USA > Pennsylvania > Change and challenge: a history of the Church of the Brethren in the southern district of Pennsylvania, 1940-1972 > Part 9
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"We find ourselves in the largest capital improvement expendi- ture of any decade in the history of the district. The trustees of the Home are erecting a convalescent wing to the present structure at a cost of around $200,000. Camp Eder is contemplating a central build- ing to cost upwards of $40,000. The Children's Aid Society is also considering a Shelter Home in the Carlisle area. The Knobsville mission needs another $12,000 . . . We are therefore confronted with an increase in our district budget far beyond any previous increase."35
From the beginning of the assessment program, many congregations have had difficulty in fulfilling their obligations. Suspicion toward social action projects, demanding church mortgages and loyalty to older en- trenched programs have hindered congregations in giving full support to the district budgets.
As early as March 7, 1959, the District Stewardship and Finance Com- mission was authorized to study the problem of delinquent payments to the district budget. In 1961, the Commission made its report and the District Board reacted as follows:
"the board accepted the recommendation of the commission that a positive approach be taken toward the matter of arrearages on the district budget assessment and that time be requested at the 1962 District Conference for recognition to be given to those churches which have met the district budget in full."36
In adopting the procedure suggested above, the Church of the Brethren returned to a very ancient Christian Church practice of reading to the congregation the lists of those who had contributed to the church. In 1963, the District Conference rejected a proposal that church delegates could not be seated at the conference unless the congregation had paid a minimum of $3.00 per capita against the district assessment.
The principle of Self-Allocation was adopted by the brotherhood in 1960. Cooperation with this stewardship program was hesitant and partial in the district. In 1962, eleven congregations were cooperating by pledging the amounts they would give to support brotherhood causes. The number of cooperating congregations had increased to twenty-nine by 1969. The Annual Conference adopted the practice of formally recognizing the dis- tricts as they cooperated in the Self-Allocation program.
Self-allocation is a strategy in stewardship by which the congregations voluntarily decide what they will contribute to the outreach program of the brotherhood. To assist congregations with their decisions, guidelines have been suggested. The program advised that, in the face of the world's distresses, each church should seek a "minimum level" of $1.00 for each
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$2.00 it spends on its local needs. A "challenge level" of $1.00 for out- reach for each $1.00 it spends locally was offered for churches which at- tained the minimum level. The entire program was planned to encourage congregations to achieve their fullest stewardship potential.
In the spring of 1967, twenty-seven laymen of the district visited thirty-two congregations with a message of interpretation for the Self- Allocation program. Special folders were printed by the Tri-District of- fices and were distributed to suggest the range of ministries the outreach gifts were supporting. Local congregations continued to interpret both the brotherhood and the district program to their memberships by various methods. Many continue to use visiting speakers from the district and the brotherhood to interpret the work. One pastor printed a special flier to inform his congregation concerning the outreach ministry of the benevo- lent dollar.37
In the face of mounting financial pressures, the District Board ap- pointed a committee to study the relationships of the various institutions to the district program. This committee was composed of Merlin G. Shull, chairman, Stanley Baugher, J. Stanley Earhart, Roger Forry, Nathan Leh- man, John D. Miller and Curtis W. Dubble. From the researches and the interviews of this committee, a number of guidelines and suggestions were created. Among the suggested guidelines were the following:
1 .- The establishment of a reporting day for each institution before the District Board each year;
2 .- Approval for all fund-raising activities among the churches to be given by the District Board;
3 .- The various institutions have been encouraged to update their constitutions; and
4 .- Consultation between college nominating committee members and the District Nominating Committee to guarantee cooperation in the selection of college trustees.
The promotional programs of the brotherhood and of the local con- gregations have resulted in increased giving in the churches for district and brotherhood work. As family incomes have grown, the giving to local and outreach causes in the churches has also grown. Contributions to the brotherhood fund within the district continued to rise:
1942-1943-$35,823.36. 1952-1953-$61,589.76. 1966-1967-$120,954.95.
The district budget has also continued to expand. In the year, 1958-1959, the district budget was $25,925. The district budget for 1971-1972 was approved at $84,500.
