Luther Theodore Engelbrecht

1. 9/13/1928, Tacoma, Washington USA

 

Spouse/Family

Wife: Gladys Joan (née Handley), b. 3/19/1927, Union City, NJ USA, m. 7/26/1953

1. 12/8/2005

Children: Martin Luther (1954), Lois Joan (Larkin) (1955), Theodore Christian

(1957), Claire Elizabeth (Klick) (1958), Susheela Marie (1959), Carl

Stephen (1962)

Dates of Service Field Call Assignment

1954-1978 India Evangelistic Missionary (Muslim mission)

 

Biographical Summary

Rev. Luther Engelbrecht was born the son of a pastor and a pastor’s daughter.  He followed in their footsteps, graduating in 1953 from Concordia Seminary, Saint Louis, with a Master of Divinity degree, followed by an S.T.M. in 1954.  Luther had spent his vicarage year teaching in New York, at Concordia College, Bronxville, and it was there that he met Gladys Handley, the first person to hold the position of resident nurse at Concordia.  They became engaged before Luther returned to St. Louis for his final year of seminary.  Gladys was “always at the top of everything she did,” excelling in school and working in several different areas before completing her nurse’s training.  They were married in 1953, shortly after Luther’s M.Div. degree was awarded, and Gladys served as Head Nurse in Obstetrics at the Deaconess Hospital from 1953-54 while Luther undertook postgraduate work.  The Engelbrechts’ son Martin was born during this time.

 

The Engelbrechts were called by the Board for Mission Services to serve in India.  While waiting for their visas, Luther studied (and Gladys audited) at Hartford Seminary’s Kennedy School of Missions, and Gladys worked at the Hartford Hospital.  They arrived in India in July 1955.  Together with missionary Ernest Hahn, Luther was given the task of ministry among the Muslim people of Tamilnadu.  He notes with gratitude that the time during which his ministry took place was one in which missionaries could to some extent relate at an equal level to native-born church members and leaders.  After Indian independence as well as the creation of the independent India Evangelical Lutheran Church (IELC), it had become more possible for missionaries to be friends and coworkers with national pastors and church members.  While Luther is happy to have been in India at such a time, he still notes that the association of missionaries with colonialism was never fully overcome.

 

Gladys and Luther, with Martin, now one year old, were sent to Landour, a British hill station located above Mussouri at an elevation of 7500 feet in the foothills of the Himalayas in the state of Uttar Pradesh, to study Urdu in the Missionary Language School located there.  In a little over a year there Luther completed two examinations in the language and Gladys delivered Lois, their second child, on Thanksgiving Day (USA) in November.  They then returned to the south and were stationed at Krishnagiri, the site of the Synod’s first overseas mission, with a cemetery (a feature of every “mission station” in those days) bearing the body of the first LCMS missionary to India, Theodor Naether, with an infant child on each side and a young missionary mother and infant daughter nearby.

 

The Engelbrechts’ own children would arrive in fairly quick succession during their first years in India: Theodore in 1957, Claire in 1958, Susheela in 1959, and Carl in 1962.  At Krishnagiri the mission built a facility with a reading room, meeting room, and rooms for rent.  The Engelbrechts helped maintain and improve the property, among their other ministries.  Gladys put her nursing skills into good practice while in India, serving as needed from a “back-verandah dispensary” and as the school nurse for the mission elementary school, ministries which she continued even after she began conducting her main medical service in a “Lutheran lab” (supported by family and friends and various LWML groups) in a Roman Catholic hospital, St. Louis Hospital for Women and Children.  This hospital was staffed by French and Indian nuns and initially by an Indian Lutheran doctor and served mostly Hindus and Muslims – the ecumenical movement in action!  Gladys was also available for nutrition, health, and sanitation educational programs in villages where evangelistic programs were in progress and also for village clinics treating scabies (“the 7-year itch”), which was an endemic scourge in the area.  Luther writes, “In an area that was just 1% Christian that was a significant boost for our evangelistic program and its credibility!”

 

Regarding Gladys’ and all the missionaries’ medical work, Luther also writes, “Tuberculosis was (and is) a major problem at that time, afflicting in our area especially the Muslims who rolled the Indian cigarettes called ‘beedies.’  Our Bethesda Hospital in Ambur (an LWML project) had a special ministry to TB patients, both in- and out-patient.  I made regular trips to Ambur (42 miles away) with people suspected of having TB for diagnosis and recommended treatment.  Those who could be treated on an out-patient basis were then served locally by Gladys.”

