The Nazarene World Mission Society

72 / Mission to the Worlderal Assembly from a list of nominees submitted by a special nominatingcommittee of five appointed by the chairman of the GeneralAssembly (the general superintendent). There were no geographicalstipulations this time, except that of the 16 to be elected there must be1 each from Canada and the British Isles.At the same General Assembly, the constitution of the Women'sMissionary Society was officially adopted and placed in the Manual.Henceforth, also, the General Council was to meet annually.The first General Convention was held in Columbus, Ohio, inJune 1928, just prior to the General Assembly. At this time the logicalchange was made to have the General Council elected by the conventiondelegates rather than by the General Assembly. However, itwas not until the following convention in 1932 that the election of thegeneral president was placed in the hands of the delegates, not theGeneral Council. Whatever the method of election, Mrs. S. N. Fitkincontinued to be returned to office until she ultimately retired in 1948after having served for 29 years.As years passed, the organizational structure of the missionarysociety altered little, with members of the General Council beingelected from geographical areas and assigned specific phases of responsibilityin the general program. It was at the 1936 General Conventionthat the word "Foreign" was added to the name to distinguishits area of interest from home missions.A significant change took place in 1940 with the election of MissEmma B. Word as the first full-time general secretary of the WFMS.She had already worked a number of years in the general missionaryoffice. She served until 1949, to be followed by Miss Mary Scott,newly returned from China, who served for 25 years, 1950-75. Duringthat time, in 1964, the title was changed to executive secretary.Mrs. Wanda Knox, former missionary to New Guinea, held theoffice from 1975 to 1980, to be followed by Mrs. Phyllis Hartley Brown(Perkins), 1980-85, who had had missionary experience in Japan. Bythis time, in line with the General Board restructure of 1980, the officewas called " general director," which technically was now a staffposition in the World Mission Division.In early 1986, Mrs. Nina Gunter, longtime General Councilmember and district president in South Carolina, was elected generaldirector.The 1952 General Convention voted to change the name of theorganization to Nazarene Foreign Missionary Society (deleting