Self-allocation assumed a new name in 1971. It was now known as Partners in Mission and the stewardship emphasis in the congregations was projected on a biennial basis. Each year the Tri-District offices and the Southern District office have conducted area meetings to encourage the congregations to arrive at their proposed giving. In early 1972, A Stewardship and Witness workshop series was conducted in various areas of the district. Donald Stern and Ronald Petry of the Brotherhood Stew- ardship team were on hand to suggest promotional strategies and to focus on the theological motivation for Christian stewardship. They suggested to the representatives of the thirty-two congregations who cooperated that they must "inform, involve and enlist" people if stewardship is to grow in the congregation.
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CHAPTER FIVE
MISSION ENTHUSIASM
In 1951, the Greencastle Church of the Brethren petitioned the Dis- trict Conference for a memorial to Wilbur B. Stover. The Annual District Conference, meeting in the Bunkertown Church, responded by selecting a committee to choose a site and to erect a suitable memorial. The com- mittee was composed of William Kinsey, chairman, Ross D. Murphy, Samuel A. Meyers, Walter A. Keeney and J. Walter Thomas. By 1953, the committee secured a site at the birthplace of Wilbur B. Stover one mile east of Greencastle on the Leiterburg Road.1
On the twenty-fifth anniversary of the death of Wilbur B. Stover, October 31, 1955, the memorial was dedicated by the Southern District. George Detweiler, Samuel Stover, and a niece of Wilbur Stover, unveiled the memorial to the public. J. Henry Long, the Associate Secretary of the Foreign Missions Commission of the General Brotherhood Board, was on hand to speak. The new marker read:
WILBUR BRENNER
In Memory of WILBUR BRENNER STOVER 1866-1930 PIONEER MISSIONARY India 1894-1920 ERECTED AT HIS BIRTHPLACE in 1956 by CHURCH OF THE BRETHREN.
This marker stands as a continuing reminder of the interest of the district in the mission movement.
Missions had been a feature of the Anabaptist movement in Europe. Many early Brethren were involved in evangelistic endeavors in the Rhine River Valley before they came to the New World. Word of a "New Awakening" in America encouraged Alexander Mack to come to Pennsyl- vania early in the eighteenth century. However, Brethren were slow in expanding this missionary labor to peoples beyond their own communities until late in the nineteenth century. J. E. Miller once observed: the
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Brethren discovered trine immersion in the "Great Commission" before they discovered missions in it.2
Some districts censured Northern Illinois because it took the initiative in sending Christian Hope to Denmark. The districts of the brotherhood were slow in responding to an appeal for $800 per year for the support of the missionary to Denmark. The Waynesboro congregation was to the forefront in Christian missions by offering $800 in pledge to the work in 1894. This pledge encouraged the Meyersdale Conference (1894) to ap- point Wilbur B. Stover, Mary Emmert Stover and Bertha Ryan to the India mission field. After these initial efforts, the interest in missions expanded rapidly.
One of the interesting facets of the mission movement is its popular support. Instead of relying on the resources of a few wealthy benefactors, or the help of governments, missions was organized on the broad base of popular support. In 1953, Levi K. Ziegler reported to the Annual Confer- ence Standing Committee that many congregations in the Eastern Region were supporting missionaries. Sunday Schools, Church groups, district organizations - all pledged their support for a missionary or a mission- ray's child.
The Brotherhood Mission Board customarily assigned support roles to any congregation or group which requested it. In 1971, Southern Penn- sylvania had twenty-one support accounts for missionaries. This was one of the ways in which a congregation gave support to the Brotherhood Fund. The contributed money was used for the salary, housing, transpor- tation, medical and other benefits related to the budget of a missionary. Congregations usually selected two types of support: partnership support, amounting to $1750 annually, or fellowship support, amounting to $600 annually. The total support for a missionary amounted to $7050 annually.3
This type of congregational support attracted many missionaries to the district on speaking tours and for Schools of Missions. When one scans the report of boards or reads the "Church News" in The Gospel Messenger, he becomes aware that nearly all of the congregations of the Southern District have had many missionary guests over the past decades. One con- gregation of the district was rendering financial support to eight mission- aries or missionaries' children in 1972.4
The list of mission workers who visited the district could grow to great lengths. It would include Minor M. Myers speaking to the Waynes- boro congregation on the theme, "On Being An Internee" (1944). It might include H. L. Alley in the Second Church (1941) or J. M. Blough visiting the district after forty years on the mission field (1949). H. Stover Kulp made frequent appearances when he was on furlough from Nigeria. Frank H. Crumpacker, Mary Sheaffer, Ida C. Shumaker, Bessie Crim and many others appeared in district congregations in the 1940s and the 1950s.
