Paul Christian Kreyling

1. 8/20/1921 Fords, NJ USA

 

Spouse/Family

Wife: Carol (Suttmeier) b. 09/30/1928, Jamaica, NY; m. 05/08/1948, Hankow, China

Children: Peter Allan, Stephen Paul, Thomas Mark, James Martin

 

Dates of Service Field Call Assignment

1946-1949           China Missionary

1949-1971 Japan Missionary

 

Biographical Summary

 

Paul Kreyling was born the son of a Lutheran pastor in Fords, a small town in New Jersey, and grew up there. He attended Woodbridge Township public elementary and high schools, and then attended Concordia Collegiate Institute (as it was then known) in Bronxville in preparation for entering Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, from 1941 until his graduation in July 1945. Since he had volunteered for a Foreign Mission Call and accepted a call to be a missionary in China, he attended graduate school 1945-46.  Together with twelve others, Paul sailed for China on the first ship carrying passengers to the Orient after World War II, the “Marine Lynx”, and arrived in Shanghai on October 15, 1946. He studied the Chinese language at the Concordia Seminary building in Hankow 1946-1948, while carrying on mission work among the students in Wuchang, across the Yangtze River from Hankow.  The Mission Board kindly sent Carol Suttmeier, who had been studying at Valparaiso University, to China and she and Paul were married in the chapel of the seminary on May 8, 1948.

 

Paul was first assigned to the mission station in Shasi, up the Yangtze from Hankow, but because the missionary residence had been destroyed in the war, and there was no suitable housing for the newlywed couple, Paul at first remained in Hankow to carry on the student work, as well as maintain the Lutheran Hour broadcast in China, since he had been named Far East representative of the Lutheran Hour. When the Wenger family left on furlough, Paul was assigned to Enshih, but before he could move there, that assignment was cancelled because the inflation was so dire that it would have been most difficult to supply funds to Enshih. Instead, Paul was sent to Shanghai in order to be able to keep the Lutheran Hour broadcast on the air. Meanwhile the Chinese civil war successively engulfed Hankow, Nanking, and finally Shanghai. Since his work had been cut off, Paul and his family seized the opportunity to leave Shanghai on a “refugee ship”, intending to return to the U.S.

 

However, by God’s marvelous grace, a permanent visa was awaiting the Kreylings when their ship docked in Yokohama on October 1, 1949, so they decided to remain in Japan and seek a call to be missionaries in that land. Paul began the study of the Japanese language on Monday and started teaching a Bible Class through an interpreter on Wednesday. Shortly after, Paul was asked to serve as Treasurer-Business Manager for the mission, which, with the influx of missionaries, became a time-consuming task. Together with a dedicated G.I. of the Occupation, he began regular mission work in Hanno, a town west of Tokyo, in December. The following summer he began mission work in Urawa, Saitama Prefecture, just northwest of Tokyo.  In December 1951 the Kreylings moved to Omiya, and he continued to serve Urawa and Hanno. They left Japan on furlough from June 1953 to July 1954.

 

On return, Paul was assigned to Nagaoka, Niigata Prefecture, northwest of Tokyo, and reassigned to Niigata City in July 1956.  The Kreylings had a furlough in 1958.  Paul taught grades 3-6 in Niigata elementary school from 1960-61 and was given another furlough from December 1962-August 1963. Upon return, he undertook language study to upgrade his skills from 1963-64, then was reassigned as Missionary Adviser to the Japan Lutheran Hour, correspondence courses, and follow-up from 1964-1968.   After another furlough in 1968-69, Paul was reassigned to Sanjo City, Niigata Prefecture, where he served from 1969-1971 before resigning his missionary Call and returning to the U.S.

 

Nota Bene

Throughout his time in Japan, Paul served as the planner and producer of audio-visual aids for the mission. Many filmstrips and slide sets were produced and distributed, as well as a set of tape recordings of pipe organ accompaniment for hymn signing for many of the hymns in the Japanese hymnal.

