Robert Theodore (Ted) Koepke

Robert Theodore (Ted) Koepke

  1. 10/2/1921  St. Ansgar, Iowa USA
  2. 5/21/1973 St. Louis, Missouri USA

 

Spouse/Family

Wife: Lorene Mildred (nee Kassel), b. 6/7/1924 Frohna, MO USA

  1. 11/3/1945; d. 10/20/2008 Saint Louis, MO USA

Children: Ronald Paul, Barbara Jean (Zeile), Beverly Kay (Kamphoefner)

 

Dates of Service Field Call Assignment

1947-1973 India Missionary/Church-Planter

 

Biographical Summary

Ted attended Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, from 1941-1945.  During seminary training, he was asked if he would be interested in mission work, and he expressed interest in working in China.  However, when call assignments were given, his call was as a missionary to India.  The placement was something of a surprise, but clearly God’s plan for the Koepkes!  After graduation from seminary, Ted was ordained in July, 1945 at Emmaus Lutheran Church, Denver, CO.  Ted and Lorene entered mission school at Concordia Seminary in September 1945; were married November 3, 1945; and graduated in May 1946.  While waiting for passage to India, Ted served as an eighth-grade teacher at Emmanuel Lutheran School in Perryville, MO.  Ted and Lorene traveled to India beginning in December 1946 and began their service in January 1947.

 

The first year in India was spent in language study.  The first few weeks they studied at Kodaikanal with a college student named J.C. Gamaliel, who would later become a pastor and a well-respected figure in the India Evangelical Lutheran Church.  The rest of the year the Koepkes studied in Nilamel.  In Nilamel, Ted began learning about the work of church-planting and partnership with Indian congregations, and he and Lorene both helped supervise at a boarding school.  Lorene says that the girls and staff at the girls’ boarding home helped her immensely with her language skills and cultural immersion!

 

In 1948, Ted’s work as a called missionary began, in the district of Ponvila.  He partnered with fifteen congregations and several schools all over the district.  Duties included seeking out places to plant churches; meetings and in-service trainings with Indian pastors and catechists (non-ordained church workers); Sunday Schools and Vacation Bible Schools; monthly meetings with all district workers; in-service training classes for pastors, catechists, and teachers; weekly meetings with staff from the schools; keeping track of funds and distributing salaries; and attending services or undertaking pastoral work at congregations in the district.  The work of planting churches generally started with children’s Sunday School meetings outdoors, sometimes under a tree.  As congregations grew up and parents began to attend with their children, small huts with thatched roofs would serve as a church until a building could be built.

 

During this time, Lorene attended Sunday services along with Ted.  In addition, on many Sunday afternoons and along with the wife of an Indian pastor and several church members, she visited homes in surrounding villages, singing hymns and telling Bible stories.  The group would encourage those who hosted or came to see them (often to hear the singing!) to ask questions and would invite them to attend services at the nearby church.  Follow-up visits were also made.  Lorene’s work in India also involved organizing women’s societies across the district, which held monthly meetings for Bible study and put on Christmas programs.  In addition, she organized the Kerala Lutheran Women’s League.  It may be important to note that during the very first few months of life in Ponvila, Lorene gave birth to their first son, Ronald!  Taking care of him, and his sister Barbara who was born in 1950, meant that her evangelistic work was a part-time job for a few years.

 

The Koepkes had a furlough in 1953, and when they returned in 1954, Ted took on more administrative duties, serving as general treasurer for the Missouri Evangelical Lutheran India Mission (MELIM) and as manager of schools in Trivandrum District, holding both positions at various times during the next twenty years.  He continued his work with pastors and teachers, and he assisted the church as a whole by finding and encouraging young Christians to serve God as pastors, teachers, or in other roles within the church.  A few years after their furlough, the Koepkes had another addition to their family, their daughter Beverly, born in 1958.

 

The Koepkes worked in India at a time in which the model of mission work in India was becoming one of partnership: expatriate missionaries worked alongside Indian pastors and church staff.  The India Evangelical Lutheran Church was established in 1956 as a national church in its own right, though LCMS missionaries continued to work in partnership with the IELC.  Certain administrative tasks had to be performed during the transition period in which the IELC became independent, and Ted served on the planning committee to set up the Trust Association for the properties purchased by MELIM in various parts of India, in order to make sure properties stayed with the IELC and were properly cared for.  Not surprisingly, this task took much time and hard work for the committee member as all the legal hurdles were overcome, and Ted’s gift of sharp memory and attention to detail served the committee well.

 

In early 1973, Ted’s health began to fail, and he was diagnosed with cancer.  The Koepke family returned to the United States for diagnosis and treatment, but Ted was called to the Lord very soon afterward, in May 1973.  Lorene lived in St. Louis from that time until her own passing into the Lord’s hands in October 2008.  Ted and Lorene’s work continues to bear fruit through the India Evangelical Lutheran Church and the new generation of committed Christians who continue to worship and serve there.

