Lori McBride
Lori McBride serves as the dedicated and visionary director of OC Ministries, bringing with her a wealth of experience and a passion for making a difference in the lives of others. Under her guidance, we continue to uphold our mission of bringing hope, healing, and transformation to children and families in developing nations.
Lori's Story
Life changed dramatically for me in 1996 following a first-ever “mission trip” to build a school in
Jamaica with Operation Classroom. Living with 20 other people in one large church fellowship
hall might not sound glamorous (it wasn’t) but it was an opportunity to learn about the
educational needs of students in another part of the world and introduced me to people whose
vision for “healing a broken world” would profoundly change the way my husband and I were
involved in our local church, introduced the needs of the world to our children, and shared our
financial good fortune with others over the coming years.
My education and professional experience started in the legal arena as a Paralegal. After more
than seventeen years in this field, I opted to leave my job to pursue fulltime
motherhood/homemaker work for my family of five children. It wasn’t long before I felt the call to
return to employment outside the home and was hired to assist in the office of Woodbury United
Methodist Church where we had our family membership. Eventually I switched my focus to
coordinating mission and outreach related ministries for the church, a focus I maintained for the
next twenty-five plus years serving with a total of five different United Methodist congregations.
I retired from church employment in 2023.
My connection with OC Ministries remained strong throughout these many decades and I
traveled with OC to Uganda, Haiti, and Jamaica to meet people and help build primarily
Methodist related schools. I served several terms on the OC Ministries Steering Committee,
and most recently was elected to the position of Executive Director following the retirement of
Lyndy Zabel.
I invite you to join me in support of OC Ministries as we work to fulfill our mission to “minister to
the minds, bodies, and spirits of children, families, and communities in developing countries by
establishing long-term sustainable partnerships” on our way to seeing our vision of “healing a
broken world” come true.
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-Lori McBride