 

Phase 2 Information

Biggest missiological issue faced?

In China, the biggest issue was illiteracy, poverty, and complete ignorance of and indifference to religion, coupled with the difficulty of communication because of the language.

 

In Japan, the biggest impediment was the system of the social structure. Family relationships and all they included presented a very difficult barrier to evangelism, and to individuals coming to faith and confessing that faith. Family pressure and dominance, and the interlocking nature of the social structure made it difficult for an individual to buck the system and choose to accept Christ as Savior and Lord. The strong belief in Japan is that if you are born Japanese, you are automatically a Shintoist and a Buddhist, and that if you stop being either, you are no longer a Japanese person.

 

For example, in Nagaoka, a very fine young man who was a clerk in a bank, at first came to Bible Class and Worship services regularly, and personally wanted to be baptized. Suddenly, he stopped attending abruptly and completely.  Because I had a sense of the opposition he was encountering at home, rather than try to visit him there, I tried to see him at the bank where he was employed. Evidently his co-workers would alert him when they saw me coming, knowing that he wanted to avoid me. I finally caught him off guard, and in a loving way confronted him. He confessed that his family put so much pressure on him, threatening him with ostracism, he had to withdraw. Another threat he could not ignore because of the social stigma involved, was that the Buddhist priest threatened to spill his father’s ashes out on the street, which would be a great shame to him, ruining his reputation and social standing. That was more than he could “take”, and he gave in to the pressure. He personally wanted to declare his faith and be baptized, but just didn’t have the strength to do it.

 

Another case was that of a woman who was a patient at the Red Cross Tuberculosis Hospital and attended the Bible Classes I had there. She had been baptized into Christ by a fundamentalist group and declared her faith, but when her family found out about it, they went to the City Hall and had her birth record, etc. completely expunged from the official public record of vital statistics. In effect, that meant the she did not exist, she had become a non-person, meaning that no one who knew this would have anything to do with her. She was completely ostracized, cut off from society and from life itself. Being bereft, she did not know what she would do when she was discharged from the hospital. I had some “above budget” funds, and offered to set her up in a little business, which she gratefully agreed to at first. But when the fundamentalist missionary heard about it, he told her in no uncertain terms that she could not accept my offer, on the basis of his interpretation and understanding of St. Paul’s words in Romans 13:8, “Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for he who loves his fellowman has fulfilled the law.”   She tearfully told me that she would not take the money I offered her, and broke off coming to Bible Class.  I don’t know what happened to her, but there was nothing I could do. She was victimized not only by the Japanese family structure, but even by a man who thought he was obeying the Word of God!

 

This is one of the main reasons for the slow growth of the Christian faith and the Christian Church in Japan.

 

Most significant contribution during missionary service?

One of the projects which Pastor Bill Danker was pursuing was to acquire or build a student center with funds donated by the Walther League.   One day at language study not too long after arriving in Japan, I was conversing with another missionary during a break between class sessions, and he mentioned that because the Nihon Kirisuto Kyodan (Japan Christian Church, the Union Church that was formed during the war by government fiat) had built a new seminary building in the western suburbs of Tokyo, their original seminary building was for sale.

I mentioned this to Bill Danker, and we went to visit the building and investigate. It proved to be ideal as a student center and more, and the price was right (probably even a bargain!).  So after negotiating and discussing this with the mission group, it was decided to purchase the building and a quantity of excellent pews in the chapel. Bill Danker signed the Bill of Sale and other papers, and I wrote and signed the check, and the building became the Tokyo Lutheran Center. It became our mission headquarters, housing offices, a seminary, a language school, a meeting and social place, a “hotel” for missionaries, the home of both Japanese and English-speaking congregations.  Since the A.L.C. mission established a student center nearby, the building was never used as a student center per se.