 

At the beginning of their second five-year term, Luther was posted in Kodaikanal to study Tamil, now required because of his increasing involvement in the life of Tamil-speaking fellow believers.  At the same time, he was impressed into service as a teacher of second-year Latin in the Kodaikanal School when the expected teacher was unable to get a visa.  Gladys, both at that time and in later years, also served in the school, teaching health, various levels of math, and other subjects.  She also taught the Engelbrechts’ children at home for the first several years of their education.

 

Along with Ernest Hahn, Luther was particularly involved in efforts to inform fellow believers of the challenge of bringing the Gospel to their Muslim neighbors.  This involved providing information about Muslims' required beliefs and practices and calling the Indian church to respond to the challenge; alerting fellow believers to the special “problems” Islam presents to the Gospel; and providing some guidance as to ways that had been found appropriate (if not always effective) in reaching out to Muslims with the Good News of God's love in Christ Jesus, God's Son, crucified and risen from the dead (basic Christian beliefs specifically denied by
Islam).  One of the chief ways they went about this task was through “Muslim-work institutes” for seminarians during the summer holidays - two-week events with classes about Islam and the Christian mission to Muslims, as well as practical experience in public evangelism and personal contact with Muslim scholars and mosque personnel.  This may have provided some enduring information and concern for the work among Muslims, but there was also a “Catch 22” in the way the seminarians related to the missionaries: missionaries’ knowledge of Arabic and special training in Islam, their costly equipment (such as cars and AV aids), and their rather privileged social status as “Europeans,” made it tempting for seminarians to conclude: “They're trained for it, equipped for it, paid well for it - thank God!  Let them do it!”

 

Luther was also involved with the Henry Martyn Institute of Islamic Studies, the all-India facility for instruction in the ministry to Muslims, first located in Allahabad, Uttar Pradesh, and subsequently relocated to Hyderabad in Central India.  For many years he served as the MELIM's (Missouri Evangelical Lutheran India Mission) and then the IELC's representative on its board.  The Institute did outreach programs in many different places in India, as far north as Kashmir.  This work, subsequently involving Roman Catholics as well as the main-line “Protestant” denominations, has endured and continues its unique ministry, combining scholarly studies and evangelism.  A more regional expression of the challenge of reaching out to Muslims with the Gospel was the Muslim Work Committee of the Tamilnadu Christian Council, of which both Luther and Ernest Hahn were active members.

 

The Engelbrechts also participated in the life of Kodai School, where their children were instructed.  Luther served on its managing bodies for many years, twice as chairman, and he was requested to assist Dr. Frank Jeyasinghe when he was appointed principal, with the specific task of transitioning the school from a “missionary” institution to an educational “mission.”  Luther writes, “That was a great privilege for me, though my role was very secondary to Dr. J's, the prime architect of the transformation.  Kodai School continues to serve as a very unique and special mission/ministry, and remembering the small part I was privileged to play in its development and persistence is a source of thankful joy for me.  Three of our children: Martin, Lois, and Ted served on the staff there, while Gladys was often impressed into service, especially teaching math and health.”  Gladys also taught Sunday School at Kodai and, having done volunteer work with dyslexics during their second furlough, helped some students who were dyslexic as well.

 

The Engelbrechts returned to the United States and took a “terminal furlough” in 1977.  During the year of this furlough, 1977-78, Luther spent a year at the Lutheran School of Theology in Chicago for post-graduate study (“my 24th (and final) year of formal study as I was completing 50 years of life”).   The Engelbrechts settled in Seattle, where Luther was called to be pastor of Trinity Lutheran Church and served for sixteen years, until 1994.  He held various positions in the Northwest District and served the LCMS and the community during that time as well, and after retirement, he continued to serve as interim pastor at several congregations.  Gladys worked with premature infants in a hospital and then with the elderly in a nursing home, as well as teaching Sunday School at Trinity, teaching art and health at Concordia Lutheran elementary school and health at Seattle Lutheran High School, and volunteering as a nurse at both schools.  She was called to her eternal rest in December 2005.

 

Nota Bene

Luther served on many committees for the Missouri Evangelical Lutheran India Mission as well as IELC.  Some of his service includes:

• Member of the MELIM Executive Committee and for a time its Chairman
• Member of the Muslim Work Committee of the MELIM and then of the IELC
• Member of the Gospel Work (Evangelism) Committee of the Ambur District (of MELIM) and then of the Ambur District Synod (of IELC), serving as its Recording Secretary
• Member of the AD and then ADS Executive Committee
• Member of the IELC Church Council, later its only missionary member
• Member of the governing body of Kodaikanal School for many years, twice its Chairman
• Member and Convener/Chairman of the pioneer IELC College Student Work Committee
• Member of the IELC Leadership Training Committee
• Area Representative of Lutheran World Relief (including supervising public-school meals programs feeding 20,000 students and milk-distribution centers for children, pregnant and nursing mothers, serving 50,000 cups per day, as well as supervising food distribution programs in which donated food was used as payment for work performed)
• Member of the Tamilnadu Christian Council Muslim Work Committee
• Member of the Christian Arts and Communication Service in Madras/Chennai, the pioneer mass-communication ministry headed by Dr. S. Suviseshamuthu (“Suvi”)

