During the 10:30 a.m. worship service on April 8, you will meet missionaries Nan McCurdy and Michael Mairena, who were recently assigned to the “Give Ye Them To Eat” ministry in Mexico. Nan and Miguel have served in Nicaragua, and in July will be moving to the State of Puebla to serve in this ministry in primarily impoverished rural areas.
Belmont UMC has supported this ministry, and several Belmont members have gone to experience and share in its very unique approach to enable persons to develop their own potential as Children of God, take control of their lives using the resources around them in sustainable ways, and at the same time be good stewards of God’s Creation.
Nan and Miguel’s bios
Nan McCurdy and Miguel Mairena, Global Ministries missionaries. Their new assignment will be with a Methodist organization, Give Ye Them to Eat in Puebla Mexico.
Nan and Miguel try to share God’s love so that everyone they meet hears the message: You are God’s Beloved. They attempt to follow in Christ’s example contributing to the building of God’s “Kin-dom” among us. They served the last three and a half years as the Western Jurisdiction Mission Advocates encouraging churches to form Covenant relationships with missionaries. They lived in the Cal-Pac Conference: serving on Conference task forces like Disaster Response and Immigration, they brought the missionary perspective. In 2015 and 2016 they taught the Latin America Study for United Methodist Women. In 2017 they taught “Let the whole World say Amen!” at the Lay Servant Ministries Academy.
As missionaries in Nicaragua for thirty years, they worked to develop programs with youth and women for: Education, women’s health, economic empowerment, prevention of violence, promotion of gender equity, and a youth-run community radio station. They worked with dozens of Volunteer in Mission teams, and educated about topics like migration from Central America, the Eternal (External) Debt and Free vs Fair Trade.
Nan and first husband, missionary Philip Mitchell, worked in pastoral accompaniment in Nicaragua with families that lost loved ones in the US-war in the 1980s. Phil died suddenly after a simple operation in 1991; their children Daniel and Nora were ages one and three. Three years later Nan and Miguel fell in love working with Volunteer in Mission teams through an ecumenical center where they worked; they married in 1995.
Nan served as Peace with Justice Educator for the Baltimore-Washington Conference (1996 -1997).
On return to Nicaragua in 1997 they supported the founding of the Women and Community Association in San Francisco Libre and San Juan de Limay. Nan and Miguel worked with this organization until August 2014.
Miguel, the eighth of eleven children was raised on one of the 36 Solentiname Islands in Nicaragua’s great lake. He was not able to begin primary school until age twenty, but then studied all his life – becoming a lawyer and receiving a Master in Criminal Law at age fifty-six. He also studied at Wesley Seminary. Before his assignment with Women and Community, his work in Nicaragua included development and theology promotion with churches and ecumenical agencies. He loves to encourage people to go back to school at any age.
Contact them directly: E-mail: nanmigl@yahoo.com, cell: Nan 949-397-4729 or Miguel 949-397-4733