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Some call me Dr. Ashley Goad, but most simply know me as Ashley. Raised in High Point, North Carolina, I grew up attending Springfield Friends Meeting, the Quaker church my great-great-great-great grandparents planted in 1773. If you spend more than 5 minutes with me, I’ll likely work three things into the conversation: Jesus, Mission, and Quakers!
I graduated from Appalachian State University in 2001 with a BS in Political Science, and then went on to Liberty Theological Seminary to earn a Masters of Divinity. In 2016, with a dissertation entitled, “Mind the Gap: Navigating the Pitfalls of Cross-Cultural Partnership,” I completed a Doctor of Ministry in Leadership and Global Perspective at George Fox Evangelical Seminary. While I was recorded (“ordained”) as a Quaker pastor in North Carolina in 2006, I am now officially serving as an Ordained Elder in the Global Methodist Church. My theology is sometimes very confused, though, as I have served at Pine Hill Friends Meeting (NC), ChristChurch Presbyterian (TX), and Herndon UMC (VA)!
Haiti is my second home, and mission is where my heart is. Since 2009, I have logged over 50 trips to Haiti, most in service with Living Waters for the World and Solar Under the Sun, partnering ministries who seek to bring solar-powered clean water systems to communities in need. While in the Port-Au-Prince, Haiti airport in 2013, I met the team from First Methodist Church in Shreveport. The church had begun to vision what a global mission ministry would look like, and for me, this was a dream job. I joined the FMC staff on August 1, 2013, and have not stopped traveling the world since. With guidance and prayer from the Global Mission ministry leadership team, First Methodist has created partnerships in Australia, New Zealand, Russia, Romania, Czech Republic, Uganda, and Costa Rica, while continuing our work in my beloved Haiti.
The biggest celebration in my life came on January 31, 2020, when I married Christopher Harbuck. We have a sweet black lab named Molly. I am also “mom” to Mackenson, who lives in Haiti, and Chris has two children, Palmer & Kit.
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Wil Bailey is a Missionary serving in Costa Rica. He received his Master of Divinity degree from Duke University Divinity School in May of 2003 and has been commissioned as a United Methodist Volunteers in Mission Individual Volunteer. His wife, Yolanda, is an active, life-long member of the Evangelical Methodist Church of Costa Rica.
Wil went to Costa Rica for the first time when he was 15 years old with a United Methodist Volunteers in Missions youth work team. He went back every chance he got, and by the time he moved to Costa Rica in 2003, he had been 14 times. The majority of those trips were mission work teams. Wil says, "I have known since that first trip that doing mission work in Central America would always be a part of my life." Wil has also been on work teams to Honduras and Belize and spent the Summer of 2001 working with the Methodist Church of Southern Africa in Johannesburg, South Africa.
Wil spent the Summer of 2002 back in Costa Rica living with a pastor and his family in San Isidro. It was over the course of those three-and-a-half months that God showed Wil that there was a ministry for him in Costa Rica. The week before he left to come back to the States to finish seminary, Wil met with Bishop Fernando Palomo in San Jose, and the Bishop invited him to come to work full-time as a part of the Evangelical Methodist Church of Costa Rica.
In March of 2014 Wil and Yolanda were overjoyed to welcome the newest member of the Costa Rica Mission Projects family, Isabella Caroline Bailey Ulloa. Wil and Yolanda believe that when Jesus washed the feet of His disciples, he taught us, in dramatic fashion, that if we claim to be His followers, we must be servants to one another. Christian service comes in many forms and they believe that they have been called to provide opportunities for churches in Costa Rica and churches from other countries to serve one another and explore what it means for us to be part of a body that extends far beyond the walls of our own individual churches. Their hope is that they might be able to help foster long lasting, fruitful relationships between the congregations who participate in this ministry. It is very important to them that they avoid establishing or reinforcing already existing relationships of dependency, but rather, that the churches involved will discover the benefits of interaction with one another. They understand the communion that takes place across borders, cultures and languages as a glimpse of God's Kingdom and as a sign of the work of the Holy Spirit among us.
Ashley Purcelle Goad
Josiah William Bailey IV
Sally Wiltshire Block
John Bryant Sweeney
Hardy Foreman
John Frederick Woodward