William H. (Bill) Lovelace, 54, elder in the United Methodist Church is from the United States, born in Orlando, Florida. He is married to Helen Byholt Lovelace, a Deacon in the UMC who is from Kragerø, Norway.
Bill graduated from the University of Tennessee in 1979 in Computer Science. He worked for 8 years as a computer programmer until he received a call to Christian ministry. While attending Asbury Seminary in the United States, he felt God leading him to work in cross+cultural situations. In 1992, Bill became a missionary with the General Board of Global Ministries of the United Methodist Church.
His first appointment was as pastor of First United Methodist Church of St. Petersburg, Russia in 1993. After three years there, Bill moved to Kerch, Ukraine and was pastor of Kerch United Methodist Church. At the same time, he was made District Superintendent of Ukraine and Caucuses Region. During this time, Bill served on the Northern European Central Conference for Drug and Alcohol Concerns, where he met his wife, Helen. They were married in 1997 and Helen moved to Kerch with Bill, serving together in ministry.
In 1999, seeing the need for the UMC headquarters of Ukraine to be in the capital city, Helen and Bill were appointed to Kiev and to a church in Bila Tserkva. Bill served as DS for the Ukraine district of the South Region Annual Conference of the Russian UMC until 2004 when Ukraine formed its own Annual Conference and continued to serve as DS of the Ukraine and Moldova Annual Conference until 2009. Bill founded the St. Luke’s United Methodist Church in January of 2008, a church in connection with the St. Luke’s Family Center, a day center for families and homeless youth. Helen started the ministry of the St. Luke’s Family Center in January of 2002, originally working with homeless children and gradually expanding the work to families-at- risk.
During Bill’s term as District Superintendent the Annual Conference expanded from 2 to 14 churches in Ukraine and 1 church in Moldova. Bill has been a delegate to General Conference for Ukraine and several times as a delegate to the Northern European Central Conference.
