Outreach: Missions & social justice
Helen Sheperd
Helen Sheperd is a missionary with the General Board of Global Ministries of the United Methodist Church seving in Mongolia, East Asia. Based in the capital city, Ulaanbaatar, Helen is working to develop a United Methodist mission presence through her work with the Grace Hospice home care program and the Palliative Care Association of Mongolia. The expansion of this home care program is being made to increase the number of patients served, as well as exploring the possibilities of involvement in the hospice programs in the countryside.
As a nurse, Helen will be helping to establish a medical clinic for people in the area of the UMC Mission Center in one of the economically poorer areas of this city of 925,000 residents. In addition to the children’s programs, Bible study classes, and English classes, there is a great need for available health care for the people in this part of Ulaanbaatar.
Before her current assignment, Helen served as a teacher at the College of Nursing in Seoul, South Korea as well as director of the Severance Hospice Program, which is a project of the College. In addition to her work with Koreans, she had the opportunity to meet several Mongolian doctors as they studied English while furthering their medical training at Severance Hospital. After traveling to Mongolia as a part of a hospice teaching team, Helen felt called to request a transfer to Mongolia where a hospice nurse was requested.
Prior to her commissioning as a GBGM missionary, Helen was the director of Heartland Home Hospice, Clinicare, Kansas City, Kansas from 1989-1991 after having served as a staff nurse from 1980-89 in hospice home care for Clinicare Family Health Services, Inc. Before beginning her work in hospice care, she worked as a nurse at Spofford Home for Children in Kansas City. From 1973-75 Helen worked at the head nurse of the psychiatric unit of Bethany Medical Center in Kansas City.
A native of Ann Arbor, MI, Helen holds a diploma in nursing from Bronson Methodist Hospital School of Nursing in Kalamazoo, MI; a B.A. in Psychology from Park College in Parkville, MO; and a M.S. in Social Gerontology from Central Missouri State University in Warrensburg, MO.
Follow the link below for more information:
http://gbgm-umc.org/global_news/full_article.cfm?articleid=3868