On a number of occasions, exchange missionaries from the mission fields appeared before district congregations. Kenneth I. Morse once wrote an editorial in which he appealed to churches to remember that Christian missions is a two-way street. The church at home must not be content simply to send missionaries but it must be willing to receive and to learn from the mission field. To aid in this two-way street exchange, Wang Tung of China (1943), Premchand G. Bhagat, "the architect of the Church of the Brethren in India" (1950) and Elder Satvedi of India (1953) visited the district.
Pastor Mai Sule Biu, the noted "African Prince" who had been healed of leprosy by the ministry of doctors at the leprosarium, visited the United States in 1972 and spoke in several churches of the Southern District. He visited with the Southern District Board in July and brought greetings in
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his native tongue. With him was an interpreter, Gana Dibal, a Nigerian student attending college at Bridgewater.
In order to foster interest in the mission program, a number of con- gregations in the 1940s and 1950s inaugurated Schools of Missions. Usu- ally these schools were conducted annually and very often in January. Some schools used study booklets prepared by the brotherhood for such classes. Others turned to resident or furloughed missionaries for leader- ship and interpretation. The Charles Biebers shared their African artifacts and their first-hand knowledge of Nigerian life. The Dr. Paul Hoovers shared their pictures, dressed in native costumes or demonstrated a point with seeds as they related their stories of India's life. The Crumpackers shared their China experiences. Very often, the district, regional and brotherhood offices shared with congregations the schedules of missionaries or other workers.
Sara Swartz
Missionary meetings on a district-wide basis have often been conducted. On May 5, 1968, a mass missionary meeting con- vened at the New Fairview congregation. Dr. Chalmer Faw, a Bethany Theological Seminary professor and a missionary to Nigeria, spoke to a large gathering con- cerning the mission challenges in the mod- ern world. At this meeting, a prayer of consecration and the laying on of hands was conducted for Sara Swartz, who had been assigned to a year of volunteer service in Nigeria. Sara served as the secretary to Roger Ingold at Jos, Nigeria. On earlier occasions, missionary meetings were com- bined with peace meetings. The Lower Conewago congregation was host to such a meeting on May 30, 1947 at the Ber- mudian house.
Olive Widdowson spent more than forty years in India for the General Mission Board (1912-1954). When she returned to the states in retire- ment, she lived briefly in York and in Waynesboro. She then retired to Penn Run in Western Pennsylvania. Miss Widdowson reported that India was responding to Christianity because "our Saviour and Master was born in Asia".5
The 1949 Ocean Grove Conference consecrated the Dr. Paul Hoovers for mission service in India. Dr. Paul S. Hoover and Mary Elizabeth (Wentzler) Hoover set sail for India from New York City on October 13, 1951 and arrived in Bombay on November 22, 1951. They came to Bulsar, Surat District, where Dr. Hoover served as a medical missionary.
Dr. Hoover brought brilliant academic achievement as part of his preparation for his work. He was News Editor of the Juniata College paper, and president of the Student Volunteers on campus. When he graduated from Juniata College in 1937, he graduated cum laude. Although he served for five years as a high school teacher, he continued to search for his life's work. In 1939, while serving as a counselor at Camp Har- mony, he met Dr. Daryl Parker. The influence of this meeting and the conversations which were conducted between them were important. Paul Hoover had made the decision to enter medical missions.
Mary Elizabeth Wentzler was also a teacher with a thorough academic training. Her interests turned to the mission field when she met and later married Paul S. Hoover. When the Hoovers completed their term of ser-
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Dr. Paul and Mary Elizabeth, Linda Lee and Carol Ann Hoover
vice, they returned from India in 1956 and took up residence in the York area. In the midst of a heavy medical practice, both of these people have given many services to the district and to the First Church where they hold their membership. Dr. Hoover has represented the district twice on Standing Committee. He has served several terms on the Southern Dis- trict Board and twice served as moderator of the First Church of the Brethren in York. In addition, both Dr. and Mrs. Hoover have been in demand as speakers and as directors for Schools of Missions.
