Bennett, Ernest (1915-2009)

Mennonite Weekly Review obituary: 2009 Nov 30 p. 7

Birth date: 1915 Jan 22

text of obituary

Mission administrator, 94, served with passion, humility

Mennonite Mission Network staff

GOSHEN, Ind. — Ernest Bennett, who served with passion and humility as a leader of mission efforts in the former Mennonite Church for more than two decades, died Nov. 18 in Greencroft Healthcare. He was 94.

Bennett served with Mennonite Health Association, Mennonite Health Assembly and Mennonite Central Committee, but spent most of his career with Mennonite Board of Missions, a predecessor agency of Mennonite Mission Network, including 21 years as executive secretary.

Stanley Green, MMN executive director, said Bennett had a rare practical wisdom that he fused with a love for the church and a passion for God's mission.

Missiologist Wilbert Shenk, who directed MBM's overseas missions from 1965 to 1990, said Bennett's steadiness, judgment and trust in others made him a wonderful administrator during a time of major changes.

"He had a good feel for financial questions, especially good sense about structures and structuring, but he wasn't guided by a rigid ideology or theory," Shenk said. "He didn't protect old structures but was open to modifying and changing."

John Powell, MMB church relations associate and anti-racism coordinator, said Bennett hired him to help begin the Minorities Ministry Council in the late 1960s.

Powell noted Bennett's support of the council, especially at a time when race relations were at a critical and contentious point.

"He walked a fine line to try to be supportive of us," Powell said. "He was caught, but also ready to help the constituency understand where people of color were coming from."

One generation of children who grew up in Mennonite churches may better now Bennett through a sort of doppelganger, Bennett and Sam Janzen, then MBM board chair, were the naming inspirations of hand puppet Ernest Sam, developed by MBM staff member Mary Ann Halteman Conrad to introduce children to mission projects. The puppet, and accompanying cartoons and a coloring book, were widely distributed in congregations.

In retirement, Bennett served as custodian at Prairie Street Mennonite Church in Elkhart. James Krabill, MMN senior executive for global ministries, was Prairie Street's custodian for three years as a youth. He said he and Bennett joked that they had switched places.

"He was never above doing anything to serve the church," Krabill said.

Bennett was born Jan. 22 1915, in Cumberland, Md., to Frank and Theoda (Collins) Bennett. He married Earla Hostetter on July 122, 1941, in Akron, Pa. She died Nov. 10, 2008.

Bennett received bachelor's degrees from Goshen College and Eastern Mennonite Seminary in Harrisonburg, Va. He served a residency in hospital administration at Memorial Hospital in South Bend.

During the Spanish civil War in in 1939, Bennett did relief work in Spain with the Mennonite Relief Committee. in the early days of World War II he served under Mennonite Central Committee in France. From 1941 to 1946 he was assistant treasurer of Mennonite Central Committee in Akron, Pa.

From 1946 to 1980 he served at the MBM headquarters in Elkhart, first in hospital development, then as treasurer and secretary for health and welfare. From 1959 until his retirement, he was executive secretary.

Bennett served on the MCC executive committee for 16 years and spent 25 years as executive secretary of Mennonite Health Assembly. From 1981 to 1990 he was executive secretary of Mennonite Health Association.

He was a member of Prairie Street Mennonite Church.

He is survived by a son, Ernest Dale Bennett and his wife, Millie, of Castle Rock, Colo.; two daughters, Kathy Stiffney and her husband, Rick, and Joan Yoder and her husband, Todd, all of Goshen; nine grandchildren and five great-grandchildren; and a sister Hazel Metzler. He was preceded in death by a grandson, a brother and two sisters.