Penner, Peter W. (1876-1953)

Mennonite Weekly Review obituary: 1953 Feb 5 p. 1

Birth date: 1876 Feb 12

text of obituary:

Former Missionary To India Died Sunday

REV. P. W. PENNER, 76, SERVED ON GENERAL CONF. FIELD 40 YEARS

Hillsboro, Kans. — Rev. P. W. Penner, pioneer missionary to India under the General Conference Mennonite church, passed away here Sunday evening, Feb. 1, at the age of 76. He had been in ill health since his return from the field in 1949.

Funeral services will be held Friday afternoon at 1:00 at the home in Hillsboro, and at 2:00 o’clock at the Brudertal Mennonite church, Rev. Arnold Funk in charge.

Rev. Penner and wife, the former Mathilda Ensz, first went to India in 1908, their service there extending over a period of more than 40 years. Rev. Penner introduced the joint bookkeeping system at the mission, and in 1927 ordained the first Indian pastor, Rev. M. R. Asna. He was a former president of the Chhattis-garh Missionary Convention and Indian Christian Camp.

In addition to his wife, he is survived by an adopted Indian daughter. Miss Nellie Penner, now visiting in this country.

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Mennonite Weekly Review obituary: 1953 Feb 12 p. 6

text of obituary:

. . .

— A number of Newton friends attended funeral services at the Brudertal church near Hillsboro last Friday for Missionary P. W. Penner, whose death occurred on Feb. 1. Church and basement were filled with the many friends from throughout this area who gathered to pay last respects to the pioneer worker on the India field. Rev. Arnold J. Funk, pastor of the church, was in charge of the services. Other ministers who participated were Rev. John Thiessen and Rev. W. F. Unruh, both of Newton; Rev. J. W. Nickel and Rev. Roy Henry of Hillsboro.

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Mennonite Weekly Review obituary: 1953 Feb 19 p. 9

text of obituary:

PETER W. PENNER

Peter W. Penner, son of Jacob and Anna Funk Penner, the eighth child in a family of 11 children, was born in Prangenau, South Russia, on February 12, 1876, and died at his home in Hillsboro, Kansas on February 2, 1953, at the age of 76 years, 11 months and 20 days.

As a two year old boy he, together with his older brothers and sisters, was brought to this country by his parents, arriving in the Brudertal community on July 6, 1878. Here he attended and finished the rural school. And here also he was baptized upon confession on June 3, 1895, by Rev. Wm. J. Ewert and received into the fellowship of the Brudertal Mennonite church. He remained a faithful and honored member of this church until death.

On August 7, 1902, he married Mathilde [sic Matilde] Ensz and was permitted to travel life's ways with her for almost 50 and one-half years. It was their happy privilege to celebrate their golden wedding anniversary last August 10, surrounded by a large number of friends.

From 1896 to 1898 he attended Bethel College. The following two years he taught the Unruh school northwest of Hillsboro. In 1900 he took a short teacher's training course at the Mennonite Collegiate Institute in Gretna, Manitoba, and then taught there for four years under the principalship of Rev. H. H. Ewert. From 1904 to 1908, he together with his wife, attended German Wallace — now Baldwin Wallace College — at Berea, Ohio. It was during these years that he served the Grace Mennonite church at Pandora, Ohio, and later the Sterling Mennonite church at Sterling, Ohio as student pastor.

Heeding God's earnest call to work for Him in the foreign field, he together with his wife, was ordained as a missionary in the church on September 20, 1908. On September 29, 1908 they left for mission work in India. There after studying the language for six short weeks he and his wife plunged into the work with all their soul and might since the pioneer missionaries, Rev. and Mrs. John Kroeker, had to leave for furlough.

In India too in 1912, God allowed them to adopt as their daughter a seven months old baby girl, Nellie Monorama Asna, whose mother had died when she was six months old.

At home on their first furlough they were unable to return to India for some time because of World War I which was then raging. However, he continued in mission work as the superintendent of the city mission and pastor of the Mennonite church in Los Angeles, Calif, from 1918 to 1921. But his heart was in India and so with great gladness took up his work again in that country in 1921. There he labored long and earnestly for over 40 years.

Besides his heavy evangelistic and building work on the mission field in India, he was the secretary-treasurer of the mission for 25 years. His whole heart, was on fire to study the Word of God and to witness for his Lord. The Indian people listened to him with interest wherever he witnessed whether in trains, hotels, ox-cart or traveling on his bicycle. In the midst of heavy office work, he would turn to his Bible that was on the side of his desk, study God's Word for a short time and then turn his attention again to his work. He ordained the first Indian pastor, Rev. M. R. Asna, in the General Conference Mennonite Mission.

On the mission field he was known as “papaji” to all Indians. Sometimes it sounded odd for an Indian officer of the government to call him “papaji”. But that is how everyone got into the habit of calling him because of his keen helpful interest in everyone.

In 1949 he retired from the mission field broken in health. In all he had served four terms of service in India, traveled around the world three and a half times, stopped over in the Holy Land for a week and spent three weeks on the Mennonite Mission in Java.

Although retired, his zeal for mission work was not over. Life was not long enough for him to do and to speak all that he wanted to for his Lord and Master. He rejoiced when young people in this country expressed their desire to dedicate their lives to the service of God abroad or in this land. His joy was great when a second generation of missionaries, Dr. Arthur Thiessen and his wife, went to India.

If he could speak to us he would say in the words of Jesus, “Lift up your eyes and look on the fields, for they are white already to harvest."

“Go, labor on, spend and be spent, Thy joy to do the Master's will."

He leaves to miss him: his wife, his adopted daughter, Nellie, two younger sisters, Mrs. H. J. Nickel and Mrs. F. N. Funk of Hillsboro, his older brother, Henry Penner of Meadow Lake, Canada, and a great number of loved nieces and nephews and many friends together with a great family in the Lord in India.

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Mennonite Weekly Review obituary: 1953 Mar 5 p. 9

text of obituary:

IN APPRECIATION OF REV. P. W. PENNER

A great man has been called to his reward. Missionary P. W. Penner was not a perfect man. No man is perfect except the God-man Jesus Christ, our Lord. It is only in Him that we are whole.

Bro. Penner was great because He knew and loved the Lord Jesus Christ. He gave his heart to Him and found righteousness and salvation in Him. He was an humble man, and yet a man with great ambitions and ideals. He was a man who not only preached his faith, but one who also lived it and endeavored to follow the Lord in all things. He had love and sympathy towards those who did not know the Lord, and had a great zeal for lost souls. He was therefore engaged in the great work of bringing souls to the saving knowledge of the Lord, Who shed His blood unto the remission of man’s sins.

There are not enough men of this type in the world or even in the Church. We can ill afford to lose him. But our loss is his gain, and the Lord has done well in calling him home. May Bro. Penner’s memory be blessed and spur us on to greater usefulness in the vineyard of our Lord. —Rev. P. P. Wedel, Moundridge, Kansas.

The Mennonite obituary: 1953 Mar 10 p. 152
The Mennonite obituary: 1953 Apr 29 p. 267