Men and Women of Action Honors Long-Time Associates
Men and Women of Action (MWOA) recently held its annual Rally in Kodak, Tennessee. This year, more than 300 people at the Rally celebrated the 26 international and 136 stateside projects completed by MWOA in 2019.
The projects included helping a church plant at Arizona State University, helping build a refuge center for women, renovating apartments at the Iris B. Vest Center, and updating state office properties.
While many projects standout, the Appalachian Christmas project was special this year because of it being the 20th anniversary of helping an area in Appalachia celebrate Christmas. More than $500,000.00 of toys, clothes, food, and many other items were distributed by 50 MWOA volunteers through a Church of God in West Virginia.
At the rally, three people were celebrated for their long-term ministry with MWOA. Billy Burton, who is from Westminster, South Carolina focused much of his many years of ministry in his home state, as well as in Alaska and Honduras.
Buddy Wright, who is the Arizona State Coordinator, has volunteered for 20 years in places like Nicaragua El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, Uruguay, Albania, Bulgaria, Guyana, Brazil, Czech Republic, Ethiopia, and Zambia, as well as stateside projects.
Teddie Jones Bennett, who has been the office manager for 27 years at MWOA, will retire after the International General Assembly. At the Rally, Dr. J. David Stephens, second assistant general overseer and liaison to MWOA, described the ministry of Teddie through MWOA. She has been significantly involved in such ministries of MWOA as:
• Office manager from 1993-2020
• Leader of 85+ teams on work projects around the world
• Planner for close to 2,500 projects
• Leader of projects in such countries, as Albania, Barbados, Brazil, Bulgaria, Cambodia, Chile, China, Ecuador, England, Ethiopia, France, Germany, Italy, Korea, Sri Lanka, and Thailand
• Volunteer in every corner of the United States and its territories
• Master of establishing work command centers at disaster sites
• Coordinator of relief efforts during Hurricanes Dorian, Harvey, Irma, Katrina, Maria, Matthew, Michael, and Sandy
• Partner of the Long-Term Recovery Organization in Cleveland, Tennessee during a two-year recovery following the tornadoes in 2011.
• Founding member of the Firewall Project that evolved into the Global Fire Advance, which plants churches globally
• Voice of empowerment and advancement of women in ministry around the world
As part of his description of Teddie’s ministry, Dr. Stephens read a proclamation from Kevin Brooks, the mayor of Cleveland, Tennessee, that proclaimed February 21, 2020, as Teddie Jones Bennett Day in the city.
Phil Thompson, the director of MWOA, announced that MWOA has plans to build the Robert Pace Office Complex in honor of the founder of MWOA. And in appreciation for her dedicated labor of love, the conference room will be called the Bennett-Jones Boardroom.
As the Rally concluded, MWOA members volunteered for projects that will take them around the world at their own expense in 2020, and they left anticipating returning next February with testimonies of how God is working to build His kingdom through MWOA.
