The vision of Evangelical Friends Mission (EFM) is evangelical friends of North America fully mobilized to send missionaries who plant groups of churches around the world that are faithful, sustainable, multiplying, and mobilized to send missionaries themselves.  But when and why did EFM come to exist?

Evangelical Friends Church–North America (EFC-NA) is made up of groups called Yearly Meetings. These yearly meetings have been sending missionaries to the ends of the earth for a long time. Not only have they sent missionaries, but they have also reproduced themselves by planting other yearly meetings in these places. From 1887 to 1967 these five yearly meetings sent out more than 250 missionary households. Many of these were singles, some were couples without children, but the majority were families. Check out this video to see the names and faces of these missionary households!

Here’s a quick history lesson that shows you what happened between 1887 and 1967:

• Evangelical Friends Church-Eastern Region (EFC-ER), formerly called Ohio Yearly Meeting, sent Esther Butler to China in 1887. Five years later it sent Esther Baird and Delia Fistler to India. Many missionaries followed in both of these places. Today the most visible evidence of the labor of Chinese, Indian, and American workers can be seen in Taiwan Yearly Meeting and some churches in the Bundelkhand area of India.
• Friends Southwest (FSW), formerly called California Yearly Meeting, sent the Robert Samms family and two single women to Kotzebue, Alaska, in 1897, and Ruth Esther Smith to Guatemala in 1906. Today Alaska Yearly Meeting (now a part of EFC-NA) and three yearly meetings in Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador are the fruit of all those who served the Lord together (Central Americans, Inupiaq, and missionaries mostly from the Southwest).
• Northwest Yearly Meeting (NWYM), formerly called Oregon Yearly Meeting, sent the Carroll Tamplin family to La Paz, Bolivia, in 1931 to join a work already in progress. Through the faithful labor of Aymara Friends, along with the many missionaries who followed Tamplins, one yearly meeting was established in Bolivia and another in Peru.
• Evangelical Friends Church-Mid America Yearly Meeting (EFC-MAYM), formerly called Kansas Yearly Meeting, sent the Arthur Chilson family to Burundi, Africa, in 1934. Thanks to the hard work of Burundian Friends and many American missionaries who worked with them, there is a strong Evangelical Friends’ presence in the heart of Africa today.
• Rocky Mountain Yearly Meeting (RMYM) supported a work among the Navajo begun in the early 1950’s by Nebraska Yearly Meeting and then took full responsibility for it mid-way through that decade. Rough Rock, Arizona, was the base. The Vern Ellis family did much to develop this ministry along with many others. Today there is a group of churches on the reservation that maintain ties to RMYM.

Then, in January 1963, twenty Friends from NWYM, FSW, RMYM, EFC-MAYM, EFC-ER, Indiana Yearly Meeting (IYM), and Iowa Yearly Meeting (IAYM) came together in Colorado Springs to have a conference on missions. The yearly meetings had all been sending their own missionaries and establishing their own mission fields, yet they came together to discuss both the problems and opportunities arising in regard to their mission work. From this meeting came the idea to establish a “coordinating council” that would work on issues that would help strengthen all of their missionary-sending programs. The council was approved, and the Friends formed a “commission on missions” made up of members from NWYM, RMYM, EFC-MAYM, and EFC-ER.

In September of that same year (1963), the Commission on Missions had its first meeting. In 1967 it opened its first mission field which was in Mexico City. In 1978 the commission was given the name Evangelical Friends Mission. It also received its first director, Robert Hess from EFC-ER. Another field was opened in 1981, this one in the Philippines. From that point on this joint missions effort grew and grew. So far, EFM has had almost 40 career missionary units (more than two years) serve on multiple fields. Through God’s grace, eight yearly meetings have been planted, which represent about 250 organized churches and 17,000 attendees. EFM recently celebrated our 60th anniversary (2023)- check out this video to learn more of the rich history of EFM!

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