Fred Masten was a modest man who spent years working for Western Electric, was involved at his church, and loved his wife, Betty, who he had lost some years before we met. He wanted to do something everlasting but also recognized he needed to be responsible for himself and remain in control of his assets in the event he needed to be cared for. Fred expressed the importance of his church, Home Moravian, to him as well as his desire to do something to remember his parents and to support other ministries in the Southern Province of the Moravian Church.
Together Fred and I drafted a “mission and ministry fund agreement”. The agreement stated that Fred would leave a bequest to the Moravian Ministries Foundation and we would then act as Trustee, investing the bequest and making annual distributions from the permanent fund to the ministries Fred identified.
Fred passed away in November 2009 and left almost $670,000 to the Betty and Fred Masten Mission and Ministry Fund, which now and forever aids Home Church, Laurel Ridge, the Southern Province’s Pastoral Care and Education Fund, Salem Congregation for God’s Acre, and Freds’ parents’ church in the North Carolina mountains. At the end of 2012, the Fund was valued at almost $750,000, which meant that $37,500 was distributed in 2013. In the three short years since the Fund was invested, over $100,000 has been paid to the ministries in honor of Fred and Betty. We know Fred would be pleased.