 

Phase 2 Information

 

Biggest missiological issue faced?

The most pressing and difficult issue in India at this time was the transition from “mission field” to national church.  When the IELC was established, there was a need for strong Christian leadership as well as the continued efforts of Indian pastors and evangelists and the missionaries who worked with them as partners.  Ted’s work included assisting to make the transition as smooth and successful as possible.

 

Most significant contribution during missionary service?

God blessed the Koepkes to serve in many different capacities during their call.  The most significant contribution Ted made during his time in India was likely his recruitment of young Christians for leadership roles in the church.  He had a gift for recognizing potential, encouraging young people to act on their potential, and finding positions in which they could do so, thereby assisting in the training of the next generation of leaders for the IELC.

 

Connection to today’s mission?

The India Evangelical Lutheran Church maintains ties to the LCMS, and although there are no more full-time missionaries in India, the LCMS continues to send mission consultants to work with the IELC.  The properties and work of the IELC have been safeguarded and maintained thanks in part to Ted’s work.

 

Lessons Learned

  • It is most helpful when missionaries learn the language of the place to which they are sent as quickly, and as much, as is possible.
  • Missionaries and their sending church should become as well acquainted as possible with the customs, traditions, and practices of the culture to which they are sent, and should respect these traditions.
  • Mission work should be a partnership from the very beginning: nationals should be trained and involved in the work and leadership of the church body, at all levels, from the inception of mission work, as far as is at all possible.  This holds for women as well as men, even if roles for women are different from those performed by men.
  • It is best when the goal of self-support by a national church is recognized and worked toward early on.  A national church should ideally become more and more self-supporting as time goes on.  In conjunction with this goal, missionaries and the sending church should work to ensure that nationals who are members of the newly-established church have a sense of investment in and responsibility toward their church, both financially and in terms of leadership.
  • As was true of the LCMS in India, a church that begins evangelistic work in a mission field should commit to staying in that field long-term.

 

Best Practices

  • The personal contacts and support made by Ted and other missionaries with Indian pastors and catechists, as well as young Christians and students, was really vital for the spreading of the Gospel and the upbuilding of the church.
  • Home visits helped draw those who had not heard Christ’s Gospel to hear the Word.  The singing of hymns by the women who visited homes in the villages was greatly enjoyed by those who hosted them or came to hear, and often hymn-singing was the initial contact by which people came to hear Bible stories and ask questions about the Gospel.
  • The formation of the Trust Association was a very important step in the transition to the IELC as a national church, helping the church to safeguard the properties it could use for tasks of evangelism and worship.

 

Phase 3 Information

 

Inspiration for entering foreign missions?

Ted was called to mission work in India by the LCMS.  Although he had not strongly considered foreign mission work prior to his call, it took only a brief period of prayer and reflection to decide to answer a call that he considered a privilege and a blessing.

 

Quotation by/about or brief story:

  • From J.C. Gamaliel, pastor in the IELC and former president of Concordia Seminary in Nagercoil: “[Rev. Koepke] believed that leadership must come from the India church and finding and developing such leadership remained his constant goal.  Rev. Koepke was not an orator.  In fact, he was a man of few words.  But he was a very shrewd judge of men and he knew how to encourage the right persons, pastors and laymen, for advancing the Kingdom of God.”

 

  • In the early years of the Koepke’s work, India had just achieved its independence, and everyone was well aware of the work of Mahatma Gandhi, including his nonviolent satyagraha protests against British rule.  Sometimes those who hoped to use satyagraha for purposes of their own were not motivated by quite the same spirit as Gandhi, however!  During the time when Ted was general treasurer of MELIM, a man who had retired from teaching in a school in Trivandrum made many petitions to various channels stating that he felt he had not been paid enough for his work.  His petitions were refused, as his pay had been the normal pay for a teacher in the schools.  Because Ted was the treasurer for the mission, the man decided to set up a lean-to outside the walls of the Koepke’s compound and practice satyagraha by spending his days on a cot in the lean-to.  After a few days he must have gotten tired, because he then hired “thugs” to take his place waiting outside the walls.  These replacements would shout slogans and complain about unfair treatment, and after a time they even began harassing those who came into or out of the compound – not exactly a completely nonviolent protest, although no one was injured.  They kept this vigil until the monsoon rains came, when the lean-to was washed away; with that development, the aggrieved teacher must have decided that his period of satygraha was ended, and he discontinued his protest.

 

  • The Koepke’s son Ron recalls that during their time in Trivandrum, Ted served as “wine bishop” for all the LCMS missionaries in the area.  Since India was under prohibition, the mission had to have special permission to make and serve communion wine, and the missionary in Trivandrum had the responsibility to acquire many, many raisins which were painstakingly cleaned by some Indian helpers and then fermented into wine.  The wine took a few weeks to ferment and had to be monitored, and Ron remembers being allowed to stir the vats once in a while as it was being prepared.