Miss
Betty J. Letzig, deaconess, is a native of Hardin, Missouri.
After two years of undergraduate study in business at the
University of Missouri she transferred to Scarritt College,
Nashville, Tennessee, where she received her BA and, later, her
MA degrees. She was the first American deaconess to participate
in the International Deaconess Exchange Program. In England she
served on the staff at Kingsway Hall, West London Mission, with
Dr. Donald Soper. Prior to her England experience, she served as
a church and community worker in North Arkansas Conference and as
an educational assistant in local churches in Oklahoma, North
Arkansas and Texas Conferences.She served as a staff member of the National Program Division of the General Board of Global Ministries from 1962 until her retirement in February 1995. Her last responsibility was as Executive Secretary of the Deaconess Program Office and Mission Personnel Services and as a liaison with the Alaska Missionary Conference. Prior staff responsibilities included work with mission agencies from Puerto Rico to Nome, Alaska. Much of her effort was in the area of social welfare service and policy formation, especially in the areas of health care legislation and aging. In 1982 she was an observer at both the UN/NGO Forum on Aging and the World Assembly on Aging in Vienna, Austria. At the World Assembly on Aging she represented The United Methodist Church, the Commission of the Churches on International Affairs for the World Council of Churches, and the National Interfaith Coalition on Aging, which she served as president from 1981-1985.
She has been a member of the Executive Committee of the U.S. committee of the International Council on Social Welfare, and on the Boards of Commission on Religion in Appalachia, Appalachian Development Committee, and Global Health Action (INSA). She presently is a member of the Corporation of Vellore Christian Medical College and Hospital, Inc. (USA).
Her deaconess responsibilities included membership on the Central Committee of DOTAC (Diakonia of the Americas and the Caribbean), and as Co-chair of the Program Committee for the International DIAKONIA Assembly held in Nova Scotia in June 1992. She has served as a Consultant for the Current and Deferred Giving Program of the General Board of Global Ministries since 1995.
Travel outside the United States has included international meetings and travel/study seminars in Canada, the Caribbean, South America, Africa, Europe, Australia and New Zealand. These visits have provided a broad knowledge of the mission programs and projects of The United Methodist Church. At the Church of St. Paul and St. Andrew United Methodist in New York City she served on the Administrative Council, as Treasurer of United Methodist Women, and on the Adult Education and Finance Committees. She has been a regular study leader in both Regional and Conference Schools of Mission.