Jenny L. (Koenig) Morrison

1. 10/21/1967 Fort Wayne, Indiana USA

 

Spouse/Family

Husband: Brian J. Morrison, b. 1/28/1972 Ventura, California USA, m. 12/31/2004

Children: Owen Micah (2006); Zoe Blair (2009)

 

Dates of Service Field Call Assignment

1996-98 Japan, Volunteer Youth Ministry Volunteer

1998-2000 Japan, Volunteer Youth Ministry Program Director

 

Biographical Summary

Jenny (Koenig) Morrison graduated summa cum laude from Franklin College in Franklin, Indiana, with a B.A. degree in Journalism and Political Science.  In the fall of 1994 she began work on a Masters Degree in Asian Studies at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.  She was awarded this degree in absentia in 1997.  Jenny studied at the Inter-University Center for Japanese Language Studies in Yokohama, Japan, in 1995-96 as a Japan Foundation Fellow.  After returning briefly to the U.S. in the summer of 1996 to attend missionary orientation, Jenny began as a volunteer in the Volunteer Youth Ministry (VYM) Japan Program of LCMS World Mission in October 1996 and served until April 1998.  At the time she served as a volunteer, VYM members mainly taught English as a means of building relationships and to support congregations of the Japan Lutheran Church (JLC).  Jenny completed six months of orientation training in Tokyo and taught from April 1997 to March 1998 at the Niigata Nozomi Lutheran Church, teaching conversation classes at the church for all ages as well as classes at a local junior high school and at Niigata University.

 

After one and a half years of volunteer work, Jenny became Program Director for the VYM Program for almost three years, from April1998 until December 2000.  During that time, she dealt with many problems having to do both with the JLC and with the program itself.  To begin with, the size of the program diminished from twenty volunteers to around twelve or thirteen, which also diminished the budget.  Unfortunately, the congregations that hosted volunteers were often using the income gained from having a native English speaker as a teacher to support congregational budget needs rather than to reinvest in the program.  This made a reduction in the number of volunteers a very charged issue, since losing a volunteer meant losing a source of income, even though the program had not been intended that way.  The volunteer mission program of the LCMS also expanded, so that volunteers had many options other than Japan for their service, and this hurt the Japan program in some ways.

 

One of Jenny’s main tasks to help the VYM program run both more smoothly and more transparently was to begin and maintain records and provide for better training for those who worked for the program.  Under her guidance, the VYM program instituted a weekend visit to new volunteer sites prior to the departure of the outgoing volunteers for better training and new site orientation.  She began a brand new VYM inventory of all the items and furniture that had been gathered in volunteer apartments over the years.  Jenny created several documents and records to help those who were leaving and coming into the program.  She wrote the very first returning volunteers guidebook—a comprehensive piece with absolutely every detail of moving back overseas, training a replacement, and so forth.  She also created comprehensive annual budgets that included the exact calculations for each line item or previous five-year average, so that a new program director could understand how those figures were arrived at and make changes accordingly.  Finally, she wrote a comprehensive annual plan detailing the VYM calendar year and what planning, reports, communications, forms, consultations, were required, so that a new director could begin by simply following the list.

 

While undertaking these significant tasks, Jenny found herself hampered in several ways.   Her position description documents stated that she was accountable to the LCMS Asia Secretary and VYM Supervisor, but the JLC mission representative insisted that she was “under” his authority instead.  This frustrated her in large part because the JLC seemed to use volunteers mainly as a source of income and not to have the best interests of the VYM program and the volunteers at heart.  She found herself doing a lot of consulting with other LCMS career missionaries on the field to help navigate these pitfalls.  Further harming the program was that there was no real strategy in place other than the physical presence of volunteers to teach English.  Moreover, the expansion of the overall volunteer missionary program of the LCMS meant more competition among sites for qualified and capable volunteers, and the VYM program in Japan, trying to fill the “slots” they had available, ended up with several volunteers who were not suited for mission work, some of whom caused significant damage to themselves, the program and those they worked with.  Finally, many of the JLC personnel only saw volunteers in the money-making role to support their need for funds – nothing else – which was a constant source of true angst to volunteers and to Jenny as director, who had initially been excited about the program because they desired to share their faith as “missionaries.”

 

A positive impact that Jenny was able to make for the VYM program was increasing communication by improving the technological infrastructure of the program.  When she became director, there was just one old computer in the VYM office.  As the numbers of volunteers declined and more and more sites went from having two volunteers to one, isolation became an ever-increasing problem.  During Jenny’s time as director, she and her colleagues made valiant efforts to place a computer with e-mail at every site.  Within a year, they had everyone online and could not only communicate better and more cost-effectively, but also could manage data more effectively using electronic means.  They also scraped together enough money to replace the office computer and printer with more effective and reliable machines.

 

Another step Jenny took in order to build a more solid community among the volunteers was, instead of simply assigning prayer partners among volunteers, to create small pods of three to four volunteers in small groups that functioned as prayer partners, mentors, and support group.  Jenny asked the assistant director, an appointed volunteer, to take on the role of calling everyone once a month as well to talk and pray, so that the burden was not only on the director, and so that volunteers heard from “someone” on a more regular basis and had several people with whom to discuss their work and any concerns.