 

Trinity Lutheran Church of Seattle, of which Luther was pastor for sixteen years, supports ministries both at home and abroad:

• The church provided a food bank in Luther’s office while he was pastor, as well as funds to help people with emergency needs, and a University of Wisconsin researcher found that Trinity ranked high in the estimation of the “street people” in the neighborhood.
• Though the membership was not enormous – about 200 people total – the church ranked among the top ten congregations in support of Wheatridge Ministries and Lutheran World Relief year after year, and it also supported Bread for the World and hunger-related projects.
• Hosted a Stephen Ministry and had a special mission fund which supported Lutheran-related mission projects, both national and international.

 

Phase 2 Information

Biggest missiological issue faced?

The mission in India has been identified with colonialism in India for many, many years, and this is a connection that is difficult to break.  Western missionaries came in with the colonialists in the beginning of Western expansion, and missionaries often acted like any other colonialists, with large bungalows, servants, and a higher standard of living than most Indians.  It was difficult for Indians to distinguish between “political, commercial and religious colonials.”  After independence, the mission and missionaries, including Luther and his colleagues, made a strong effort to break the ties of colonialism, but of course it has been difficult to completely break the associations.  The somewhat ironic situation the missionaries found themselves in was that of being considered “poor missionaries” by people in the U.S. but “rich missionaries” in India.

 

Luther, along with others involved in Muslim ministry in India, has found it a sad thing that much of their Muslim work has fallen by the wayside as missionaries have left India.  One of the major problems in the work was that Muslim ministry continued to be fully funded by the LCMS even after the IELC became an independent church and its other work was no longer fully funded.  This caused resentment among those who were doing other work for the church, and perhaps led to a reluctance to continue the work when the missionaries left.  Even while they were doing this ministry, however, the missionaries who worked among Muslims in India found that a major portion of their work was to help the church to understand what Muslims believe or do not believe and what Muslim converts needed from the church – trying to get around the stereotypes that Christians may have of Muslims.

 

Most significant contribution during missionary service?

In Krishnagiri, where the Engelbrechts lived for more than 20 years during their ministry, there was a reading room, where a succession of very gifted young men came to spend a year before (often) going on to seminary studies.  Luther felt that God gave him a bit of a role there, since he was able to listen to and help these young students, supporting their ministry.  One of these students is Rev. Dr. S. Suviseshamuthu, who went on to be a pioneer for the mass media ministry in India.  Luther says, “These are people whose lives I touched and who touched my life, in terms of ministry partnership.”

 

Luther was also able to make a contribution at the school for blind, where he both served the blind and enlisted others to serve.  He notes that he was a “secondary influence” after Esther Cornelius, a pastor’s widow who was a great hero to the church in India with many human-care accomplishments.

 

Gladys worked for some time as a clinician in the laboratory of a Roman Catholic hospital in Krishnagiri.  Her work not only helped raise the quality of medical care for the surrounding population, but it also proved invaluable for ecumenical relations in the area.  Through her work and interactions with the Roman Catholic staff at the hospital, she helped bring Lutherans and Catholics together, a very important accomplishment in a place where only 1% of the local population was Christian.

 

Connection to today’s mission?

Luther helped further the mission of the Church of South India (CSI) diocese by attending their annual meetings and contributing to the diocese regarding Muslim work.  He was in India at a time when the transition to a fully indigenous church was being engineered and, while praising the work done toward this goal, notes that much of what missionaries did at that time had to do with money.  The last expatriate missionary in that CSI diocese was a woman who was the treasurer of the diocese, which meant that instead of spreading the gospel she spent all her time taking care of funds.  It seems to him that the Indians often associated the continuation of mission personnel with the continuation of money from abroad, and “it’s essential that we get untied” from the money.

 

Some of his contributions continue today in the IELC.  The school for the blind and school for the deaf continue to serve Christians.  Luther helped institute and convene a committee for ministry to college students, based on his involvement in student ministry at UCLA while on furlough. He was twice chairman of the governing body of Kodaikanal School and was very involved with helping restructure the school for the post-missionary era; the school continues its work as an international school.  The Henry Martyn Institute for all-India ministry to Muslims continues to facilitate work in India, and Luther was one who helped renew its ministry by changing it from a “come” ministry in which people would come in to study, to a “go” ministry in which people would go out to spread the gospel among Muslims.

