John Herman Fajen

1. 5/26/1929 Stover, MO USA

 

Spouse/Family

Wife: Margaret (Thompson) – always called Peggy

1. 3/10/1933 St. Louis, MO USA; m. 6/19/1955

Children: Katherine Marie (Morris) (1956); Elizabeth Grace (Brown) (1957); Melanie Elise (Linger) (1959); Barbara Joanne (Olson) (1962);

Pauline Ann (1964)

 

Dates of Service Field Call Assignment

1957-77 Nigeria Evangelistic Missionary/Linguist

 

Biographical Summary

Both John and Peggy Fajen graduated in 1955, John with an M.Div. from Concordia Seminary in St. Louis and Peggy from Washington University with a degree in education with study in world religions.  They met at a picnic gathering in Forest Park, St. Louis and were married in June of 1955.  After their wedding, the Fajens moved to California so that John could pursue a degree in science at Berkley while Peggy taught.  Soon, however, it became clear that their call was to Nigeria as LCMS missionaries.  They arrived in April 1957, with their six-month-old daughter Kathy.  At the time, the work of the LCMS in Nigeria was done through interpreters.

 

John’s assignment in Nigeria was, like that of most missionaries in the area, to serve as pastor and supervisor of many congregations and manager of the schools in the district.  The new aspect of his assignment was that he was also to learn the language of the area, which was Khana.  John studied diligently, but he could not discover a pattern in the tonal system of the language, which prevented him from becoming fluent.  He decided to use the Fajens’ first furlough in 1960 to attend the Summer Institute of Linguistics course offered by the Wycliffe organization.  He was joined by Hector Ottemoeller, already a veteran of mission work in Nigeria.  The course proved invaluable for John’s work with the Khana language as well as his subsequent work with Kukele, an unwritten language.  Soon, in fact, it became policy that no new missionaries could come to Ogoja Province, a new area of outreach in Nigeria to the north of the original mission, without this study.  Before the Fajens left on this furlough, they were blessed with two more daughters, Libby (born 1957) and Melanie (born 1959).

 

Returning from furlough in 1961, the Fajens were assigned to Ogoja Province to live among the Ukele people, in the village of Wanikaade.  Up to this time, Western influence had been minimal among the Ukele, and the people lived a traditional village life.  This life included animism – worship of spirits – as the people’s religious tradition and practice.  The Ukele people proved initially indifferent to the message of the Gospel, considering it a white man’s religion, so that the question was how to present the good news of salvation as a message to the hearts of the Ukele people and not a foreign import.  To this end, John was convinced that the Word must be made available to the people in their own language, and he began to learn that language, called Kukele.  He attended the evening gatherings at which, for entertainment as well as to transmit wisdom, the old men of the village told from memory the stories that had been passed down for generations.  John recorded these stories on a tape recorder and transcribed the words, while his “language helper,” a young man who knew some English, translated the words and phrases into English.  Once these words and phrases had been translated, John studied and analyzed them, learning new vocabulary, examining tonal patterns and sentence patterns.  As he did so, he collected the words and sentences into the beginnings of a dictionary and grammar.

 

In addition to this work, the Fajens were involved in several other activities between 1961 and 1964.  The whole time they were in Nigeria, they took care of sick and injured people who came to them for help.  Peggy ran a “back-door clinic,” bandaging wounds and giving out malaria medicine and other medications to injured or sick people who came to their house.  A doctor visited once every two weeks to take care of serious cases or to refer those who were in most serious need to the hospital.  In order to serve more effectively the needs of the people, John negotiated settlements with chiefs and elders in the town of Yahe, in preparation for the mission’s building of a medical center, which was a real boon to the people of Ogoja and remains a very busy out-patient clinic.  Meanwhile, Peggy spent some of her time teaching the Fajens’ five children at home, although the children later would begin school in the city of Jos.  John chose not to preach in worship services, not wanting his accent or difficulty with the Kukele language to be distracting for worshippers, so he worked with a Ukele evangelist named Ignatius to develop sermons for Ignatius to preach.  The Fajens gradually built up their language skills as well as mutual trust and appreciation with their neighbors.  They also added to their family during this time, with daughters Barbara, born in 1962, and Polly, born in 1964.