 

As a result of the mission work I was carrying on in Hanno, a delegation representing a private school in Hanno, Seibo Gakuen (Holy Hope Middle and High School) visited at our home in Tokyo one late summer afternoon in 1950, and made a rather startling proposal. This private school had been founded in 1918 by Mr. Suda as an agricultural and vocational school, specializing in tea culture and sericulture (raising of silkworms). As a result of the war, Mr. Suda was seriously reduced in his holdings and rendered incapable of funding the school. He sought help to keep the school alive by turning to the local Christian (Methodist) pastor, who attempted to operate the school for a time, but the debts mounted and he would have had to close the school unless help could be obtained. Under the Japanese system, a private school is a “juridical person” and owns itself, but is under the control of its Board of Trustees.  Our mission was asked to take over the school, its property and jurisdiction, as well as its debts.  After serious investigation and deliberation, the Mission Board acceded to the request of the missionary conference, and we took over the school. Since I was familiar with Hanno and was known there, I was appointed to be the Principal and the Chairman of the Board. In October 1950 I took over the operation of the school, and carried on this work until a missionary-teacher replacement was sent from America in time to take over from me in 1953. The school has been greatly blessed, and the old buildings have been replaced by beautiful new buildings. The student body has grown from the 190 student count when I took over to a peak of almost 2,000.

 

Connection to today’s mission?

According to Bill Danker’s definition, “A Missionary is a person who works himself out of a job.”  That proved true in Japan, when, after less than forty years of missionary endeavor, the Japan Lutheran Church (“Nippon Ruteru Kirisuto Kyodan”) was formed, which now is a Partner Church with the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod in the International Lutheran Association (ILA). During the period of the early half of the 1970s, most of the missionaries who had been working many years in Japan were returned to their homeland, literally “out of a job.”   The mission work in Japan is now the responsibility of the Japan Lutheran Church.

 

Lessons Learned

• Mission work is basically the communication of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  It is therefore most vital to the success of work in another land that we become the best communicators possible. That involves mastering the language as much as possible, learning the history and culture of the people, learning their ways of feeling and thinking, and in Japan, we would say, getting a feeling for and understanding for the “kimochi” of the people. (The word is similar to the German “Weltanschauung”, one’s outlook on the world and life itself, one’s “philosophy of life.”)

 

For example, in learning the language, it is not enough to learn the meaning or meanings of the word. One must also know the “flavor” or “taste” of the word, the innuendo, or how and when it is used, the connotation involved, even the “gender”, since, for example, in Japanese certain words are used only by males, others by females, and it would be unseemly or disturbing for a male to use female-only words.  Words carry different emotional freight: there are calm words and agitated words, angry words and conciliatory words, threatening words and peaceable words, exciting words and soothing words, all words that have the same meaning, but convey different attitudes and feelings.

Coupled with this is the need to develop an ability to sense the psychology of a situation, a question, or expression, to be able to understand, as the modern expression puts it, “where the person is coming from”.

 

• Communicating the Gospel also means keeping control of the whole process of communicating, which involves our whole person. As Marshall McLuhan pointed out, “The medium is the message”.  A missionary needs to be as thorough a Gospel person as possible, because very often it is especially true of a missionary that “actions speak louder than words”. We have to BE the Gospel, to ACT the Gospel, to LIVE the Gospel, as well as to speak it.

 

• Another lesson I learned, unfortunately too late, is that a missionary in a foreign country, perhaps even more BECAUSE he is in a strange land, needs to realize that, although his missionary work is very important, his first “job” is to be a husband to his wife and father to his children. The work must never become an excuse for neglecting his duties as a husband and father. He needs to communicate the Gospel also to his family, for that also is an important communication of the Gospel to others by example. Faith and love are the basic relationships of a person with his God, and the basis also for his relationship with others, starting with his family. Those outside the family are watching to see the effect of the Gospel on the relations in the family.  If they see faith-motivated love in the family, that validates the message the missionary proclaims.

