To commemorate World Press Freedom Day, two United Methodist News journalists share what it means to tell the church’s story — with integrity, faith, and heart – and why independent journalism within a faith-based organization is more vital than ever.
Guests: Eveline Chikwanah and Heather Hahn
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This episode posted on May 2, 2025.
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Transcript
United Methodist News keeps you informed, connected, and inspired. This World Press Freedom Day, May 3rd, support fair and faithful reporting that tells the stories that matter. Give now at UMNews.org/freepress to commemorate World Press Freedom Day.
Prologue
Two United Methodist News journalists share what it means to tell the church's story with integrity, faith, and heart, and why independent journalism within a faith-based organization is more vital than ever.
Crystal Caviness, host: Hi, this is Crystal Caviness, your host for “Get Your Spirit in Shape,” and I'm here today with two really special guests and colleagues, Eveline Chikwanah and Heather Hahn, both United Methodist News Service and United Methodist Communications staff members. And we're going to talk about World Press Freedom Day. But before we get started with that, Eveline, Eveline and Heather, welcome and can you share a little something about yourself?
Eveline Chikwanah, guest: Hi, my name is Eveline Chikwanah. I'm a news correspondent based in Harare, Zimbabwe. I cover news events happening on the African continent and beyond as assigned, I have 30 years writing experience, about 31 now. I left college 1994. I am most interested in feature writing. I actually got a distinction while I was in school and I have worked as a features editor for editor, the second largest newspaper in Zimbabwe. I have experience in public relations and I have been writing for United Methodist News for the past 18 years. Thank you
Crystal: Eveline, thank you. And I didn't realize your background. Oh my goodness. How really privileged we are to have someone with all of your experience writing on behalf of The United Methodist Church. So thank you for being a part of that really our important ministry in that way. Heather, can you please share something about yourself please.
Heather Hahn, guest: So like Eveline, I have experience in working for newspapers. In fact, that was my first love. I have more than 25 years experience in journalism and I again like her, I did this since college and now I have been at UM News for 15 years. But prior to that I was working with covering religion across the country. So that's what I did before this and now I focus on The United Methodist Church. Thanks for letting me share.
Crystal: Thank you, Heather. I go to a lot of events on behalf of United Methodist Communications and there's kind of a Heather Han fan club out there. I'm just going to be honest. I'm always hearing, “Do you work with Heather Hahn?” And I think it is because Heather has done such a great job of covering the church for 15 years now, and both of you with such integrity. And that's part of our conversation today as we talk about World Press Freedom Day. This podcast is coming out on May 2nd, the day before World Press Freedom Day. And for people who don't know, it is a day that's commemorated by the United Nations and it's meant to observe the fundamental principles of press freedom around the world and really to lift up what journalists are contributing to defending the freedom of speech, our access to information and the independence of the media. And honestly, we are in a space not just in the United States, but in the whole world where those freedoms are under attack. And so more than ever, we really appreciate the work that you both are doing. I want to talk about that work because as journalist, can you kind of talk about the importance of World Press Freedom Day? What does that personally mean for you?
Heather: I'll start I guess anyhow, this is Heather and I looked it up yesterday and it started in 1993 is when the United Nations developed this stay and Anas to stay and think about the world of 1993. We were coming out of apartheid South Africa. We were coming out of, I think probably for the un even more significantly was the end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union with the development of all these other countries and the fall, the Iron Curtain. So it was a time of hopefulness, but also a time when we thought we were getting closer and shared values as a planet. And I mean really as all these countries and heck, star Trek, the next generation was still on the air. I know I watched it with my family each Sunday anyhow, so it was this time of saying this is something we value as a world and all these different nations of value. And I think since that time, unfortunately, while there have been definitely some moments of peace and some moments of war, we're definitely seeing a time of war right now and also a time of when as you mentioned, freedoms are being constricted and the press is part of holding governments account. It's part of frankly holding all leaders to account. And it's important that we still have this even in this particularly difficult time. So that's my take.