 

Having served LCMS mission work overseas for several years, Jenny returned to the U.S. to work in LCMS World Mission as Communications Manager from 2001-2003 and as Director of Communication Services 2003-2006.  Jenny was married to her husband, Brian Morrison, in 2004, and they are parents of two children, Owen and Zoe, born in 2006 and 2009.

 

Nota Bene

As Communications Director of VYM, Jenny contributed toward the establishment of the Ablaze! brand and helped to launch the Movement through visual and electronic media.

 

Phase 2 Information

Biggest missiological issue faced?

• The “indigenous church” was not truly indigenous – it resembled the German Western Church in practice.  Jenny writes, “Post-war missionaries did the best as they knew how. That was to set up a German Lutheran church, replicating what it was in the US. The church was never made up of Germans, and still today it is not authentically Japanese. A Japanese Lutheran in a sense has to renounce his Japanese identity on Sunday and then pick it back up again Monday through Saturday. These people have a hard time fitting into their own culture and the Japanese Christian culture that exists. I believe that is why when I spoke to Japanese laity, their answers for their problems were again and again, ‘We need more American missionaries.’ They did not. They needed to be educated and believe that they themselves were the most powerful Christian witness in their own society. I felt that the VYM program had also become an unnecessary crutch. With it, they could claim that they had a mission/outreach program. But it did not cost them anything in the form of stewardship of people or financial resources, nor did they gain anything from the joy of seeing/being used by the Lord themselves.”

 

• The aging of the members of the JLC was an ongoing issue for the whole church.

 

• Lack of a mature faith and of a desire for, experience of, or vision for mission among the JLC.

 

• There were some poor relations between sister churches LCMS and JLC because of past history, and missionaries currently on the field should have been made more aware of this history.  For one thing, Jenny notes, “The missionaries bought lots of prime real estate post war for cheap. When these properties were turned over to the JLC, they became a huge financial crutch—many of them turned into profit-making enterprises to support the church. The church never learned to tithe and support itself without these crutches. That’s why weaning them from LCMS/VYM financial support in the 1990s was so painful and caused lots of antagonism. JLC had no resources to do church a different way.”

 

Most significant contribution during missionary service?

As director, Jenny oversaw the reorganization of the VYM program in Japan in the face of significant downsizing and budget challenges.  She helped bring the program and the group of volunteers into the electronic age for management and community-building purposes.

 

Connection to today’s mission?

The VYM program in Japan continues, though it has changed in some ways since Jenny’s work as a volunteer, and she herself helped to make adaptations to the program as noted above.  Besides English teaching, the VYM program now also sends volunteers to work with Japanese laity to establish small-group ministries.

 

Jenny’s work begun on the mission field continued during her time with LCMS World Mission and, currently, as a mission donor and mission educator as the opportunity arises.

 

Lessons Learned

• There must be a strategy in place prior to sending a team.
• There must be a good relationship with the existing church that is not based solely on financial gain for them.
• There must be a well-functioning team in place on the field—no lone rangers.

 

Jenny recounts certain issues that, if not exactly lessons learned, were eye-opening for her, especially as director of the VYM program.

• “A female American VYM director was a threat in Japanese ‘male culture’ – I was not the first female director, but I seemed to be the first who was in the thick of the hotbed of challenging issues and acted as a leader, not a rubber stamp. This was very uncomfortable for the JLC pastors, I think.
• “A single person in such a situation is at a severe disadvantage. I had no close support. Our career personnel were sent to do their own jobs and we were not set up as a team that interfaced. We were located far from each other and adequate support – especially in such a fiery climate – was not available.
• “A VYM director who could speak and READ the language was a threat. The JLC had been more comfortable with a certain level of naivety among previous directors (or so they assumed). As a courtesy, VYM directors were always given copies of JLC reports, etc. But no one ever read them before, nor could relate news back to LCMS. This was probably taken as being spied on; or as interference in their independence or patronizing. It never was that. But I can see how they might fear that it would become that based on historical relations which supposedly were bad, though I had no knowledge of them.
• “Japan is such a dark nation spiritually, that volunteers who were not thoroughly rooted easily became targets of spiritual prey causing huge problems. One volunteer left the faith entirely and divorced his wife, one would get a Japanese national pregnant out of wedlock, one was completely mentally unstable, one was addicted to telling lies, etc. Several were just borderline in many ways. The LCMS was desperate to fill the positions with warm bodies and the JLC was only to happy to receive them. But, it was not a best practice.
• “All these things were considerately heard by LCMS leaders at various periods of debriefing. But nothing was ever done with the information. Few if any steps were taken at the time to improve the situation. This too was not a best practice.
• “In the end, I left the position 2 years before my contract was up as the huge amount of stress was taking its toll on me not only emotionally, but I developed many physical problems directly ascribed to the amount of stress and was advised by doctors and LCMS ‘shrinks’ to come home. This too has to be a lesson learned about how we work overseas and how we care for our personnel I think.”

 

Best Practices

Unfortunately, Jenny was in Japan with VYM at a time when, she says, “I cannot say that there were any [best practices] that should be emulated. We spent all our time trying to sort out and through the bad situation on our hands.”

 

Phase 3 Information

 

Inspiration for entering foreign missions?

Jenny: “After experiencing tragedy in my family, I received a surge of renewed faith and a call from the Holy Spirit to take my education, language skills and desire to be in Japan and put them to work for the Lord’s purposes.”

 

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