 

• Coupled with this is the need to be genuine, and to be yourself, “warts” and all. There have been missionaries who tried to ingratiate themselves with the “natives” by “going native”.   The Japanese are not fooled; because they know we are Americans, they expect us to live as Americans, not as Japanese.  They were much more impressed by being received and welcomed in our homes, and in our attitudes and ways of relating to them, being treated as equals. Openly and humbly acknowledging our sins but rejoicing as forgiven sinners is a more honest way of communicating the Gospel of God’s forgiveness.

 

Best Practices

• What “worked” in mission?  God the Holy Spirit worked!   The Word of God, the Bible, worked! Trying to be as genuine, faithful, humble, loving, warm, that is, as Christ-like as possible, worked. Often, the simpler you could be, the wiser you could be in meeting people “where they are”, was most effective.  Too often we are too theological, too doctrinal, and not as simple, down-to-earth as Jesus was.

 

• For example, I found that many adults were attending my preparation class for Sunday School teachers, or even Sunday School itself. That was because I was using film strips and slides, flannelgraph, “Kami-shibai” (Japanese “paper plays”) and telling the stories in simple terms which were easy to understand and grasp. Dealing with the basics in simple, easy-to-understand terms is the most effective way to communicate the Gospel.

 

• Care must be taken that we are really communicating the Gospel itself, and not just a code of morals. For example, the Japanese have a moral code called “bushido”, or “The Code of the Warrior”.  (“Bushi” is another word for “Samurai”)  It is a fine moral code as far as it goes, but is based on personal honor and integrity, which, when examined closely, turns out to be personal pride and self-centeredness.  Unless you are able to be upright on the basis of a genuine love of God and others, you cannot really be moral. “Love is the fulfilling of the Law”. The Gospel conveys to us the love and forgiveness of God, which is the basis of our response:  love of God and others.

 

Phase 3 Information

Inspiration for entering foreign missions?

From Paul: A humorous approach to this question is to tell the story of the “natal influence” behind it. When I was being born, my father, also a pastor, was eating lunch in a Chinese restaurant in Newark, NJ, with two young men from our congregation who were seminary students on summer vacation, soon to return to their studies. I was named after St. Paul, the greatest Christian missionary, and because of the influence of that Chinese meal, I was called to be a missionary to China!

 

The real story starts with a mystery. At the Seminary, when the Dean wanted to see a student in his office for whatever reason, he would send him a card through the mail slot, with a letter code on it telling the Dean the reason why he summoned the student.   One day a number of us students received cards from the Dean with a different, mysterious code we had not seen before. We had “cracked the code” otherwise, and knew the reasons we were being called in, but this one was strange.  The buzz about the strange code went all over the campus, and those who received it tried, by seeking some common denominator among us, to determine the reason for the summons. But we failed- we couldn’t find the common denominator, until some of the men went in and found that it meant that the Faculty has singled us out to approach us with the suggestion that we consider the possibility of volunteering for a foreign mission call. The Dean suggested that we think about it, pray about it, and then contact him if we had questions, needed further information, or had made a decision.

 

So I did just that- I thought about it, prayed about it, considered it carefully, investigated it, and the upshot was that the Holy Spirit led me to make the decision to volunteer to accept a Call to the mission field in China.

 

Quotation by/about or brief story:

One memorable story from Paul:

 

It was the custom at Nozomi (Hope) Lutheran Church in Niigata City, Japan, for the members to come a bit early and assemble in the “genkan” (entrance hall) of the church before the worship service, in order that they might be on hand to welcome any newcomers and visitors. Each member would then accompany a newcomer into the church and sit with them to guide them through the liturgy, to assist them in finding the hymns, and to explain various things and answers any questions. They then became ongoing “sponsors” for the newcomers, doing whatever they could to keep them attending the worship and also, if possible, the Wednesday evening Bible Class, hopefully to “squire” them through to Baptism and membership in the Church.

 

It so happened that one Sunday morning, a  rather rough, somewhat poorly dressed man, Mr. Saburo Watanabe, appeared, and was met and welcomed by the gracious, well-groomed, cultured wife of a professor at Niigata University,  Mrs. Morohashi. Humanly speaking, it was a rather illogical pairing,  but in God’s way of ordering things, turned out to be most auspicious, for Mrs. Morohashi was motivated by the love of Christ, and took her responsibility very seriously and lovingly.

