Jantzen, Lubin W. (1916-2007)

Mennonite Weekly Review obituary: 2007 Mar 5 p. 3

Birth date: 1916 May 25

text of obituary:

Call to India guided mission worker's life

Preaching, teaching were highlights of Jantzen's service

By Angela Rempel

Mennonite Mission Network

NEWTON, Kan. — When he was 19, Lubin W. Jantzen heard a call from God that guided him throughout his life: "Lubin, I want you in India."

Many missionaries visited in Jantzen's childhood home and the congregation where his father was pastor. When Ezra and Elizabeth Steiner, Mennonite missionaries from India, spoke at a midweek service, he felt the call of God.

At home he knelt and "solemnly promised the Lord in prayer that I would answer his call and serve him in India," he wrote.

He fulfilled that promise as a longtime mission worker in India who later served as a mission administrator and pastor.

Jantzen died Feb. 25 at Schowalter Villa in Hesston. He was 90.

"Lubin Jantzen was a longstanding and faithful member of the extended Mennonite missionary team in India," said John Lapp, Mennonite Mission Network director for international ministries.

Jantzen was born May 25, 1916, to Frank F. and Anna Wiebe Jantzen near Paso Robles, Calif.

He completed a bachelor's degree in theology at the Bible Institute of Los Angeles and studied two more years at the University of California at Los Angeles. He was the first in his area to register as a conscientious objector and was given a ministerial deferment. In 1942 he was called to tech at Oklahoma Bible Academy in Meno. The following year he was made superintendent.

On Aug. 6, 1943, he married Matilda (Tillie) Mueller, whom he had met during his student days in Los Angeles.

In 1947, with two young children, they boarded a ship bound for India to serve with the Board of Missions of the General Conference Mennonite Church.

They went to Jagdeeshpur, where Jantzen was in charge of evangelistic work in that district. He was elected secretary-treasurer for the mission conference.

During a two-year furlough, Jantzen earned a master's degree at Arizona State University in preparation to serve as principal of the Jansen Memorial School in India. The family settled again at Jagdeeshpur in 1956.

During a second furlough, in 1962-63, Jantzen studied in the doctoral program at the University of Pennsylvania. He visited many congregations to share the challenge of mission in India.

Back in India, in Janjgir, he helped with finding and organizing documents for the land used by six mission stations. In 1965 the family moved to Korba to work with the Mennonite schools and churches there. Bible teaching and preaching were his favorite types of ministry.

From 1968 to 1976, he was personnel secretary for the General Conference commission on Overseas Mission. He also served as interim pastor at Emmaus Mennonite Church at Whitewater.

The Jantzens returned to India in 1976, serving at Union Biblical Seminary, now located in Pune, until 1982. Shakar Singh, a former student now on the UBS faculty, described Jantzen as "truly a spiritual mentor to me." Lapp noted that Jantzen "was a meticulous record keeper, and the solid financial and spiritual condition of UBS today has much to do with the foundation he laid."

Jantzen served First Mennonite Church of Newton as associate pastor on a half-time basis from 1983 to 1990.

In 2004 the Jantzens wrote their autobiography, Guided Lives: Memoirs of a Mennonite Missionary Couple to India.

Jantzen is survived by his wife, Tillie, of Hesston; a daughter, Esther Jantzen of Pomona, Calif.; three sons, Dan and his wife, Betty, of Arvada, Colo., Jim and his wife Susan, of Newton, and Jonathan and his wife, Mary Beth, of Tucson, Ariz.; a sister, Anne, of Stockton, Calif.; seven grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.

Services were scheduled for 2 p.m. March 3 at First Mennonite Church of Newton.