 

Lutheran missionaries in Ogoja at this time included the Fajens; Hector and Mary Ottemoeller; Chuck and Mary Lou Brehmer; Wally and Betty Rasch; Ed and Wilma Rupprecht; Eugene and Bernice Bunkowske; and, for a time, Dr. Bill Foege who practiced at the Yahe medical center once it was built.  Dave and Ruth Boettcher came as missionaries in 1971, and Dr. John Lautenschlager and his wife Bobbie arrived in 1972 as medical missionaries.  Though they arrived a bit later, both of these couples worked closely with the Fajens and the other missionaries.  The teamwork among these missionaries was very important.  They met together at the beginning of their service and through the years afterward to determine how their work should best proceed.  The missionaries decided that for language groups which had no written language, there must be a four-part ministry:

1. Language learning, language writing, dictionary, Bible teaching and translation
2. Preparing adult literacy materials for teaching reading, writing primers
3. Developing Bible stories for children, Sunday School materials, adult classes, evangelism
4. Developing a medical program to treat illnesses and to teach prevention of many tropical diseases

In the Ukele area, John took on the first task, with other missionaries serving in the other ministries as they arrived: Ed Rupprecht took the second task, Dave Boettcher the third, and John Lautenschlager the fourth.  The missionaries worked as a team, and they also worked with teams of nationals, which made their ministry possible.

 

In 1964, the Fajens had a furlough and John studied anthropology and linguistics at UCLA.  After they returned to Nigeria, and immediately after Ed Rupprecht had come to assist with the literacy program, there was an outbreak of smallpox in the region.  All the missionaries, working under Dr. Bill Foege, traveled around the region to inform village chiefs of the situation and vaccinate whole villages against smallpox.  Dr. Foege acquired injection guns for the missionaries so that many people could be vaccinated in a single day.  Dr. Foege would later work at the CDC in Atlanta, in charge of eradicating smallpox throughout the world.  So the Lutheran missionaries in Nigeria, including the Fajens, were privileged to be a part of this major global effort!  When the outbreak had been contained, Ed Rupprecht rejoined the Fajens at Wanikaade to undertake his part of the ministry, setting up a literacy program for the Ukele people so they could read the Scriptures in their own language.  Teachers were trained in the process of literacy training.

 

The Biafran War (1967-1971) forced the missionaries to evacuate their homes, though the Fajens and Ottemoellers stayed in the country (others evacuated back to the U.S. because of the scope and danger of the war).  The Fajens went first to Jos and then to Lagos, where they worked with the Nigerian Red Cross.  John was in charge of land, sea and air transport of food and medical supplies which would be shipped to refugees, and he was asked to travel to Uyo and Ikot-Ekpene in the south to install short-wave radios.  The Fajens, along with other mission and aid workers who tried to bring some relief to those whose lives were torn apart by the conflict, were very much affected by the suffering they saw all over the country – so many people who were caught in the middle of a conflict they had nothing to do with suffered and died.  Though misery was widespread, missionaries did all they could to provide any sort of relief.  The Fajens were able to return to their home only in December 1968, where, despite the ravages of the war, they again picked up their work where it had been left off.  The war did not finally end until January of 1971.  The Fajens had a furlough in 1969-70, during which time John compiled the Kukele dictionary and wrote a descriptive grammar of the language.  When they returned in 1970, Ed Rupprecht had also made progress with the literacy program, and teachers were already beginning to train others for literacy.  In 1971, Dave Boettcher arrived and began working with a group of young men to develop Sunday school and Bible study materials and to train them to do evangelism in the villages.

 

Also in 1971, John began Bible translation work, selecting a group of young men from different villages in Ukele as a translation team and reading to them from the Bible.  These young men were known to John and had enough education to know some English.  As the team worked on reading and translating the Bible, over time they gradually came to believe that Jesus is the Son of God and our Savior.  Eager with their newfound faith, the men who worked with John, as well as with Ed Rupprecht and Dave Boettcher, began to express interest in evangelism, preaching, and holding worship services.  John began classes with them on Fridays and Saturdays to translate texts and develop sermons.  As the translation team became more proficient, John had them take over more of the work of translation, which he would check periodically.  Additionally, once the Fajens’ children were all in boarding school, Peggy began teaching health classes to people in the village, many of whom later became involved in the medical program with Dr. Lautenschlager.

 

The main reason John began spending less time on translation work, besides the growing capabilities of his team to do the work, was that he spearheaded the building of a dam during this time.  The people of the Ukele region suffered much from lack of water during the dry season, and John had suggested for years that a dam to hold rainwater from the rainy season would greatly benefit the village.  With the work of a Dutch engineer named Klaas de Bruin and much hard labor by John, local villagers, and Dutch Peace Corps volunteers, the dam was painstakingly built and it worked as intended!