The Hoovers have two daughters, Linda Lee and Carol Ann, both of whom were born in India while the Hoovers were serving on the mission field.
Lois Jean Patel
In 1966, Lois Jean Gibble became a missionary to the India field. A member of the Mount Olivet Church, she resided at New Bloomfield. She served a term in Brethren Volunteer Service (1960-1962) and heard of the need in missions. She said of her choice to become a missionary: "I felt like doing something more than serving as a staff nurse." Miss Gibble served as a nurse in India (1966-1968), going to the Dahame Road Hospital at Anklesvar, Guju- rat State. When she returned to the United States, she was married to Em- manuel C. Patel.
The first missionary to come from the York First Church of the Brethren was Dr. Roy E. Pfaltzgraff. He was a native of York and an active worker in the church. Although his father died when Roy was but a boy of ten years, his mother, Mary
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M. Pfaltzgraff, managed the family and helped her children to achieve their ambitions. Roy completed his education at the York High School and at Elizabethtown College. While a college student, he met Violet Hackman and together these young people developed an intense interest in medical missions. Violet and Roy were married in the college chapel and, following the marriage vows, dedicated themselves to God in a special service of consecration conducted by Edward K. Ziegler (1942).
Roy and Violet Pfaltzgraff were presented to the 1943 Annual Con- ference as candidates for the mission field pending his graduation from Temple University Medical School. Roy and Violet were consecrated as missionaries at the Huntingdon Conference (1944). The emotional impact of an audience of worshipers and friends standing and waving white handkerchiefs in the traditional Chautauqua farewell salute can never be forgotten. The salute was accompanied by the missionary hymn, "Speed away, speed away, on your mission of light".
Dr. Roy Sr. and George Pfaltzgraff
Roy Pfaltzgraff and Violet Hackman Pfaltzgraff have served four complete terms on the Nigerian mission field. He was ordained to the ministry in the First Church of the Brethren on January 28, 1945 and the young couple sailed for Nigeria on January 31, 1945. The District Minis- terial Commission dispensed with the licentiate term and advanced Dr. Pfaltzgraff to the ministry by reason of his maturity and competence. In Africa, Dr. Pfaltzgraff has served as a minister and as a medical missionary.
These young people entered a land where the hospital had mud walls
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and pounded clay floors. They found infant and child mortality rates ex- cessively high. It was a land of sickness without doctors. Dr. Pfaltzgraff soon learned to treat leprosy with the drug dapsone and the results were remarkable.
In the years since his arrival at the leprosarium, Dr. Pfaltzgraff has become an expert in the treatment of leprosy. He has traveled the world in search of methods for treating this crippling and killing disease. He has taken postgraduate work in clinical leprosy and medical administra- tion at the All African Leprosy and Rehabilitation Training Center in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia (1971). He was advanced to the position of Direc- tor of the Garkida Adamawa Provincial Leprosarium in Nigeria. In 1966, his Alma Mater, Elizabethtown College, honored him with its "Service For Humanity" award in absentia. Dr. Pfaltzgraff has been working in the center of the largest leprosy control program in the world.
So successful has been the treatment for leprosy that Roy Pfaltzgraff feared for a time that the Leprosarium would eventually close. However, a whole new field of treatment has opened by helping individuals who are crippled and maimed to adjust to life. In 1965, when he was on furlough, Dr. Pfaltzgraff served on the staff of the United States Public Health Services at Carville, Louisiana, as chief of rehabilitation. His work there involved him closely with the department of plastic surgery, physiotherapy, orthopedics and occupational therapy.6
The first indigenous African Church of the Brethren was the congre- gation built in the Leper Colony at Garkida. The work among the lepers has proved to be a successful field for evangelism. Persons who are healed of their disease very enthusiastically relate their experiences. In gratitude for the kindnesses which have been shown to them, the lepers of the colony established an African Church for Africans. Others have returned to their villages and to their tribes with the good news of their healing and their salvation.
Charles M. Bieber made his pact to become a missionary at a Methodist Church camp. He had grown up in the Williamsport area and attended the Methodist Church. At Juniata College he was deeply impressed with the missionary activities of the college organizations on the campus. At Philadelphia he was baptized into membership of the First Church of the Brethren by Dr. Ross D. Murphy (1943). Charles began to prepare him- self for overseas work. He took his seminary work, gained experience in summer pastoral assignments and spent five years of experience in psychi- atric nursing and nursing education.
