Harold August Hein

1. 12/31/1925, Sauk Rapids, Minnesota USA

 

Spouse/Family

Wife: June Anita (nee Guske), b. 10/5/1930 Milwaukee, Wisconsin USA

1. 8/24/1952

Children: Karen Ann (Teal) (1953); Deborah June (Masoncup) (1955);

Christel Kay (Runyan) (1962)

 

Dates of Service Field Call Assignment

1952-64 Nigeria Evangelistic Missionary

 

Biographical Summary

Harold Hein grew up in rural Minnesota, one of eight children of a pastor.  After completing high school and three semesters of college and being drafted into the Navy in 1944, he was honorably discharged in 1946 with a new desire to serve the Lord in pastoral ministry.  Harold applied to Concordia Theological Seminary in Springfield, IL, and after spending the summer of 1946 at home with his parents, began his seminary training in September 1946.  He served a vicarage in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, then returned to seminary where he would graduate in 1952.  Throughout his seminary years, Harold maintained an interest in music.  He had taken piano lessons in high school and took organ lessons in Springfield, where he served as accompanist for a class and chapel services.  He was also a member of the Male Chorus and served as president, assistant director, and part-time accompanist, eventually directing the chorus for several concerts on their 1952 summer tour for the Lutheran Hour.

 

In April 1952, shortly before Harold’s graduation, he received his call to missionary work in Nigeria.  He had been blessed to meet a young woman named June Anita Guske, a Lutheran schoolteacher, first at a baseball game and then in River Forest in 1950.  In 1951 they had become engaged to marry.  Upon receiving his call he phoned both June and his parents to tell them the news.  He writes, “they were excited but also apprehensive.”  Harold and June began making preparations to travel abroad.  They were married in August 1952, and in October they drove to New York and boarded a freighter headed for West Africa.  Harold writes, “travel by freighter was exciting, especially for my wife who was pregnant with our first child, and for me, even though I had been in the U.S. Navy.”

 

After stops along the coast of Africa, the freighter reached Port Harcourt, and the Heins traveled to mission headquarters at Obot Idim, Uyo, Nigeria.  Soon they drove to the outstation Ukpom, where Harold was to oversee fifteen churches and eleven mission schools in the district.  He managed the Ukpom District from 1952-54 and the Nung Udoe District in 1955.  With no language instruction, he, like the other missionaries, used interpreters to translate into the Ibibio tongue.  At the time, the Ibibio people used the Efik Bible for their Scripture.  Harold did a lot of traveling, and one of his tasks was to visit one congregation early each morning to conduct a class in Christian doctrine.  He also ministered in congregations as time permitted, with Holy Communion, teaching and preaching.  In Ukpom, Harold and June were called to 12 cases of multiple births (twins or triplets), which were considered an evil omen by many in the area.  A house was built on the mission compound for mothers of twins to assist with bottle feedings and care for the twins and mother, and Harold and June helped with this care.  The Heins’ first daughter Karen was born while they served at Ukpom, in 1953.

 

After several years as a district manager, Harold began teaching part-time at Lutheran High School in 1955 and then full-time at the Lutheran seminary from 1955-64; he also served as Dean and President of the seminary from 1962-64.  He participated in worship during these years by playing the organ at mission headquarters worship services for nine years.  With other missionary pastors, he also conducted English services on Sunday evenings in the chapel of the high school compound and assisted in conducting and preaching at daily chapel services for the seminary.  The Heins’ other daughters Deborah and Christel were born in 1955 and 1962, respectively, and June spent much of her time teaching and keeping up with the three youngsters and keeping the family fed and clothed!