 

Lessons Learned

• Missions should always make it a goal to develop a continuing infrastructure among a native church that does not depend on money and personnel from abroad.  In India there was an attempt to do this, but the attempt was not always effective.

 

Best Practices

• Luther writes, “My evangelistic opportunities involved four languages: Urdu (spoken in our area almost exclusively by Muslims) and the three ‘Dravidian’ languages spoken in our area, where three of the four South Indian states connected: Tamil (the majority and the official language of Tamilnadu), Telugu (Andhra Pradesh), and Kannada (Mysore State, now Karnatica).  Public schools in our District were conducted where needed in all four languages (with some private English-medium schools as well!).  I enlisted the support of consecrated laypeople, mostly teachers, to assist in our evangelism outreach.  Although India’s population is only about 2.5% Christian, a disproportionate number of
  teachers in our area were Christians, scattered like seed in the villages, where the school headmaster was often the only Christian there.  These were key people through whom to arrange with the village elders for permission to conduct regular evangelistic programs as well as summer Vacation Bible Schools on the school premises (no problem of church-state in India, where the main support for teachers' salaries in our Christian schools of all kinds came from the state, a legacy left behind by the British).  In my childhood my mother knew all the stores that gave a ‘clergy discount’ (usually 10%).  Since the clergy in India were paid to preach the Gospel, I felt that that reduced our credibility (a veritable ‘clergy discount!’).  We often had three-day evangelistic ‘camps’ including teachers who had taken leave, often at a loss of pay, to participate, which increased their credibility considerably, with the reverse of a discount!  I rejoiced to have such lay resources available in all the local languages and also that I was led by the Spirit to make use of them.”

 

Phase 3 Information

Inspiration for entering foreign missions?

Luther: “Beginning as a child I managed to read just about a book a day, with weekly visits to the library for replenishment.  Many of those books were about missionary ‘heroes,’ included on the shelves of our public library in those days.  I devoured them with great interest; to be sure,
most of them were not about Lutherans!  In addition, Tacoma back then was the main port for China and India, and there was a regular flow of missionaries through our home coming and going, many of whom were friends and schoolmates of my father from our Bronxville Concordia (with an English medium whose products were often not fluent in the German needed in most LCMS congregations at that time but were well suited for work abroad!).  That added to my interest.  I must mention one special inspiration, Missionary Erwin H. ‘Babe’ Meinzen, the father of Luther (in many ways our most outstanding Missouri missionary ever in my opinion) and Larry; he gave a missionary presentation in our congregation that I never forgot!”

 

Quotation by/about or brief story:

• In his role as evangelist, Luther traveled from village to village in Muslim areas of India and would often walk the streets and preach in the center of the village.  His parents once came to visit him, and in discussing his ministerial responsibilities his mother asked, “Do you really preach in the town square!?”  Being an American LCMS member of German extraction, she thought of street preachers either as the Salvation Army or as members of offbeat sects.  Preaching in the town square was a crazy thing to do.  But Luther said that yes, this was what he was called to do and the way the Gospel had to be spread in his pre-mass-media and pre-literacy part of India!

Luther “While on a village evangelistic camp during the one-month (May, the hottest month in our part of India) elementary-school summer holiday, I contracted a severe case of hepatitis A, the result of unprotected food and water.  Gladys and the children were in
Kodai.  After the camp I stopped at Ambur, where Dr. Bulle took one look at me and insisted on taking some tests, which confirmed his suspicion (I was already turning ‘yellow’ and ended up looking more like what some people believe east Asians do than they really do!).  He confined me to an isolated room where I stayed for thirty days, during the first half of which they almost lost hope of my recovery.  They provided me with a Bible, a typewriter, and paper (and the dear Grumms brought a portable phonograph and L-P records), and I had more time for study, prayer, and reflection than I ever again had in my rather busy-busy life in India!  Some thought had already been given to the role of the Henry Martyn Institute in India, and I concentrated on that, producing letter after letter on the subject, sharing what the good Spirit, working through my study of the Word, brought to my mind as applicable to this particular challenge (I remember that I thought the comparison with God on the move with His people in the wilderness, with His manifest presence and guidance, which was a ‘go’ situation, followed by the static ‘come’ situation with priestly domination in the Temple, which Jesus noted had been ‘abandoned by God,’ was suggestive if not definitive for the HMI - the Romans’ destruction of the Temple was, in a way, ‘liberating’ for Judaism!).  Alone and isolated with just a Bible, a typewriter, the Holy Spirit, and a special challenge - all thanks to ‘unprotected’ food and water and hepatitis A!”