In 1944, Charles M. Bieber married Mary Elizabeth High, a cousin of H. Stover Kulp and a resident of Spring City, Fennsylvania. Mary Elizabeth graduated from Juniata College in 1943 and spent some years as a public school teacher.
Charles and Mary Beth Bieber left for Lagos, Nigeria from New York City. The S. S. African Glade set sail on November 10, 1950 and arrived in Lagos on December 13, 1950. In Northern Nigeria, the Biebers served as teachers, pastor and medical missionaries. They had come into a land as large as Texas and Oklahoma combined, with a population of 40,000,000 people. In 1970, the population had increased to 60,000,000, making the land of Nigeria the largest black country in the world. Nigeria continues to be a poor land with a per capita income of $50 per year. The Brethren have worked with the Hausa people, a Negroid group which speaks a Hamitic language. When the Brethren first entered the land, these people had little art, literature or crafts. In time, Charles Bieber's assignments took him to eight preaching points on each Sunday to speak to a congre-
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gation of several hundred people. The Biebers gave three terms of service on the mission field (1950-1963).
In 1968, Bro. Bieber returned to Nigeria to serve a three-month assignment as a nurse on a medical team. He served with the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod in the midst of the raging Civil War. One thou- sand persons were being slain each day in the fierce fighting in this African land. This was a daily toll in excess of that of the Vietnam War. One Nigerian leader said: "We have had more deaths in this year than our graves can contain".
Bro. Bieber also served as the pastor of the Pottstown Church (1954- 1955) during a furlough from the mission field and as full-time pastor of the Big Swatara congregation (1963-1970). In 1970, he assumed the pastorate of the Black Rock Church of the Brethren in the Southern District, Charles has served as chairman of the World Ministries Commission of the General Brotherhood Board.
Mary Beth Bieber taught in the schools of Nigeria and spent some time as the director of Women's Work in Africa. Charles Bieber has written widely concerning the work of missions and the style of Nigerian life. This is a land where the thatched roof hut with cornstalk or grassmat fences dot the landscape. The people follow a pastoral form of life and walk roads as dusty as those described in the pages of the Bible. Farmers try to eke out an existence from rough terrain as they till their fields by hand. Women carry wood and water atop their heads and pound the corn in hand-hewn mortars. In many ways, the pages of the Bible appeal to the people of Nigeria because their style of life is similar.
In 1968, Mrs. Philip (Mary Ann) Kulp published a volume entitled, No Longer Strangers. It is the account of H. Stover Kulp, one of the founders of the Nigerian Mission for the Church of the Brethren. In 1922, he and A. D. Helser went to Northern Nigeria and chose a mission field in the midst of the Bura-speaking peoples.
"When H. Stover Kulp went to Nigeria as a pioneer missionary, he found the subject people of a colonial era moving on foot through a culture like that before Abraham, Isaac and Jacob . דיי
Under a comity agreement, this geo- graphical area became the sole missionary responsibility of the Church of the Breth- ren. Since that eventful decision, the Church of the Brethren in Nigeria has grown to 20,000 members. These thou- sands of people, Mary Ann Kulp suggests in her book, are "no longer strangers but members of the household of God."
When H. Stover Kulp died in America in 1964, news of his death was relayed to Nigeria. One of the African leaders call- ed the people together and said to them: "God gave Solomon a choice be- tween wealth, fame and wisdom. Solo- mon chose wisdom, but God added the others as well. Mr. Kulp did not come here to teach us to read and to write, Mary Ann Kulp but now many of us can. He did not come to build and to begin schools, but now we have more than forty of them. He did not come to build hospitals, but now we have two of the best in the north. He came for one cause only: to bring the Word of God. But when the Gospel came and was accepted, all these other blessings came to us as well."
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Philip and Naomi Kulp were born to H. Stover Kulp and Christina Kulp. Philip M. Kulp was one of the very early pupils in the Hillcrest School at Jos, Nigeria. Philip and Naomi made numerous trips across the Atlantic Ocean with their parents as they traveled to and from the mission field. They received their training on two continents, America and Africa. There were times, during the distressing war years, when they were separated for extended periods of time from their parents.
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