Crystal: Thank you, Heather. Eveline, you come at it with a really different lens on the continent of Africa, so many countries, so many governments. And can you share what World Press Freedom Day means to you?
Eveline: I think World Press Freedom Day is very important because it reminds government that the fourth realm has to have its independence so that the media can hold authorities accountable for whatever that they'll be doing. And when the press is free and they report exactly as what is on the ground, it gives people a wider range of perspectives. For example, in my country in Zimbabwe, we know that when you get hold of the government newspaper, the front pages stories about the president and the First Lady. And because the back page is sometimes you also have government events related to sport on the back page. But then when you have an independent media, it means people have access to more objective information, not just a government mouthpiece, but someone who's independent and can share a wider range of views and share their own objective opinion of what's happening on the ground.
Because we know my husband works for The Herald, which is the biggest government publication, and sometimes I laugh at him and I say, look, page one, we have the president, page two, we have the First Lady. And those pages are dedicated to whatever they're doing, even if we may think they're menial, but because they're in authority and the newspaper is theirs, I believe journalists at that publication don't have much independence. I would take you back to 2005 when I worked for the second largest newspaper in Zimbabwe, there was a lot of politicking and a lot of campaigning and it got so bad that the Minister of Information would actually say, I need to see all page one and page two stories before you publish even if you are in a different city. So we would send the stories to him and if there was a meeting for the ruling party and it was poorly attended, he would say, you must write that there were 20,000 people who attended this meeting, and you'll be knowing that the capacity for that stadium is 10,000.
So in the end, I opted to leave because I had to protect my integrity. I didn't have that independence. So I've been there, I know what it's like, and for you to link your name to something which is not factual, it also kind of destroys the reputation that you have built. Because the other thing which happened was there was a meeting which was poorly attended, and then they said, can the photographer go into the library and pull out an old photo which you'll use on page one and say, this is the meeting which was held on Sunday, which was well attended. So that photo was taken out, it was approved for publication and unfortunately one of the people who was in that photo had died like two years ago. So their relatives came to the office demanding to see the editor to say, how can you say this meeting was held two days ago when a relative died a few years back? And when you are operating inside an environment, that's when you realize it's important that you have the freedom to write as objectively as you can so that people get the correct picture of exactly what's going on. Thank you.
Crystal: Wow, that's not a surprising story. It's still shocking but not surprising. But I respect that you just said I can't be a part of this and that you stepped away and you understood that it was your name and your integrity. Which brings me to the next question and it's about having a news service inside a faith-based organization. I think that surprises people sometimes. Why does the church need a news service? And both of you may have gotten that question before, and if so, what do you tell the people?
Heather: Well, actually, if it's okay, Crystal, I'm going to go a little orthogonal to your question because I wanted share this. Why we're different than what you've seen, what Eveline was talking about in her experience in Zimbabwe. The United Methodist Church has a new service and we've had it for many decades and we are in the discipline, the Book of Discipline, which is our governing document, which pretty cool, and this is what it says, the United Methodist Communications shall via United Methodist News be the official news agency for The United Methodist Church, serving as a source of comprehensive and in-depth global news and information about the domination to both the church and the world and discharging its responsibilities. It shall operate with editorial freedom as an independent news bureau demonstrating openness and transparency. It may also promote awareness of journalism as a church ministry and its importance to informing the denomination. Well, we've got the Bible on our side when it says you shall know the truth and the truth shall shut you free. We are in our own way part of sharing the gospel and unfortunately that doesn't obviously want to share the good news of Christ, but we also have to sometimes share the bad news of human failing or bad things happening like storms and disaster.
But that's a part of our job as church. We are there to cover meetings that frankly most people can't attend because we have a strong open meetings law in our church. But that being said, most people have other things to do and that's okay. So we cover a lot of these big church meetings, we cover a lot of church events that were there. We read documents that you might not have the time to read, and we tried to summarize it and as concisely and as obviously accurately, but also as compellingly as possible. So you can see why it matters to you. Why does it matter? Well, the United Methodist Church is influential both in the US and around the globe. And so following what we do matters from a national and global perspective. I'm obviously speaking as an American and it matters that so much so that people actually cover us in the secular media and frankly, they come to us at UM News.