 

One particular service Harold rendered to the mission in Nigeria related to his lifelong participation in music and musical activities.  He became interested in the music of the church in West Africa, and while he served at the seminary he was able to gather a male chorus which sang at churches and music festivals.  The music was transposed from staff notation to “sol fa” notation, which was the method taught to students in Nigerian schools.  Harold hoped to make use of native indigenous tunes for hymnody in the African church.  When he began his mission work, the hymns used in the churches were literal translations of Western hymns, and the Western music often did not match the tones of the Efik words.  Harold writes, “I encouraged seminary students to bring folk tunes, to which Scripture words could be sung.  Some were reluctant, saying that some of the songs were ‘of the devil.’  I repeated what one East African teacher had said, ‘If we use them all, then the devil won’t have any!’  This was toward the end of my ministry in Africa, and I would have liked to continue the process.  But we did succeed in getting some folk tunes and matching Scripture words with their tones (Efik and Ibo are tonal languages) to match the music.”  Harold also worked on transposing liturgy and some hymns into “sol fa” notation.  The resulting “Lutheran Hymnal in Solfa Notation” was used for schools and English-speaking congregations.

 

In July 1964, June was advised by doctors that she should return to the U.S.  Harold flew with the family to New York, but returned to Obot Idim in order to complete his term as seminary president and teacher.  The separation of several months was difficult for the family, but God’s grace prevailed until Harold could return to be with his wife and children in November 1964.  He was sorry to leave Nigeria, but he writes, “I had, in my human plans, thought I should continue to serve many more years on the field.  However, man proposes, and God disposes.  For He had plans for me to do a ministry in the Gospel in the U.S.”

 

When he returned, Harold received several calls to parish ministry.  He felt that God’s call was for him to serve as pastor of Christ Lutheran Church in Fort Worth, Texas, a small congregation with about one hundred communicant members.  Although it took some time for the Hein family to become re-acclimated to life in the United States, they gradually settled into their new home and ministry.  Harold writes, “Many of the things I did in Africa, I mistakenly did in the USA – doing too much non-pastoral work in the congregation, and not seeing to it that those gifted with other talents could do the work of taking care of the non-pastoral ‘nuts and bolts’ operation of the congregation.”  With time, he became more comfortable and “did strive to fulfill the Scriptural description of the pastor as one who is there to ‘equip the people for their service.’”  Harold felt blessed to perform pastoral duties, teach Bible classes, present exegetical papers at circuit and area conferences, and help integrate music more fully into worship.  Upon his retirement in 1989, Harold remained in ministry, assisting a nearby congregation, Redeemer Lutheran, for nine months as interim pastor and then serving as part-time visitation pastor at St. Paul Lutheran Church in Fort Worth until 1993, when he underwent surgery for cancer.

 

June’s father died in September 1989, and after her mother suffered a cerebral hemorrhage in 1994 that caused her to lose her memory, the Heins decided it was time to move closer to their families.  They settled in South Elgin, Illinois.  Harold’s father had died in 1958, while they were in Africa, and his mother died in 1993 at age 98.  June’s mother died in 2002.

 

In 1996, some months after the Heins had moved to Illinois, St. Paul Lutheran Church of Aurora, Illinois asked Harold to serve as a part-time visitation pastor, and he accepted.  He made pastoral visits and brought Word and Sacrament to many people in their homes, rest homes and hospital beds for about one and a half years.  The Heins now attend Lord of Life Lutheran Church in La Fox, Illinois, “a disciple-making church, with a heart for the lost.”  They enjoy their period of retirement, keeping up with the activities and accomplishment of children and grandchildren, participating in their church, and attending gatherings for retired ministers hosted by the Northern Illinois District.  Harold writes that they “praise God for the privilege of ministering with the saving and faith-strengthening Gospel to young and old,” and that their fellowship with other pastors and church workers “is another occasion to remember that the Lord, who has already called to glory many of the members of the schools and churches where we served, will soon allow us to hear, ‘enter into the joy of your Lord.’”

 

Nota Bene

Harold contributed major work to the “Lutheran Hymnal in Solfa Notation” mentioned above.  He transposed the liturgy music and 228 hymns from the “Lutheran Hymnal” into solfa notation.  The change into solfa notation required transposition of all four parts (soprano, alto, tenor, bass).  His work was then sent to his brother, Orville Hein, who worked as a printer in Red Wing, Minnesota.  Orville donated his time and effort to typing up and printing drafts, which Harold and others would correct and return.  The project was ultimately an effort of the Literature Board of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Nigeria.  The process of this project became a call by God to Orville, who was moved to volunteer as a lay missionary, the first printer on the mission field of the LCMS in Papua New Guinea from 1965-70.

