By Peter Agwa
Many women work hard away from the spotlight of team reports. That means there are many women that no list could do justice in honoring them. Furthermore, some have chosen anonymity out of self-effacement: allowing the light to shine on their work and not on themselves.
In governance, we have Sally Patrick, Krista Waring, Susan Cheung, Chan Du, Janet Greidanus, some of whom are providing leadership to our teams. Christine Lancing, Christine Malmberg, and Winnie Siu have also worked as board members.
The leadership of Justina Chan, and the spiritual nurturing of Susanna Yu, whose faith and initiative were instrumental in our engagement with hospitals in China are foundational to our strength and service there. Then there is Lingbo and her colleagues, translators who break the language barrier for the teaching we do in China.
Spread across the teams are women of initiative whose energy and organizational skills enable teams to mobilize people and resources: among them Frances Kwok, Linda Ling, and Nancy Wood.
Then there is Ellen Watson who served often alone as the administrative director for three decades.
Our communications tools are built on work done by Odette Arsenault.
There are women who persevere in prayer, selfless teachers who work at night preparing lectures for students in Cambodia; and others who in the spirit of Luke 8:1-3 are our most generous and faithful donors.
Some of our heroines have retired or moved on, but most remain actively engaged.
Sandy Rumford keeps EMAS Canada running, she records every financial transaction; a task crucial to our compliance with CRA. She tracks the accounts of ten teams, and over three hundred volunteers with hundreds more donors every year. Sandy prepares monthly reports for the teams and the audit committee. She is our virtual “front desk person” responding to inquiries and dealing with administrative duties including making purchases for our teams. It is Sandy who arranges for students’ flights from Yaoundé via Entebbe to the DR Congo. Every year everything is accounted for because of Sandy’s skills with numbers.
Melony Teague does all our communications, updates the website, and keeps us in touch with our donors through newsletters and emails. She is constantly designing and sharpening our media tools. It is her work that allows new volunteers and donors to connect with EMAS Canada through our online presence. Melony carefully edits our documents, weeding outdated language and keeping us sensitive and relevant to our audience. Her creativity in matching ideas with images draws an increasing audience to our refreshed Youtube channel. By patient coaching and frequent encouragement she is guiding team leaders and myself in learning to make videos reports.