Leroy James Eckert

1. 11/6/1939, East St. Louis, IL USA

 

Spouse/Family

Wife: Lois Christine (nee Bender), b. 3/7/1940, Saginaw Township, MI USA

1. 6/26/1965

Children: 3 children, born 1967-69

 

Dates of Service Field Call Assignment

1965-85 Papua New Guinea Evangelistic Missionary, Bible Translator

 

Biographical Summary

Leroy and Lois Eckert met at Concordia Senior College in Fort Wayne IN in the early 1960s.  Leroy attended the college at the time, and Lois, having graduated as a teacher from Concordia University, St. Paul and Concordia University, River Forest (now Concordia Chicago), was teaching in Louisville, KY.  She went up to Fort Wayne to visit a friend and the rest was history!  Upon finishing at Fort Wayne, Leroy attended Concordia Seminary in St. Louis, MO until he graduated in 1965, at which time he and Lois were married and prepared for their first call which was to foreign mission work in Papua New Guinea (PNG).  They left for PNG soon after Leroy’s graduation and arrived in late 1965.

 

Leroy’s call to PNG was as an evangelistic missionary.  After almost a year of language study and further mission training, the Eckerts moved to the area of Kandep, living on an out-station at Kokasa (a “station” was an Australian term for a small settlement).  Leroy’s work was mainly that of teaching evangelists and preaching on Sundays.  Congregations were led by evangelists who were not ordained, but who had some measure of training, and each week Leroy would meet with evangelists to give them sermon outlines, help them to read through the outlines (many were barely literate), and discuss their preaching for the coming Sunday.  He also conducted worship and preached at various congregations to which he traveled.  In all, he played a role in the life of 43 congregations.  This work lasted for four years, while Lois was kept busy mainly with family life.  She did find time to hold Bible study periodically with women in the area and she taught teenage boys who needed basic schooling using Pidgin English, also known as Neo-Melanesian, as the teaching medium. They then returned to their homes and helped teach children who did not have the opportunity to attend school.

 

The Eckerts had a furlough in 1970, and when they returned to Papua New Guinea, Leroy was assigned to translate portions of the Bible into the Enga language.  This would be his ministry for the next fifteen years, and during this time the Eckerts lived “in-valley” at a place called Irelya, and later at Amapyaka, while Leroy did translation work at a nearby mission station called Wakumali.  Leroy worked alongside another missionary, Terry Borchard, but later was the only missionary working at that station.  They worked with a team of PNG nationals along with Dr. Paul Brennan and Rev. Harley Kopitske, while Rev. Borchard did Ipili language translation. The team translated text from Neo-Melanesian to Enga on the basis of the Greek text. This work was then reviewed and corrected as necessary.  Sometimes the final product had only one word in common with the initial translation, but the team worked hard to make sure that the translation was both accurate and could speak to the Enga people in their “heart-language.”  By the time the Eckerts left PNG, all of the New Testament had been translated and edited. Only the book of The Revelation was left to proofread. The full Enga New Testament was dedicated in the early 1990s.

 

During this time, Lois had begun teaching at an Enga school near their home because the school had unexpectedly run short of teachers.  She taught there for a year and a half and then was asked to teach at Highland Lutheran School at Amapyaka, an international school for missionary children, children of other expatriates, and a few New Guinean students who could read and write English. Lois taught there for ten years, up to the time the Eckerts left PNG.

 

Their departure took place in 1985, and the Eckerts moved to St. Louis, MO where Leroy studied at the seminary for one year.  He was then called as pastor of St. John Lutheran Church in Baldwin, IL, where he served for twenty years.  Lois worked during those twenty years as a full-time teacher at Trinity Lutheran School in Red Bud (Prairie). For several years before and after his retirement, Leroy also taught, conducting a religion class at Christ Our Savior Lutheran High School for several years.  The Eckerts retired in 2006, having served their Lord for many years in varied locations and having contributed to the spread of the Gospel, particularly among the Enga people of Papua New Guinea.

 

Nota Bene

Lois received a Master’s Degree in sociology from Azusa Pacific University, through a program called “Operation Impact” in which professors from the university would teach students in PNG for two weeks each year and leave the students with projects to do during the rest of the year.  Because classes were taught for such short periods, the program took several years, and Lois studied from 1976 until she received her degree in 1980.

 

Phase 2 Information

Biggest missiological issue faced?

