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BY LINDA WORTHINGTON
UMCONNECTION STAFF

"It was God's perfect timing," Suzanne Porter, a Baltimore-Washington conference missionary working in Liberia, said of her decision to become a missionary almost 10 years ago.

Porter, a registered nurse, was one of approximately 20 people who came forward in answer to Bishop Felton May's call to mission service during the 1999 annual conference.

For a dozen years prior to that day, Porter had been a pediatric nurse at a clinic in Baltimore City, "I knew I wanted to do something beyond that," she said.

A single mother, her daughter in college, she said that she'd been praying for a new direction and when it came, she was ready. "It was God's perfect timing."

She was accepted by the General Board of Global Ministries, trained for a year in Atlanta and was commissioned in December 2000.

Porter is currently on assignment to the Ganta United Methodist mission station in Liberia. She works as an instructor and assistant dean at United Methodist University's School of Nursing, located in the Winifred J. Harley College of Health Sciences in Ganta. The school enrolls 80 nursing students, one-third of whom are men.

Porter is currently on a vacation, her first in 18 months. She is enjoying her time at "home" in Reisterstown while she prepares for her daughter's wedding Sept. 6. She'll return to Liberia in time to start teaching classes in September.

In addition to the university, Porter also works closely with the mission station and with Ganta United Methodist Hospital.

"My house ends up being a guest house for short- and long-term visitors to the hospital," she said. The visitors come from many countries, and stay a few days or a few months. "I enjoy that. It helps them to process their experience there," she said.

Prior to her mission assignment to Liberia, Porter worked on maternal and child health in a village in the Hindu Kush Mountains in Central Asia. She again felt God's timing in her life, that she was in the right place at the right time. "Six years there, I really filled a need," she said.

But she struggled with the language (a language group akin to Farsi), she said. "I could get along well day by day," she said, "but couldn't get into the deeper, spiritual part." With prayer and discernment, she considered asking for a change of assignment.

It was then, "God's perfect timing," a woman came who had good language skills, was a nurse and an administrator.

The General Board of Global Ministries assigned her to Liberia, which like the area she had just left, had suffered under many years of devastating war that destroyed the infrastructure, the health, water and electricity systems, and left suffering people struggling to find ways to make a living.

"I found the school in disarray, a loss of instructors and teachers, a void in the administration," she said of her arrival in Liberia. "It was a time of confusion.

"Being in an educational institution, I see the disruption war caused," she said. The students starting out are missing a lot of the basics. Teachers left during the war, causing a brain drain, the school was physically damaged and many of the students became refugees.

Over the past 18 months, she said, "We've got programs in order, a handbook written, established academic criteria and standards, and done staff development."

Another positive post-war sign in both countries was that women who couldn't, or weren't allowed, to go to school before the war, now can.

Porter is a strong advocate for scholarships to help educate and train Liberians to take over the functions of the nursing school, as well as the hospital.

It is her hope that two students will finish in December who will be able to take over, she said, and the dean of the nursing school is finishing his Master's degree. "There will then be full-time Liberian staff in place."

There are many ways United Methodists in the Baltimore-Washington Conference can help, she said.

United Methodist University, built in 2003 by bringing together the older schools of theology and nursing, is rebuilding following the war. "It is in a fledgling state," she said, and welcomes guest lecturers at its Gbarnga School of Theology and at the business school. Nursing instructors can teach specialty areas in the Winifred C. Harley Nursing School for a week or two. Lecturers and instructors can make arrangements to teach for a whole semester if they wish.

Volunteer medical teams will be put to use at the hospital and Volunteers-in-Mission groups can help with construction projects at the mission station. Ganta Mission also has agricultural projects to raise food for the station, which can use volunteers.

"Another big necessity," Porter said, "is the Fuel Fund." It doesn't sound like much, but as she explained, "The whole mission station runs on one large generator," which takes fuel that they are unable to afford. "We can barely cover four hours of electricity a day," she said.

Those churches who want to support Porter and her ministry can visit http://new.gbgm-umc.org. Suzanne Porter's Missionary Support Code is 13929Z.