55th Celebration!   

UIM International is celebrating its 55th year of ministry.  Since 1956 as United Indian Missions, UIM International has sought to fulfill the vision of "Daddy Vanderwagen" and to continue the pioneering footwork, labors of love, and spirit-empowered service and sacrifice to reach indigenous peoples of North America.

From these original "three young couples" (the Clarks, Chamberses, and Frederickses) God has multiplied UIM's ministries, missionary personnel, and Native-led ministries throughout Canada, the United States, and Mexico.  We want to do more!     

This issue of UIM Connection! features our ministry in Wisconsin.  UIM missionaries Ed and Donna Zook and Ernie and Roxie Geeting have been serving faithfully among the Stockbridge.  The Stockbridge were first evangelized by Lutheran missionaries many years ago; in the course of time they were "Christianized" in tradition only, not true followers of Jesus Christ in the biblical sense.    

In their own words the Stockbridge-Munsee band proudly declare, "Contrary to early American literature and Hollywood license, the Last of the Mohicans continue to outlive James Fenimore Cooper's book-ending prediction.  We are alive and thriving in a beautifully forested section of Northern Wisconsin."  Learn more about these wonderful people at http://www.mohican-msn.gov/. 

We seek to make key connections with First Nations people, Native Americans, Mexicans, and Hispanics wherever they are.

Will you please stay connected with us first and foremost in prayer and partner with us in your giving?   Thank you!     

Forever grateful!     

Dan Fredericks, UIM Executive Director     

 A Bit of History 

In 1731, while attending the coronation of Christian VI in Copenhagen, the young Count met a converted slave from the West Indies, Anthony Ulrich.  Anthony's tale of his people's plight moved Zinzendorf, who brought him back to Herrnhut.  As a result, two young men, Leonard Dober and David Nitchmann, were sent to St. Thomas to live among the slaves and preach the Gospel.  This was the first organized Protestant missions work, and grew rapidly to Africa, America, Russia, and other parts of the world.  By the end of Zinzendorf's life there were active missions from Greenland to South Africa, literally from one end of the earth to the other.  Though the Baptist missionary William Carey is often referred to as the "Father of Modern Missions," he himself would credit Zinzendorf with that role, for he often referred to the model of the earlier Moravians in his journal.  (To read more, go to http://www.zinzendorf.com/countz.htm)