 

The Fajens had another furlough in 1977.  By this time the translation of the New Testament was complete (John was bringing the fully translated Kukele New Testament to the U.S. to be printed), and some books of the Old Testament had been translated.  Nigerian nationals were working as evangelists and in the medical clinic.  The Kukele language had been fully reduced to writing and primers were available to teach new readers.  The Fajens found themselves at a crossroads: with their parents growing older and children entering university in the United States, the call of family ties was strong, and they wondered if God was leading them back to the U.S., even if it meant leaving the Ukele people who were like family to them.  After much prayer and deliberation, they recognized that they should remain in the United States.  John worked as Mission Personnel Director for LCMS World Mission from 1980-87 and was then called to be the pastor of Trinity Lutheran Church in Glidden, Wisconsin.  In Glidden, the Fajens formed great friendships, and as pastor John saw the church through a difficult process of paying off the debt from a new church building.  Unfortunately, John lost his eyesight while in Glidden due to a retinal hemorrhage.  He and Peggy remained in Glidden until 1994, when John retired and they moved back to Saint Louis to settle.  Peggy worked as a substitute teacher until 2007, then began part-time work with Lutheran Senior Services as an in-home private duty caregiver.  The Fajens have many fond memories of their work in Nigeria and of the people with whom they lived and served for so long.  Their love for the Lord and for sharing His love has sustained them throughout their foreign mission and into the present.

 

Nota Bene

John received an honorary Doctor of Letters degree from Concordia University in St. Paul, MN in 1993.

Peggy has written many articles and has contributed to a number of writing projects.  She wrote an essay entitled, “Don’t Mind the Shaking; It Is Strong” for the work Dreams Dawn in Africa, published by Lutheran Women’s Missionary League, St. Louis, 1999.

 

Phase 2 Information

 

Biggest missiological issue faced?

In the area where the Fajens worked, animism was the prevailing spiritual belief, and they constantly came up against the idea that spirits controlled everything that happened in the world.  John spent many months talking with Ukele men, learning about their beliefs and how they lived their lives.  He wanted to really know the Ukele culture and people and, eventually, to try to find out how Christ could be known to people who thought spirits controlled everything.  He notes that one particular difficulty in this culture was how to translate the phrase “Holy Spirit” – this issue was never completely resolved!

 

Most significant contribution during missionary service?

The translation of the New Testament into Kukele, made possible by the painstaking work of compiling a dictionary and grammar and then by the Spirit-led work of the translation team John supervised, was the major contribution of the Fajens’ ministry in Ukele.  Pastor Matthew Okata of the Lutheran Church in Nigeria pointed to its importance when he spoke to John in 1999 about translating the rest of the Bible: “We study the Old Testament in English, but it is not sweet to read and understand like our Kukele New Testament.  We really need and pray for the Old Testament in Kukele.”  This desire for the whole Bible to be translated into Kukele indicates the impact that the translation of the New Testament has had for the Christian life and ministry of the Ukele people.

 

Connection to today’s mission?

The Lutheran Church in Nigeria (LCN) is now a vibrant indigenous church and is a partner church with the LCMS.  The LCMS still sends some missionaries to work with the LCN, which itself is a mission church with missionaries in Gambia and Jamaica.  The Fajens do feel it is unfortunate that so many of the new missionaries are sent for a short period of time rather than for long-term ministry, having seen the work of the Spirit that was accomplished through their and others’ decades of mission.

 

Lessons Learned

• Always the number one lesson: “I can trust God; we can trust God.  We thank God for His protection, His grace, and His purpose for us.”
• In their time in Ukele, the Fajens were blessed to become friends, and as close as family, with the people they served.  Through their service and their consistent posture as humble friends of the Ukele people and students of the language and culture, they discovered that unbreakable bonds can be formed between people of vastly different culture and experience.  “We are all God’s beloved people.”
• God always provides when the time is right – and provision happens in God’s time rather than in ours.  “Don’t ever think God doesn’t know where you are.”

