p>\n
The Rev. Mark Bollwinkel, senior pastor of Los Altos UMC, said, \u201cEarl\u2019s genius for mathematics and engineering led him to discover technologies that contributed to the creation of the internet.\u201d Bollwinkel said the Fergusons dedicated much of their wealth to serving others and the church after the founding of two successful network companies.\u00a0\u201cFollowing Earl\u2019s unexpected death in 2003, Barbara and her family have continued to resource efforts to make the world a better place,\u201d he said. \u00a0\u201cThey do so with humility and gratitude to God for the opportunity to give.\u201d<\/p>\n
Last February, as a gateway to launch the conference\u2019s Imagine No Malaria efforts, Bishop Brown issued a challenged to the churches of the California-Nevada Conference to raise $50,000 by the annual conference session in June to rebuild a health clinic in Bom Jesus, Angola.\u00a0 The effort was called \u201cBuilding a Bridge of Love to Angola\u201d and churches surpassed the goal and raised $61,000.<\/p>\n
The clinic,\u00a0abandoned during the civil war when most people and church members fled to the city, is the focal point for the medical and health care ministry of the Methodist Church in Angola. Repairs to the clinic will include, but are not limited to, roof and ceiling repairs, window and door security improvements, painting, and utility repairs. Medical clinic equipment and supplies will then be provided and the clinic placed into medical service.\u00a0The California-Nevada Conference in partnership with the General Board of Global Ministries (GBGM) will aid in the rebuilding process.<\/p>\n
Just a few short years ago, statistics showed\u00a0a child died every\u00a030 seconds<\/strong>\u00a0of malaria. Today, because of United Methodist efforts, malaria\u2019s impact has been cut in half. According to the World Health Organization (World Malaria Report 2011), the disease now claims a life every\u00a060 seconds<\/strong>.<\/p>\n For\u00a0almost 200\u00a0years, The United Methodist Church has operated hospitals and clinics throughout Africa. These facilities are a vital and trusted part of the healthcare delivery system on the continent. The Imagine No Malaria approach is focused on four key areas: prevention, education, communication and treatment.<\/p>\n For more information about California-Nevada efforts, log on to\u00a0www.calnevimagine.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n *Hygh is director of communications for the denominations California-Nevada Annual Conference which includes the 360 churches and 78,000 United Methodists in Northern California and Northern Nevada.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" *By Dr. Larry R. Hygh, Jr. \u201cI think it\u2019s important that we all give back in some small way to make this world a better place for folks to live,\u201d says Barbara Ferguson. Ferguson, a laywoman from Los Altos United Methodist Church (UMC), is donating $1.1 million towards the California-Nevada Conference\u2019s efforts in the denomination\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":2745,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[32,3,4],"tags":[84,296],"class_list":{"0":"post-6079","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"category-umns","9":"category-wj-news","10":"tag-imagine-no-malaria","11":"tag-imn"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/11\/INM_AndroidLogo_3FQWSRTV.jpg?fit=600%2C293&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2l75j-1A3","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6079","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6079"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6079\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6086,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6079\/revisions\/6086"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2745"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6079"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6079"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6079"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}The Greater Northwest Area has committed to raising one million dollars for Imagine No Malaria, with the Pacific Northwest looking to raise $500,000. You can learn more about our efforts and how you can get involved at www.greaternw.org<\/a>.<\/h4>\n