We have a whole public relations department, please understand, but we get a lot of questions from journalists, some of them we've known in our previous lives in the secular press. And they will come and ask us questions sort of like, Hey, what do you think is going to be important here, particularly at General Conference? And we can kind of tell them what's going and we can send them our stories and that can help them shape their coverage. So in that sense, we do communicate and also frankly, both Eagle and frankly all of us at News have had our stories picked up by Secular Press. Mike DuBose, who is not part of this conversation but is amazing longtime photographer, his photos get used all over the world. If you see something United Methodist, I'll probably have Mike DuBose’s name on it or maybe Paul Jeffrey or Kathleen Berry. But Mike has been doing this for a very long time, so his name is seen quite often. So anyhow, I hope that's helpful.
Crystal: Absolutely. Thank you. Eveline, do you have something you'd like to add to that?
Eveline: I wanted to say it's important for a faith-based organization to have a new service because this is where we can tell the stories of what is happening in the church and by telling, we inspire other congregations, other people across the globe who may be having the same challenges, may learn how a different congregation has overcome. It's also a platform for sharing stories which raise hope, people's faith, and it's generally a platform for spreading love. That's what I think.
Crystal: That's such a great point. And I'll tell you, because we are a worldwide denomination, I think sometimes, and I'm United Methodist, a lifelong United Methodist, and I know what's happening in my congregation. I sometimes know what's happening in my district or in my annual conference, but my ability to know what's happening beyond those perimeters is somewhat limited. And I think it's important. I mean I've asked you the question, but I'm kind of answering it myself. But it's important that I as a United Methodist in my local congregation know that there are United Methodists in other parts of the world and the ministries that they're doing or the challenges that they're facing, and it really puts faces to the word worldwide for me. I know that presents challenges, writing for a worldwide audience probably presents challenges. Can you talk about that? Or maybe it doesn't, but I would think it would.
Heather: Well, just so we're clear, I do want to make, because this comes up sometimes, why don't you do that? And I'm like, we do try to do as much as we can, but we are a small staff.
Crystal: Eveline, let's talk about your context, your audience. It has to be a different approach, I'm sure from what the work that Heather's doing. One, the continent of Africa is so much larger than the US and I know that Heather often covers meetings in other parts of the world too, but talk about how do you decide what are we covering, how are we covering this when you've got so many, United Methodist Church has a large presence on the continent of Africa, it also has some conflict right now. And talk with us about what your days are like and how the stories that you're covering
Eveline: On a typical day, early in the morning, I go to Facebook. For me, Facebook is a source of what's happening on the continent because Africa is large. So there are people that I follow. I follow the bishop in Nigeria, I follow communicators in Nigeria. What are they posting this morning? Like for example, today I see there was an attack on one of our churches and some people died. So it's something that I have to work on because once someone has been killed in a church, it's a major event. And when people in the US learn that this has happened in Africa, my editor will be asking Eveline, Eveline, have you heard about this? Who are your sources in Nigeria? Can you get to the bottom of it? So I use social media, but mainly it's Facebook because that's where I see people posting events. I see statements being posted, and I have people who no matter how busy I am, I have to check what is they posted, what is happening in their part of the area.
I do a lot of WhatsApp conversations maybe once or twice a week. There are people who might just check up on hi. For example, in the Congo. I would probably get in touch with reference Betty Kazadi and say, hi my sister, how are you? What's happening in South Congo or in the Congo in general? And then if she has something going on, then I'll know this is of global interest, this has to be followed up. I have friends across the continent, people are follow up with regularly. I have people who sometimes say to me, have you seen this publication? Sometimes Heather comes across something in an email and she'll say, can you look at this? What do you think? But for us to determine what needs to be covered, we look at the impact on the United Methodist as a denomination and on us as Christians, whether you are a Catholic, an Anglican or a United Methodist, the death of someone in a church sanctuary, that's big news.
