Gable, Michael LeahAnne
Michael LeahAnne Gable is an international Global Mission Fellow with the United Methodist General Board of Global Ministries, engaged in a two-year term of service.
The Global Mission Fellows program takes young adults ages 20-30 out of their home environments and places them in new contexts for mission experience and service. The program has a strong emphasis on faith and justice. Global Mission Fellows become active parts of their new local communities. They connect the church in mission across cultural and geographical boundaries. They grow in personal and social holiness and become strong young leaders working to build just communities in a peaceful world.
Now a member of LifeBridge Church, a nondenominational congregation in Savannah, Georgia, Michael remembers participating in a mission journey as a teen.
“When I was 14,” she said, “I went on a mission trip with my youth group. A tornado had devastated the hometown of one of our leaders, and we were all asked to volunteer to help with disaster care and cleanup. We spent two weeks hopping from church to church, showering in hose-water portable showers, and living off donated meals from the community. It was upward of a hundred degrees most days, and the tasks were heavily manual labor. It was brutal, it was hard work, and it was the happiest, most peaceful, most at rest in my soul that I had ever been up to that point, and it changed my life.”
Michael earned a diploma/certificate in phlebotomy and EKG at Northeast Medical Institute in Stamford, Connecticut, received an Associate Degree in general studies with certifications in emergency medical aid from Chattahoochee Valley Community College in Phenix City, Alabama, and a Bachelor of Arts in cultural anthropology and missiology from Eastern University in St. Davids, Pennsylvania.
“All of my education, all of the steps I took, and all of the training and certifications I got,” she said, “were in preparation to, one day, go into the mission field. My focus was humanitarian outreach that allowed the opportunity for ministry, while still respecting the peoples, communities and cultures I encountered.”
In the process, Michael met a Global Missions Fellow alumnus. “Right away,” she recalled, “I was drawn to the program, but I wasn’t properly equipped at the time to participate.”
“Unfortunately, things in my life kept preventing my ability to commit myself to the program,” Michael said. “This year, I’m finally in a position where I can apply and not have anything holding me back.”
All along, Michael has been an advocate for GMFs.
“The Global Mission Fellows program,” she said, “has been a pillar and a continuing pull in my life for many years. I value and respect the mission of the program and the belief that people can do missions for, with and through God in many ways and with many different types of people.
“Mission is about helping, loving, kindness and ministry through opportunity and understanding. It’s about walking beside all types of people through all walks of life and showing them that they are loved and that they matter.”
She concluded, “Having this opportunity, this community, this journey will be an invaluable experience for any future mission that I do as well. My hope is to use the knowledge I am given from this experience, absorb it, and use it to help others, advocating for those in need and continuing to walk with them.”