August 2020 — pg. 27
felt safe, and it was because I often saw the church leaders
and Donna outside the church building,” Leonhard said.
“I think I saw them more outside the church building
than inside the church.”
Leonhard later attended Greenville College and
became a social worker while keeping Saylor’s “gentle
and loving way of doing things in my mind and in my
heart. To protect the dignity of others despite any given
situation became a priority for me. I learned that from
Pastor Donna, and I learned that from the little church
on 16th Street,” Leonhard said. “I am so grateful for her.
Every aspect of my adult life was positively impacted by
her love.”
Health Challenges
Saylor experienced health problems that made it
difficult for her to continue her ministry efforts in
Brooklyn. A brain tumor caused her to take a ministry
furlough in Greenville.
“I was just so crippled and weak from the brain surgery,
because I had to learn to walk again. I had to learn my
basic calculations again,” Saylor said. “I’d lost my Spanish
so I had to relearn that and some English vocabulary.”
She returned to Brooklyn while being reminded of
Matthew 10:38–39, “Whoever does not take up their
cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds
their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life for my
sake will find it.”
She eventually became the acting senior pastor of
the FMC congregation in Brooklyn, but she could not
care for her health effectively there and returned to the
Midwest in 1995.
“I did too much for too long a time,” she said. “I was
just really health-wise failing.”
Midwest Ministry
Saylor, who became an ordained Free Methodist
deacon in 1993 and an ordained elder in 1996, did
not give up on urban ministry but instead relocated
to Indianapolis where she served for 10 years at First
Free Methodist Church and another 10 years at Iglesia
Comunidad Cristiana de Indianápolis, a Spanish-speaking
Free Methodist congregation that meets in the
building of West Morris FMC.
After a decade of Spanish language ministry at
Comunidad Cristiana, she began serving on Jan. 1, 2016,
at John Wesley FMC in Indianapolis where her longtime
CUE friends Kenny and Estelle Martin were pastors from
2015 until this summer.
Saylor recently moved from Indianapolis to Greenville,
Illinois, where she experienced God’s call to urban
ministry 50 years ago. Although she is retired from
full-time ministry, she is looking for part-time ministry
opportunities in the nearby St. Louis area.
Living a Worthy Life
Since 1976 until her recent retirement, Saylor raised
her own financial support. She expressed gratitude for
“my wonderful sponsors for their faithful support such
as Gilbert and Esther James and the Gowanda New
York FMC.”
Saylor said a couple of Scripture passages have
especially guided her throughout her decades of urban
ministry:
“Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view
of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice,
holy and pleasing to God — this is your true and proper
worship. Do not conform to the pattern of this world,
but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then
you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is
— his good, pleasing and perfect will” (Romans 12:1–2).
“As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life
worthy of the calling you have received” (Ephesians 4:1).
Saylor said she wants to “give God the glory for all He
has done. The important events in my life are what God
has done.”+