So you have to follow it up. So we look at where this has happened, what is the impact on the congregation, what does it mean for the denomination? And then from there you can determine whether Crystal in North Carolina would like to read it because conflict is a huge, it draws people, people's attention. People want to know what exactly is going on, how is it that people are going to a church and they're armed with exes and all sorts of weapons when they should just be getting a Bible and they in book and maybe a phone. So those are the kind of things that I do. So most of my stories, I draw them from social media, I draw them from conversations. And when you've been in the game for a long time and people trust you, they can say to you, even this has happened, but I'm not the correct person to give you the information and then I'll follow up on those leads.
Crystal: Thank you, Eveline. And as we all are also distressed when we hear about these tragedies happening anywhere in the world, in the church and in any denominations church, but as our United Methodist siblings, it just really touches us in a different way I think. And I was going to ask you, when something like that happens, how challenging is it for you to get to the real story?
Eveline: It's very difficult. I've always said this in meetings for the news and information team. If people are killed, say on a Sunday and you hear about it in the evening and Monday, you start looking for the information. For example, in Nigeria, I have a lot of sources because last year I was fortunate enough to travel to Nigeria for, I was scheduled to be there for five days and then there was a national strike. So I was locked up in a hotel, the airports were closed, so I ended up staying there for over a week and I made a lot of friends during that time. And you'll find that if you speak to four different people in Nigeria about an event which has occurred, you'll get five different stories. So I take my time. I know sometimes people will be anxious for the story to go out, but like I mentioned earlier, it's also about my integrity.
I have a name to protect. I've come far, so I don't want my name to be associated with something which is not true or which has been exaggerated. And you'll find that because we have a new denomination which emerged and some members left, there's a lot of inflammatory comments going on and you have to find a position which leaves everyone in a better space. You don't want to inflame an already inflamed situation. You don't want things to go out of proportion because you have published and you have worsened the situation on the ground. So it is difficult, it's challenging. I recently wrote something about property disputes in Nigeria and Liberia because they are in the same central conference and they have the same kind of events which are happening with the new denomination trying to take over United Methodist properties. But for me to work on that story and get it published, I think it took like three weeks trying to really get to the bottom of whatever is happening. If someone says, my name is John, you have to confirm with three other people that this person's name is really John. Because if you just say, I spoke with John, you wake up tomorrow and this John doesn't exist, so it's difficult. You need to get the facts and verify and double check so that I protect not only my name, but the name of the agency.
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Wow, it sounds so just very tedious and so many details. One of the themes I think for World Press Freedom Day 2025 is how has artificial intelligence, how is artificial intelligence impacting the press? I kind of want to open that up a little more and just say, how has technology impacted how you do your job? And I hear you even in talking about how Facebook is a source of leads for you and maybe even some fact checking. But are there other ways, Heather, I'll let you talk about that. From your perspective, how has technology across the last 15 years impacted the way you cover stories for news?
Heather: Let's never forget technology is a tool and it shouldn't replace humans. There are tools for humans to use, and sometimes I think we bow too much to tools. And I'll tell you how I do end up using AI as a tool. One of the things that is not my favorite thing to do in my job is I transcribe a lot of interviews. Well, AI has assisted in that immensely. I have to check my recordings, I have to check my notes. I do all that, but I also, it helps me do this really quickly. I can make time marks and go, oh, okay, that's exactly where I want to go in an interview and get that right away and verify this is what I'm going to use. It makes things a lot faster and I appreciate that. But as I said, AI is a tool and it's not a search engine. ChatGPT is not that. And while it may borrow information from search engines, it can't help you look up directly stuff. And it is a large language model and it wants to get to yes. And so it's going to tell you what it thinks you want to hear. And even saying the word think is probably a misnomer. It's not thinking at all. It's just trying to get a positive response. That's what it's programmed to do. It's not data. It's not even C3 po and it has a lot of slop and a lot of frankly incorrect information if you're looking at it. And so you have to always verify. And honestly and truly, I find using those, your large language models not that helpful. I find stuff like transcription, which again, you also always have to verify because what they think they're hearing, what a peer program, it's a lot better than it used to be.