 

Particular services Harold performed in Nigeria include: gave a lecture at the Annual Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Nigeria; directed the annual pastors’ retreat held each year at the Evangelical Lutheran Seminary, Obot Idim, 1962-64; helped inaugurate the radio ministry in the Efik and Ibo languages; and organized and directed the Male Chorus at the seminary, which in addition to concerts in churches participated in the annual Uyo Arts Festival and at the regional Festival in Enugu.

 

Papers Harold has presented at circuit and area conferences include:

“Divine Necessity for Human Need:  A Study of The Word ‘dei’ in The Lukan

Accounts”

“A Study of the Word, ‘anamneesis’, in Luke 22:19 and 1 Corinthians 11:24-25”

“An Exegetical Study of Matthew 24”

 

Phase 2 Information

Biggest missiological issue faced?

When serving in congregations and outstations, Harold found that some of the most difficult issues involved members clinging to particular animistic practices, and the problem of polygamous marriage.  He writes, “The missionary who previously was the supervising pastor and schools manager in the Ukpom District had a problem with church members being polygamists.  I also inherited this problem from 1952-54.  The only ‘pastoral theology’ teaching we had in the seminary on polygamy was through Dr. Fritz’ Pastoral Theology book which stated simply that polygamist men must give up all wives except the first wife.  Such a legalistic practice, of course, led to many problems, and only exacerbated the idea that a true Christian was one who went through the motions of what a Christian should look like.  I continued the same pastoral practice.  What happened, as we discovered, was that many men were hiding the fact that they had a second or a third or fourth wife.  Of course, our Western society and Christian culture after the year 2000 has a lot of successive ‘polygamy,’ what with people going through divorce and remarriage and multiple divorces.”

 

While teaching at the seminary, Harold struggled with effective communication and his and others’ failure fully to understand students’ cultural backgrounds, village life and so forth.  An incident he relates with great disappointment came in the late 1950s: “In 1955 a program was begun in which young teens who had completed elementary school were enrolled in a two year ‘junior pre-sem’ program, studying high school subjects along with Christian doctrine and New Testament Greek.  They were to continue in high school, studying the Greek New Testament Gospels and Acts (which were also part of the West African Certificate Examination).  After completing those next four years they would enter the four-year seminary program, which included a year of vicarage.  However, before this first class completed their fourth year in the high school, the group of about 16 students one day marched en masse to our house, demanding to know what their salary would be if they continued in the seminary and became pastors.  The Board of Governors met and of course decided that this was not the way the seminary program and church would continue, subjected to ‘unionizing’ efforts.  The ‘Junior Seminary’ program was discarded, even though four students did continue in the four-year seminary study program.  In fact, one of those students later became the President of the Lutheran Church of Nigeria.  The training of those students who did not enter pastoral ministry, however, proved effective in that these men were well-qualified as faithful lay leaders in congregations.”  This program did have some positive results, but Harold was sorry to see the contention that arose because of the pre-seminary program and its consequent disbanding.

 

The fact that missionaries at the time did not learn the native language of the people they served and had to rely on interpreters not only lengthened worship services considerably, but caused a lack of communication and a certain disconnection between the missionaries and the people.

 

Most significant contribution during missionary service?

Harold did several different types of ministry during his time in Nigeria and feels blessed to have made particular contributions:

 

• “Showing the value of life as a gift of God: by attention to mothers and families where twins were born.  By ministering to the ill, taking many people to the hospital.”
• “My contribution to creating the Lutheran Hymnal in Solfa Notation.”
• Encouraging the use of indigenous music in worship.
• Teaching students for the Gospel ministry.
• Helping inaugurate a radio ministry in the Efik and Ibo languages.

 

Connection to today’s mission?

Harold notes, “The same Gospel is the center of all mission work today as it was in the 1950s and 1960s.”  He hopes the solfa hymnal is still used in the schools and in English-speaking congregations and that the concept of using indigenous music and folk tunes is still salient in Christian congregations, worship, outreach and so forth.  Also, “I would hope that the teaching that ‘they who preach Gospel should live of the Gospel’” remains, “and that ministers of the Gospel should receive their support from those who receive the blessings of the ministry that is in their midst.”