During their time in PNG, the Eckerts found that they must learn the language and the culture of the people with whom they worked, and in retrospect learning language and culture seems even more important than they realized at the time.  Leroy notes: “You’ve got to know the people you’re talking to, what to say and how to say it; learning culture and language is the sine qua non of being a missionary.”

 

Most significant contribution during missionary service?

A major contribution Leroy was able to make during his time in PNG was that of translating some books of the New Testament into the Enga language and collecting the existing translations into a full NT to help the church and its workers spread the Gospel.

 

Lois was pleased to be able to help other missionaries by teaching children in the school at Amapyaka.  Missionaries could better serve their Lord when they knew their children were being well taken care of, and she was blessed to assist the mission of the Gospel in that way.

 

Connection to today’s mission?

The Gutnius (Good News) Lutheran Church of Papua New Guinea became a partner church of LCMS in 1971.  The work of Bible translation continues on the island, with a few LCMS missionaries remaining to continue this work begun by others with the Eckerts joining later.   The Eckerts note that it is at the congregational level that connections continue and will continue into the future: it is congregations that worship God and spread the Gospel.  Leroy recalls a vibrant congregation called Aipipasa that he would visit regularly; its witness gave him hope for the continuation and growth of the church in PNG.

 

Lessons Learned

• As stated, the most important lesson the Eckerts learned was that missionaries must learn the language and culture of the people they serve.  It’s important to study culture as well as language, because each culture interprets behavior differently.  Those who come from different cultures can have vastly different perspectives, so that it is easy for misunderstandings to arise; missionaries need to be vigilant in promoting understanding.
• Similarly, missionaries must make an effort to listen to the people they serve and to be there for the true felt needs of the people, rather than imposing ideas on those they serve.

 

Best Practices

• Leroy notes that the work of Rev. Terry Borchard in translating the Bible was something he always hoped to emulate.  Rev. Borchard put into practice the art of learning about people, their language and culture, what they do and how and why they do it.  He was also able to translate without the intermediary of Neo-Melanesian (Pidgin) – in his case, he could translate straight from Greek and English to Ipili, and the Eckerts admired that.
• The Eckerts found that a best practice in mission work was a true give-and-take; their work was most Spirit-filled when they received input from local people and modified what they were doing accordingly.
• Missionaries must always preach the Gospel – not that Law should be ignored, but Leroy notes that he had to learn to focus on Gospel in his first few years in PNG and that mission work can really only be done when focus remains on the Gospel.

 

Phase 3 Information

Inspiration for entering foreign missions?

Leroy got started in his education when a friend named Roy Eckhart came back for Thanksgiving after attending St. Paul’s College at Concordia, MO and told him, “This is a great place to go; it’s like going to summer camp all year round!”  Thinking that sounded good, Leroy attended St. Paul’s from high school until his junior college years.  From there he went to Fort Wayne for Senior college and then into seminary in Saint Louis.  At the time, the idea of being a missionary was not at the forefront of his mind.  However, he remembers seeing a movie which emphasized the importance of doing the work of “Him who sent me while it is day before the night comes when no one can work.” That message really sank in and stayed with him as his first clear inspiration.  The full message did not come entirely clear, however, until Prof. Harry Coiner, the placement director at the seminary, asked if he was willing to take a foreign call.  Leroy agreed, and when he got the call letter, there he was heading to Papua New Guinea!

 

Lois grew up in a Lutheran area where each year mission festivals were a big event.  Missionaries would come to speak at outdoor services, and Lois recalls hearing a speaker from the Philippines when she was about eight years old.  She thought, “I would really like to do that,” and prayed that she could somehow be a missionary.  As she progressed in her education and became a teacher, she no longer gave it much thought, but when she heard that the seminary was considering Leroy and herself for foreign mission work, she realized that her prayer from long ago was being answered.

 

Rev. Eckert also notes with a laugh that when he was first asked where he wanted to serve after his graduation, he said he wanted to go west and to a rural area – but he had no idea how far west and how rural he would eventually end up!

 

Quotation by/about or brief story:

 

• Leroy spent a lot of his time in PNG fixing flat tires!  Mostly they were his own, though Lois notes that Leroy is a good mechanic and helped to maintain whatever vehicles were around at the stations where they lived.  Vehicles were generally few and far between, and Leroy got around mostly by motorbike since petrol was expensive.  Added to this was the fact that most of his driving was on rough gravel roads, and it made for many, many flat tires.