Lind, Wilbert (1923-2007)

Revision as of 16:48, 17 May 2011

Mennonite Weekly Review obituary: 2007 Jun 4 p. 6

Birth date: 1923

text of obituary:

By Jewel Showalter

Eastern Mennonite Missions

LITITZ, Pa. — The death on March 9 of 84-year-old Wilbert Lind gave occasion to remember the pioneering life of the first Eastern Mennonite Missions workers in Somalia and the enduring legacy of the Mennonite presence in that troubled land.

After more than a decade of anarchy and clan warfare, Somalia today is a difficult country to enter. It was difficult in 1954, too but for different reasons.

After a monthlong trans-Atlantic voyage, Wilbert and Rhoda Lind, with 2-year-old Daniel, arrived in the port city of Mogadishu, the capital city of Somaliland, a new United Nations trusteeship. From the decks of the steamer, a large crane hoisted them onto the floor of a bobbing dinghy that took them through the shallows to the beach.

The Lind family found rooms in an Italian hotel in the ancient city, where the great stone houses of the rich contrasted sharply with the mud-and-wattle homes of the poor.

From their tiny beachhead in Mogadishu, Wilbert — or Bert, as his friends called him — hired a Somali translator and criss-crossed the country in the mission's Chevy Suburban Carryall.

Driving 2,200 miles through sand and thorn brush, Lind talked and prayed, building relationships and making decisions about where to locate stations for the young Mennonite mission in Somalia.

Despite opposition and some propaganda against the "infidels," as the Mennonites were called, a local clan chief declared, "Allah wills for you to be here!" at the groundbreaking ceremony for the first mission school.

"It was incredible to see the number of relationships and open doors that Bert had opened for the mission," said Harold Reed, a missionary colleague who arrived in 1961. "There were elementary schools and clinics in three locations, a boarding school and a hospital."