 

The missionaries emphasized strongly Lutheran doctrine, including the proper separation and use of Law and Gospel, and Harold hopes and trusts that those teachings have allowed the tie between the “mother church” LCMS and the Lutheran Church of Nigeria to remain strong.

 

In Harold’s own life and ministry, “Upon return to the U.S., I had the privilege for eighteen years of being a member of the Board of Lutheran Bible Translators, and my experience with inability to communicate in my ministry on the field in the language of the people was a great impetus in emphasizing Bible translation and telling of this need to many congregations, groups, and individuals.”

 

“Upon serving as pastor of a U.S. congregation I always emphasized support of our LCMS mission work in the world.  At one time Christ Lutheran of Fort Worth gave 33% of its offerings toward District and Synod mission work, plus contributing to other mission organizations.”

 

Lessons Learned

• “Need to learn more from the indigenous people on the field; need to know the language of the people; need to understand the culture as much as possible from the beginning.”
• “The great lesson overall was that the saving Gospel of Jesus Christ, taught and preached and lived, is the only thing that gives real hope to people in whatever situation they exist.  Christ changes lives, corrects error, and brings forgiveness and peace to those in spiritual darkness and in practices that bind their souls in fear.”

 

Best Practices

• “What worked was when we tried to ‘UNwesternize’ worship styles, so that people did not get the idea that the ‘right’ worship was singing from the little yellow hymnal and following a type of liturgy that copied ‘The Lutheran Hymnal’ p. 5 and p. 15.”
• “What should NOT be emulated is some of the Western-style methods.  Follow Luther’s method of throwing out all which might be a hindrance to an understanding of the Gospel and keep the elements that are Biblical, Gospel-centered, Christ-centered, mission-directed.”
• “Though English was the official language of the country which had over 300 different indigenous languages, English in the 1950s was not spoken or understood by most of the people whom we ministered to.  Much understanding is lost, using translators.  That is why organizations like Lutheran Bible Translators and Wycliffe Bible Translators are doing a tremendous service in mission work today.  We need to support them generously and pray for translators and literacy workers…and pray the Lord of the harvest to send out such people to ethnic groups of the world.”

 

Phase 3 Information

Inspiration for entering foreign missions?

Harold never considered becoming a pastor during his childhood and teenage years.  His plan was to study to become a chemical engineer.  After three semesters at Hamline University in St. Paul, Minnesota, he was drafted into the Navy.  At the time he still intended to return to his studies in chemistry.  However, during a posting in Rhode Island, Harold became friends with a man named Clarence Irwin, who encouraged him to study for the ministry.  He writes, “God used this encouragement and it grew in my heart and mind as months went on.”  Near the end of his Navy service, Harold applied to Concordia Theological Seminary in Springfield, Illinois and was accepted.  He began his studies in 1946.  He had no expectation of receiving a foreign call, but in spring of his graduate year, there was the call to serve in Nigeria!

 

Quotation by/about or brief story:

 

• Harold: “One of the missionary tasks in the 1950s and years before that was for the missionary pastor to visit a congregation early in the morning, before the sun came up.  The purpose was to conduct an instruction class in Christian doctrine, and also to meet with the elders of the congregation (who were called ‘headmen’).  On one occasion, in the year 1953, I was scheduled to visit the most distant congregation in the Ukpom District.  I had forgotten to put petrol in the car (the needle was on about empty).  I picked up the interpreter about 5 a.m. and just before reaching the village of Ekoi Ikpe it dawned on me that I would probably run out of gas, either going or returning.  After stopping the car at an unbridged stream, we walked the half mile to the church, conducted the class, held some discussion with elders about the school which was being built, and returned to the car with head elder Solomon Ubo who wanted to get to a meeting in the local government center, Ikot Ekpene.  We started the engine and chugged about 100 feet.  We sent the interpreter to a chief in another village, who had a small car and hopefully, some petrol.  Headman Solomon and I sat in the car, noticed women in the village walking to their small field with headpans on their heads.  We held conversations, with my constant apologizing that I had forgotten to put petrol in my gas tank that morning.  Why did I forget this important and necessary checkup, living out in the bush?  Solomon would miss his meeting, and it would foul up everyone’s day.  The immediate area where we were stranded was jungle and small cassava plots.  Over an hour passed as we impatiently waited for the interpreter’s return with, hopefully, some petrol.  Suddenly the air was pierced with a woman’s hysterical screams.  Solomon and I rushed out through the bush, to a small plot of a cassava field, and there saw a man wielding a machete, a woman on the ground, wrapping herself in a fetal position, with a small superficial cut on her upper body.  We discovered that this was her husband, who knew she would be in the field at that time with no one around, so he could violently settle a dispute.  But he did not know that God had planned on my forgetting to put petrol in my tank.  Solomon knew what to do.  He took the two to the chief of the village who also judged cases.  One of my favorite passages of the Bible is Romans 8:28 (“God works all things together for good to those who love Him…”), and this was one of the many incidents in my life and ministry among people where Romans 8:28 came to life.”