 

Another custom at Nozomi was to gather in a circle after the worship for a cup of tea and fellowship, for discussion, and for the opportunity for the people to ask questions about the sermon, the Bible, the Christian faith, and the like. Being the rather strong-willed person that he is, Mr. Watanabe got up, introduced himself and spoke a bit about his background and the difficult life he had had. He was born in a little thatch-roofed hovel on the shore of the Japan Sea, had had no education, lived in poverty, but was self-taught. He ended his little speech with a harangue against all that he felt were factors that “put him down”, including university professors, government officials, and even the Emperor of Japan himself. “I have no respect for anybody!”, he said defiantly. I just quietly asked, “Mr. Watanabe, do you have respect for yourself?”   That rocked him back a bit, for no one had ever challenged him to think about that before. He became quiet for a while, and then began to ask many basic questions about the beliefs and teachings of the Christian Church, showing that he had an intelligent ability to ask searching, serious questions.

 

Evidently my answers and my attitude made an impression on him, because Mr. Watanabe became quite regular in his attendance not only at Sunday worship, but also at the Bible Class. He was also most impressed, humbled, and grateful for the gracious, warm, and obviously genuine care expressed by Mrs. Morohashi, and his respect for others grew. He then attended Baptism Preparation Class, was baptized, and became a member of Jesus Christ and His Church at Nozomi. There was one big problem, however. Mr. Watanabe was an alcoholic. He struggled and struggled with this unfortunate bad habit, but even with much prayer and many tears, found that even with all the vaunted strength of his manhood, he was too weak to conquer this “monkey on his back”. My question to him about whether or not he respected himself haunted him. The book of Job also intrigued him, and he once confessed to me, “There are times when I want to curse God and Jesus and die, but I can’t!   I am a prisoner of Jesus Christ! I can’t let go of Him because He won’t let go of me!”

 

Even though he lived on the other side of Niigata, he came to our home frequently to talk with me and ask questions. If he came sober, our Cocker Spaniel “Puddleby” would wag his tail and welcome him. But if he was drunk when he came, Puddleby would growl at him. Even that caused him sorrow and despair. I wish I could report that he eventually conquered the drink habit, but I can’t.  It remained the “thorn in his flesh”, but I am certain that he was forgiven this weakness.

 

One night, at the height of a tremendous typhoon (a Pacific Ocean hurricane), as we were holding up the big sliding windows of the “roka” (outer hallway) on the second floor of our house, there came a knock on our front door. Wondering who was out on such a terrible night and what they could possibly want, I opened the door. There stood Mr. Watanabe. I invited him to come in out of the storm. He had walked across the city at the height of the storm because he was concerned for the welfare of a young nurse at the school for handicapped children near us on the coast who was a fellow-member of Nozomi, and also for his “sensei”  (teacher, pastor) and his family. He had to come and see if we needed any help. I said he just couldn’t go back out again in such weather, and said he should stay there for the night, until the weather improved. I went to get bedding (futon) for him to sleep, and when I returned to the living room, he was standing facing the hi-fi speaker box on which I had placed a three-candle candelabrum of white brass, which looked like silver, a wedding gift from China. He was praying, and when he heard me return, he turned, and with a twinkle in his eye, said to me,  “Pastor, you don’t have to worry!  I’m not Jean Valjean!”  referring, of course, to the episode in “Les Miserables” when Jean Valjean stole the bishop’s silver candlesticks. I have told this story to many audiences in America, but it usually falls flat on its face because so few Americans are familiar with the story. Yet here was this self- educated day-laborer in Japan, who was well-versed in the classics and could come up with that quip!   Thank God that Mr. Watanabe continued his faith and died in his Lord and Savior!

 

Of course, there are many other stories that could be told, but let this one suffice.