 

Best Practices

• In mission work, missionaries should help in any way they can – through spreading the Good News; literacy and other educational programs; agricultural and other development; medical work; and friendships.  All these functions are the work of the Spirit.
• Trust is crucial.  The Fajens did their best to come into the Ukele land as students and not as know-it-alls; their purpose was to learn all they could and understand as well as possible the people among whom they lived.  Humility, friendship-building, and respect for others’ culture builds trust, and the Gospel and the love of Christ are best shared through trusted relationships and personal bonds.  “Once people know you, when you share the Gospel then they listen.”
• This trust also involves respect on the part of the missionaries for the way people of another culture live.  Life may be very different in a remote area of Nigeria, but a missionary who comes to live in the area almost cannot help but be amazed at how people can live well with so little, and this respect also helps to build bonds of trust.

 

Phase 3 Information

Inspiration for entering foreign missions?

When they began their married life, John’s intention for his ministry was that he would take a degree in physics and become a “missionary to physicists” – he would work among the community of scientists and try to help bridge the unnecessary gap that sometimes exists between faith and the study of science.  Peggy had earned her teaching degree and was teaching in California while John pursued his degree.  However, problems came up with John’s degree program and it appeared he would be unable to finish.  Meanwhile, Peggy was unhappy with her particular teaching position.  When John realized he would have to find another path for his ministry, he asked Peggy, “How would you like to go to Africa?” and she readily agreed.  Once they arrived in Africa, they understood that foreign mission work was absolutely their calling – God had brought them into this work through closing other doors.  They learned to let go of their ambitions or plans that were not in God’s plan, and the Spirit richly rewarded them for it.

 

Quotation by/about or brief story:

• The dam on which John and the Ukele people worked was one of the major projects – and major accomplishments – of the Fajens’ time in Nigeria.  Almost from the beginning of their time in the Ukele region, John had realized that a dam could store rainwater from the rainy season so that things would not be so difficult for the people during the dry season.  He eventually suggested this idea to the elders of the people, but they did not take him up on his suggestion for years and years.  Finally, about ten years after he had first brought up the idea, the Fajens looked out their window one day to see a long line of people – all the elders – coming toward their house.  The men sat in the living room and stated that they were ready to try building the dam: “We trust you; you have never lied to us.  Our ancestors had taught us that in order to undertake something like this, we would need to do human sacrifice, but you have shown us that this is not so, and we believe you.”  With the will to do the project in place, the next question was how to design and build a dam.  While John was pondering this question, just a few days after the elders had given their blessing to the project, the Fajens traveled into Ogoja on some unrelated business.  There they happened to meet Klaas de Bruin, a Dutch engineer who had been doing some projects in East Africa and was now looking for a new project – God’s providence indeed!  De Bruin found his new project, and the Fajens found their engineer for the dam.  Under de Bruin’s direction, the project moved forward, and John, the villagers and a couple of Dutch volunteers spent months building it.  Peggy notes that John was not as involved in translation during this time because “he spent his days up to his knees in mud.”  The project was ambitious, but with much time and labor it was completed, and the Ukele people had their dam to provide water and alleviate their suffering when the rains were not falling.

 

• The Fajens were always grateful for the dear friendships they had in Ukele.  Shortly after their arrival in the village, a young man named Agada came to the house and asked Peggy if she needed any help.  She responded affirmatively, and Agada began coming to the house each day, helping with everything that needed doing for four hours in the morning and another two in the evening, besides spending time at his own house doing his farmwork and his own chores.  His assistance with translation for Peggy’s backdoor clinic was particularly invaluable.  Agada became like one of the family, and the Fajens’ daughter Barbara had a special bond with him, calling him “my Agada” from the time she was small until their return visit in 1999.  Agada was also the person who, unasked, took care of the Fajens’ house when they had to evacuate during the Biafran War.  After two years away from the village and all the horrors of the war – the suffering they saw, the refugees who fled from one area to another in search of haven – they returned to their home to find everything exactly as they had left it.  Finally, Agada provided much-needed help with translation during the smallpox epidemic, traveling to villages along with John and the other missionaries in order to translate their words and explain to the people what the missionaries were doing.

 

• The deep friendship and love the Fajens felt with all the villagers also showed itself during the war, when a group of soldiers came into the area and went into their house, demonstrating interest in what the house contained.  A group of men from the village visited the colonel who was head of the soldiers and told him directly: “If anyone takes anything from that house, we will kill him.”  The soldiers heeded their warning and left without taking anything or doing any damage.  Such was the love the Ukele people felt for the Fajen family and the desire to protect them from any harm, even to their property.