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The Mission Society family is grieving the loss of our beloved founding president and president emeritus, H.T. Maclin. Dr. Maclin went to be with the Lord on April 14, 2014.

H.T. became a follower of Jesus after being led to the Lord by a shipmate on an aircraft carrier – the USS Anzio – in the Pacific in 1944.

In 1948, H.T. and Alice were first challenged – at 22 and 19 years of age – to give their lives to world missions at the Urbana mission conference by the verses: “But get up and stand on your feet. I have appeared to you to appoint you my servant. You are to tell others what you have seen of me today and what I will show you in the future. …You are to open their eyes and turn them from darkness to light, from the power of Satan to God, so that they will have their sins forgiven and receive their place among God’s chosen people”  (Acts 26:16,18, TEV).

Following graduate studies at Southern Methodist University, Yale, Hartford Seminary, and Ecole Coloniale in Brussels, the Maclins and their four children went as Methodist missionaries to the Congo, where H.T. was director of a teacher training institute and taught in the seminary at Mulungwishi in the 1950s. In 1960 they were reappointed to Nairobi, Kenya where he organized and directed the All Africa Conference of Churches’ Christian Communications Training Institute. In 1964 he was honored by President Tubman of Liberia who named him as Knight Grand Commander of the Humane Order of African Redemption.

After returning to the United States in 1972, Maclin served as field representative for mission development in the Southeastern Jurisdiction of the United Methodist Church. He left that post in 1983 to become the president of the newly-launched organization, The Mission Society for United Methodists.

It would be impossible to overstate the gift H.T. and Alice have been to The Mission Society, not only for their leadership and friendship, but for the example of their lives – their commitment to serve and love God with their whole hearts.

“It is my prayer that the Lord will continue to enable us to stand on our feet and sustain us,” wrote H.T. in his book The Faith that Compels Us. “We carry on by faith believing He is abundantly able to do far more with us and through us than we dare ask or think.”

We rejoice in the knowledge that H.T. is with Jesus, and we praise God for his life of faithful service. Please join with us in praying for his family, particularly for his precious wife, Alice, and their children and grandchildren.

In lieu of flowers, memorial gifts in honor of H.T. can be sent to The Mission Society and designated for the H.T. and Alice Maclin Training Institute.