And you can get it. You can do translation work with ai, which can be good, but even some of that's not that great. Go deep L If you want to do Korean to English, don't use Google Translate. My colleague Tom Kim would want me to know. The other challenge about ai, which is no small thing in my book, is that it takes a lot of energy to do it. So if you care about reducing our carbon footprint, which we as a denomination have made a commitment to do, I do want to try to use this stuff sparingly. Even the transcription stuff I like so much, I try to use sparingly. So for all the conversation, my biggest concern with AI right now is that people are trying to attribute to it powers it does not have. And we have these things called slop, I think is the term of our people are now using to describe the sort of nonsense that we're seeing, these nonsense images.
And I'll give you a good example of an image that came up not that long ago. A colleague stumbled across an image that purported to be an Advent calendar, except that the days of the week had more than multiple December 9th, multiple December nonsense like that. And it was supposed to be an AI generated image. It was nonsense. And so I would just be very cautious about it. Will it someday develop? Are we on the cusp of something amazing? Will I become obsolete? It's possible, but at this point I don't think we're anywhere near that. And I think the biggest mistake we have is people thinking that this stuff can do what you really do need humans to do. So thank you.
Crystal: Thank you Heather. Eveline, how have you seen technology either maybe how has it assisted you and maybe what are some cautionary words?
Eveline: I think Heather, you said all the used to say about ai personally, when I say something and it says ai, I get put off because it doesn't have a human face. And for my particular audience in Africa, I think we are a bit behind. People want that personal touch. So AI doesn't give me that. But I wanted to say that technology has helped because for example, when we have election of bishops, we have a spreadsheet which we use as news, and that spreadsheet is updated with each ballot. So someone in, someone in Canada, in the Philippines, they can actually see that we are now on the fourth ballot and the votes are like this, and this is instantly, the minute I put on those figures, whoever is across the globe can just follow up. So for me, that is a plus. And last year when we were at general conference, I was blessed to sit next to Steve Adair and he was doing formerly Twitter and he was doing this posts.
As things happened, Steve was posting and I was just sitting there marveling at how people at home could actually follow. They were not in North Carolina, some of them don't even know where the US is, but the minute they've access to an internet connection, they could actually follow what Steve was posting. And that for me was a marvel. I loved that. So technology has helped us to reach our audiences faster where there's need. We don't want people to wait until the huge story has been written. Maybe it'll take two to three days verifying facts, but they can get results instantly to know so-and-so has been elected a bishop in this Episcopal area. So for me, that's a plus.
Heather: Can I share a cool story from this, that Eveline piggyback on her?
Crystal: Sure.
Heather: Okay. So we just had our Eveline was there on site in Johannesburg, South Africa where we elected four new bishops in the Africa Central Conference and including a new bishop in Rwanda, which is a new Episcopal area for the United Methodist Church. Very exciting stuff. But a couple of weeks ago was the Northern Europe and Eurasia Central Conference where they elected one bishop who's going to be serving the Nordic Baltic and Ukraine area. And so they were electing a new bishop. I happened to be at this time on assignment in North Carolina that happens a couple weeks ago. And I get a WhatsApp message from a colleague of mine who happened to be in Cote D’Ivoire at the time and going, wow, they are going fast. Did they really do all this? All these, because they had multiple ballots all in one day. And I said, yes. And he goes, that's amazing. And I realized I'm talking to the guy actually, he works with GCFA in Abidjan, their major commercial capital about an election currently happening in Copenhagen, Denmark, and I'm in North Carolina. That is an amazing thing that is enabled by technology and it also shows me the connection in action. So I had to share.
