If this site was useful to you, we'd be happy for a small donation. Be sure to enter "MLA donation" in the Comments box.
Thiessen, Jacob (1888-1963)
Mennonite Weekly Review obituary: 1963 May 30 p. 9
Birth date: 1888
text of obituary:
An Unusual Missionary
JACOB THIESSEN was born in Olgafeld, Fuerstenland, Russia in 1888. At the age of 22 he went to the Bible school of Chrischona near Basel, Switzerland, to prepare for mission work. He was one of the last of the many missionary candidates who went from Russia to train for mission work in the Dutch East Indies under the Dutch Mennonite Board of Missions.
In 1913 he went to Rotterdam to get some specialized training for his chosen task. He learned the Dutch language and the native Javanese. Not only did World War I postpone his plans but the following Russian Revolution of 1917 cut off the main financial support of the Dutch Mennonite Mission Board. Thus Thiessen was compelled to find a job and was employed by the bank of R. Mees & Co. of Rotterdam. He married and had two children.
HIS sense of mission and urge to preach the gospel remained with him and in 1934 he became the pastor of the small Mennonite Church of Ouddorp in addition to his other work.
In 1942 he retired from the bank and accepted the full time ministry of the Mennonite Church at Blokzijl of Friesland from which he retired in 1954. Mr. and Mrs. Thiessen were also active in various vacation homes. Mr. Thiessen had a wide circle of friends who enjoyed hearing him speak about his background and his native country, or give a Christian witness.
In a memoriam written by his colleague, A. Mulder, in the Dutch Mennonite paper, “Algermeen Weekblad,” it is emphasized that Thiessen did his best to make an adjustment to the Dutch environment but that “in spite of his naturalization he always remained a stranger.” And yet he appealed to many, both old and young. He had the gift to listen and to react in a friendly manner.
HIS parents and most of his brothers and sisters migrated from Russia to Canada after World War I. He never saw them after he left Russia. He wrote many articles for the German Canadian “Bote,” particularly after world War II. There was a certain nostalgia and a looking back to the “good old days” during the last decade of his life.
I had the privilege of learning to know Bro. Thiessen rather intimately. I visited in his home while a student in Germany and Holland and enjoyed the hospitality of the family. I spoke in his congregation and met him the last time in the Mennonite Church of Amsterdam in connection with the Menno Simons Commemoration in 1961. When I shook his hand and said “Aufwiedersehn” he said,”Probably not again in this life.”
He passed away suddenly and was cremated on April 1, 1963, at which occasion Dutch friends and the Dutch Mennonite Conference chairman, S. Daalder, spoke words of recognition and comfort to the family.
One could say that Thiessen was trained to become a missionary in a foreign country but the fact that he never reached that country did not stop him from fulfilling his life's task where he was.