 

• “It was 1958; I was stationed at Obot Idim, teaching at the Evangelical Lutheran Seminary, and also ministered in a couple of congregations.  I received a note from Asuquo, one of the employees in the church office at the mission headquarters, Obot Idim.  The young man wrote that a chief in a neighboring village spoke of thinking about getting rid of his ‘juju’ (fetishes) and the practices associated with the native religion of sacrificing, etc.  I arranged to go with Asuquo early on a weekday morning, about 6a.m., when I would not attract many curious onlookers.  We met Chief Umoh who indeed wanted to get rid of his ‘juju.’  Somehow he felt the futility of it all, including his participation in a secret pagan society.  We spoke about his intent, and asked how he wanted to do this act of ‘riddance.’  He took us to the mud veranda at the rear of his mud-walled and palm-thatched house.  There he dug up some ‘ekpo’ items, which were pieces of some special wood, buried into the ground on which he sacrificed the blood of chickens and goats.  He led us to the entrance to his compound, and dug up a calabash in which were held some items which would guard his compound from harm.  He led us into the bush, the forest, took a lot of leaves and brush, set fire to it, and burned the juju and fetish items.  I shared with him the Law and Gospel in words that he could understand, and directed him to the Savior Jesus who died for all his sins, including his life of idolatry.  We prayed for forgiveness and for strength for Umoh.  He would get a lot of opposition from the fellow members of the pagan society.

 

“This entire episode brought immediately to remembrance my ordination and commissioning in 1952.  Rev. A. C. Seltz V, President of the Minnesota District, preached at the service at Zion Lutheran Church, Horton Township, Hancock, MN, on the text Acts 19:17-20, where people in Ephesus confessed their deeds of practicing sorcery and burned the books which taught the magical acts.  The result was that the Name of the Lord Jesus was magnified, the Word of the Lord grew and prevailed.  As we witnessed the smoke rise in the still air above the palm trees we prayed that which happened in Ephesus to God’s glory would take place in Chief Umoh’s village.  We encouraged him to attend worship and classes in the church in the village bordering his village.  He did.  But illness kept him from completing them.  Asuquo again sent me a note, saying that the chief was very ill and dying.  We went immediately to his house, and saw about a hundred people gathered in his compound, waiting for him to get well or die.  Chief Umoh was lying on the mud floor, in an outer room, next to an open fire.  His body was thin and cold and weak, but God kept his voice strong.  As we ministered to him with the Word of God, the comfort of the Gospel, and prayer, he responded in a loud strong voice.  He said, ‘I have learned many things about Christ, who did great and wonderful things.  He is my Savior, and I am not afraid to die.  He rose from the dead and I will too!’  What a testimony to me and the crowd hovering around the house!  Chief Umoh died the next day.

 

“I officiated at his funeral and preached on the text 1 Timothy 1:15, ‘Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners of whom I am chief.’  I will soon join Chief Umoh in heaven.

 

“The Holy Spirit moved him to put pagan items ablaze, so that the same Spirit might set his heart ablaze with a saving trust in Jesus, his Resurrection and Life.  A church was planted in Chief Umoh’s village.  Acts 19:17-20: ‘THE NAME OF THE LORD JESUS WAS MAGNIFIED…THE WORD OF THE LORD GREW MIGHTILY AND PREVAILED!’”