Crystal: It really does show the connection. Coincidentally, I was with Heather in that same space in North Carolina at the Peace Conference that the Western North Carolina annual conference presented. And we were talking about that, how it really kind of shows our connection and kind of shrinks the world in a way where we can be sharing information. And Eveline, Eveline, you gave that really great example with Steven Adair, who's a colleague at UMCom with us and how he was live. He was posting to X in real time to let the whole world, the whole denomination know what was happening on the floor at General Conference when there were, I don't know, maybe 4,000 to 5,000 people in Charlotte, North Carolina last spring, but yet tens of thousands were able to know what was happening in real time, which really is the power of communications and the power of what we are all working to do on a daily basis.
But thank you both for sharing those stories. We're going to wrap up. And I wanted to ask, I feel like we've already kind of talked about some of the challenging stories because Eveline shared about what's going on so tragically and in some of the countries there in Africa with the conflict. But I would love for you to share, you both have mentioned how part of what news does is share stories of love and stories of hope. And I'd love to ask you both to maybe share your top one or two that's already happened in these first few months of 2025 that have been really encouraging for you to get to share those stories and cover those stories and learn of the ministry that's going on.
Heather: Can I be weird and say that one of the most fun things I've done this year is not okay. So I love, like Eveline, I love writing stories about churches doing amazing things. We've got some great stories mainly by evil John Coleman and Jim Patterson this year. But I tend to write the church nerdy stuff, and I find a lot of cool things about that. One of the pleasures I had this year, early this year was covering the constitutional amendments that are going before people to vote. I got really excited about this because obviously every vote counts, and I can't stress this enough. If you are an annual conference voter, go to your annual conference vote. But in talking about these issues that are coming before the church, they're all very serious. But still, I just like the idea that here is a way that everybody can have an impact on their church, and it's using, frankly, a very democratic process. So I found very hopeful for me personally, and I realize it's a weird thing, and as you talk to me right now, I am working on this story about, well, a biblical figure that we all know, and we are talking during Holy week and I'm writing about Mary Magdalene. So stay tuned. So anyhow, thanks.
Crystal: Thank you, Heather, for bringing up the story about the amendments because it gave a chance to kind of plug the process and remind especially annual conference delegates too, that there are these important votes coming and that every vote does count. So thank you for sharing that, and we'll definitely link to that Mary Magdalene story since when this podcast comes out. It will already have been published, so we'll link to that on the episode page. Eveline, how about you?
Eveline: For me this year, a very good story, which I felt good about, was a feature I wrote on two missionaries who retired after serving for 30 years in Zimbabwe. These are missionaries with global ministries, Larry and Jane Keys. Larry was an agriculture expert. He was into farming, he was into agriculture, technology and all sorts of things, agriculture. And Jane would teach intensive English. So they served at Jeri UMC Mission about 140 kilometers outside of Ari. And from there they moved to Africa University. So for me, this was a story about how this couple their lives impacted people in Zimbabwe for over three decades. And that's a lot. And when the story was published, there was so much feedback. People are saying, I remember Larry Keys, he taught me this. Larry Keys taught me to do that. He made me touch my first day old chick.
There are people who'd never see been up close to a cow or a pig. And for them, Larry was the hero at the Africa University's dream farm. So for me, that's a story which inspires hope. It inspires faith for someone to live Iowa and come and live in Africa for over three decades. Decades. That's huge. And because we are agencies, global ministries, UMCom, it's also important that we uplift the work of what other agencies, partner agencies are doing. And for me, that was a beautiful story, a company with beautiful photos, and when you just look back, you just feel good about having done this and shared the story of people with the whole world.
Crystal: That is a beautiful story. Thank you. We'll definitely link to that story too on the episode page so we can share it with everyone. Well, is there anything we didn't talk about today that you wanted to make sure we had a lot we wanted to cover, and I'm not sure that we got to all of it, but is there one thing that you had hoped we had discussed that we didn't?
Heather: Can I put a plug in for our new social media?
Crystal: Of course.
Heather: Okay, so X, as you may know, is going through some things, and we have found it less than reliable platform in recent years, so we are now on Blue Sky, so find us there we are, and let me look it up and
Crystal: I'll put all those handles on the episode page as well.
