Oscar Siema Mmbali is the director of Friends United Meeting in Belize, serving since January, 2024, in that position. Previously he served as Pastoral Minister for Belize—work that he began in August, 2017.
Oscar was the first Friends’ pastor to serve in Belize. He built upon FUM’s decades-long successful program with at-risk youth in the Southside neighborhood of Belize City. His focus, which will continue as Director, has been on building relationships with youth and families; offering pastoral counseling, chaplaincy and discipleship; nurturing the growing Friends church; responding to the expressed needs of the neighborhood; networking with other agencies; and engaging in personal, highly-relational evangelism.
Oscar is a member of Nairobi Yearly Meeting in Kenya. In 2004, as a student at Friends Theological College (FTC), he learned of FUM’s work in Belize through reading articles in Quaker Life magazine, and he has felt a persistent call to serve in Belize ever since.
He trained for pastoral ministry at FTC and St. Paul’s University, and worked with Nairobi Yearly Meeting as a pastor and as a church planter among the Maasai.
Since November, 2021, Miriam Arnell Mmbali has been with and serving alongside her husband Oscar in Belize. She conducts outreach ministry for young families in the community. This includes providing pantries for vulnerable families and offering support for parents, and young mothers. Additionally, Miriam oversees a growing Sunday School, which frequently has twenty to twenty-five children in attendance. It is her prayer that every child in her class is seen and feels loved. Additionally, she is training new teachers to expand the program.
Miriam was born and raised in the south of Sweden. As a teenager, she started serving as a Sunday school teacher in her local church, where her parents were church leaders. For many years, she served as a youth leader and a preacher. Miriam travelled on short-term missions to India, China, New York, and Finland, supporting and encouraging local congregations there. Later she served as a long-term missionary to Vietnam. Other ministries she has been involved in include networking churches in Scandinavia, supporting Christian Farmers Network in public witness in the Riksdagen (the legislature and supreme decision-making body of Sweden), facilitating conferences, and volunteering in her church’s second-hand store.
