Shenk, Ruth Frey (1930-2005)

Mennonite Weekly Review obituary: 2005 Sep 26 p. 7

Birth date: 1930 Jan 2

Mission worker dies at 75, served 36 years in Japan

By Mennonite Mission Network

RICHMOND, Va. — In the 1960s soon after Ruth and Charles Shenk planted the first church in Shibecha, Japan, a young man visited the Shenk home. He spoke boldly, telling the mission workers his town needed neither them nor a church. He told them they should leave.

In response, Ruth Shenk offered the man a snack. Then she poured tea.

Ukichi Kondo, the young man who received Shenk's gifts, would become the first Japanese pastor of Shibecha Mennonite Church.

Shenk, 75, who died Sept. 10 at Henrico Doctors Hospital in Richmond, spent 36 years working with the Japan Mennonite Church in Hokkaido and Tokyo as a church planter with a reputation for kindness and grace.

She was born Ruth Frey on Jan. 2, 1930, in Wauseon, Ohio, the last of eight children of Bishop Edward and Fannie Frey. She married Charles Shenk on June 19, 1949, in Archbold.

The Shenks moved to Japan in 1957 to work through Mennonite Board of Missions. After language study, they lived in the Hokkaido region until 1984, when they moved to Tokyo. In the capital city, the Shenks served the Tokyo Area Fellowship of Mennonite Churches and the Japan Anabaptist Center (now Tokyo Anabaptist Center).

Steve Shenk, Ruth's son, said his mother talked with joy about starting churches in Shibecha and Bekkai, where there were no churches before they arrived, and Tottori, a section of Kushiro. The Shenks also offered marriage counseling.

"Mom was a very gracious and kind person, fitting in very well in Japan, where manners and reserve are important," Steve Shenk said. "She was often told that she was very Japanese."

The Shenks retired to Columbus, Ohio, in 1994. They moved to Virginia Mennonite Retirement Community in Harrisonburg in 2004. Shenk was a member of Park View Mennonite Church in Harrisonburg.

In addition to her husband, survivors include two sons, Steve Shenk of Harrisonburg and Ken Shenk of Findlay, Ohio; two daughters, Gloria Shenk Good of Lititz, Pa., and Barbara Shenk of Urbana, Ill.; two brothers, Warren and Willard Frey, both of Archbold, Ohio; three sisters, Helen Rychener of Archbod, Ohio, Alice Yutzy of Plain city, Ohio, and Rhoda King of Archbod, Ohio; and 10 grandchildren.