Heather: Yeah, because we're at news at Blue Sky, we are of course also on Facebook and we are now on WhatsApp. They have a broadcasting ability that's not just a way to chat with people and stay tuned. I think we will probably be on threats in a couple weeks, and that will evolve us also being on Instagram, which is why it's taking a little bit while. So that's where we are, and obviously we're on news.org and I always like to put in a plug for our digest. Our digest comes out typically three times a week on Monday, Wednesdays, and Fridays. It's a newsletter that basically you gets write your email box, it's free, you pay for it anyway with your church giving, and we're very grateful for that. And also with fundraising, but please know we love it if you subscribe. It's a great way to see what's going on, not just you news stories, although we have plenty of those, but we also have coverage from conferences and agencies and even secular stories around the globe, and you can follow what's going on. It remains probably our best way of getting news to folks in a comprehensive way. So thanks.
Crystal: Thank you. Thanks, Heather. Eveline, how about you?
Eveline: I just wanted to say I have been blessed to be a part of news, a part of United Methodist Communications. When you work for a faith-based organization, and in particular the news agency, you become family. It's not like you're going to work. I know that whenever I travel to hotspots or if I'm working on something difficult, the whole team is praying for me, and that is very important. That is key. I have had prayers from colleagues, I've had prayers from across the connection. I've had people reach out and say, Eveline, we noticed you are in this part of the continent. We know it's difficult and we are praying for you, praying for. So for me, those prayers have sustained me. Those prayers give me the strength to just go on. And just knowing that I have a lot of people are covering my back from my editor, from the general secretary, sometimes you get a message and you say, wow. So these people really know that I'm out there somewhere doing all this for the glory of God. And for me, that is just a blessing. I'm just blessed to be a part of this team, and I know that if I reach out and I have a challenge, I know there are people who are watching out for me and for me, that makes me very grateful. Thank you.
Crystal: Thank you, Eveline. Now I'm going to ask you both the question that we ask all of our guests on “Get Your Spirit in Shape” and that is how do you keep your own spirit in shape?
Heather: Well, for me it's honestly, I'm a morning person, so I do like to get up about four 30 in the morning and pray. It's a devotional time, so thank you.
Crystal: Eveline. How do you keep your spirit in shape?
Eveline: In this part of the world, we believe in getting out of the comfort zone. We believe in prayer, but praying at that time when you are really warm and you can't get out of bed or get down on your knees. So in the past, I used to have an alarm for 12 midnight for my prayers, and as time went on, it's just something which happens. I'm up at 12, I pray for the day ahead, I pray for the week ahead. I pray for assignments, which I had. And when the pressure really gets me and I'm at home, I just go into my garden and I do a bit of gardening and I marvel at how these crops are growing and how this tomato fruit now has two tomatoes and that kind of keeps me afloat.
Crystal: I love that. I love that both of you are kind starting your day or even, I'll be honest, it sounds like in the middle of your night that you're going to God and having time together. So thank you both for being a guest on “Get Your Spirit in Shape” and thank you for your dedication to this really important work, which I can tell it's a ministry for both of you. And I'm really honored to be your colleague alongside you at United Methodist Communications, and appreciate you being a guest here.
Epilogue
That was Eveline Chikwanah and Heather Hahn discussing their roles as journalists for United Methodist News. To learn more, go to umc.org/podcast and look for episode where you'll find helpful links and a transcript of our conversation. If you have questions or comments, feel free to email me at a special email address just for “Get Your Spirit in Shape” listeners: gysis@umcom.org. If you enjoyed today's episode, we invite you to leave a review on the platform where you get your podcast. Thank you for being a get your spirit and shape listener. I'm Crystal Caviness and I look forward to the next time that we're together.
Today's episode has been sponsored by our recognition of World Press Freedom Day as we celebrate the vital role of a free press in connecting our world. Today, we're celebrating United Methodist News and the impactful stories It tells from across our connection stories that might otherwise go untold from disaster response to ministry profiles. News transforms information into inspiration. Give today at UMNews.org/free press to help keep stories of faith and hope free for all. That's news.org/free press where you can make your gift today.
