Walter L. DeMoss

1. February 1942, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania USA

 

Spouse/Family

Wife: Helena Ann DeMoss, December 1943, Peoria, Illinois USA, m. 1966

Children: Martha Ann; Walter Frank; Matthew LeVan

 

Dates of Service Field Call Assignment

1968-1978 Ghana, West Africa Church planting and leadership training

1979-1989 Togo, West Africa Church planting and leadership training

 

Biographical Summary

 

Rev. Walter DeMoss is a native of Pittsburgh, PA and a graduate of Valparaiso University (1964) and Concordia Theological Seminary, Springfield, IL (1968).  Following his ordination in 1968, he and his wife Helena went to their first assignment in Ghana, West Africa.

 

After a brief stay in a large urban area, the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Ghana placed them in a rural area of northern Ghana to minister to the Moba people.  Walt's primary focus was church planting and the training of local church leaders.  After some experimentation he settled on a modified system of Theological Education by Extension (TEE).

 

When Walt and Helena first met, she was just finishing her studies as a nurse.  Later she graduated and got her license.  There was no difficulty for her finding ways to apply her nursing skills in Ghana.  She treated the sick and established an "Under Five" clinic to give vaccinations and to teach mothers how to take care of their children.  Finally she became a midwife, delivering over 300 babies during her career in West Africa.  In addition, she taught their three children at home until they completed eighth grade.

 

During the mid 1970's LCMS World Mission saw the need to extend the ministry to Mobas living in neighboring Togo.  In late 1978 Walt was given the call to go to Togo and pioneer the mission there.  He accepted and in September 1979 the DeMosses arrived in Togo to begin applying to the Togolese government for permission to establish the Lutheran Church there.  This permission was granted in May of 1980 and the DeMosses were off and running.  Helena continued to practice her nursing skills and teach their children.  Since there was no clinic in the village, the load was quite heavy.  For a period Walt would do a basic diagnosis and Helena would dispense medications.  Later a government nurse was assigned to the clinic built by the Lutheran Mission and the medical load was eased.  Walt also saw a need for dental work and with the help of a dentist in the States he was equipped to do extractions.

 

Walt continued with church planting and training local leaders but a new dimension was added in 1986. A New Testament had been published for the Mobas living in Ghana but some revision was necessary in order to make it suitable for use in Togo.  Walt began in 1986, along with his Togolese co-workers, to make the necessary changes and to produce portions for his leaders to use in preaching and teaching.

 

In 1989 Walt and Helena decided to return to the States so they could be together with their children.  Helena continued working as a nurse and Walt carried on with the revision of the Moba New Testament.  During the summer of 1991, Walt accepted a position with Lutheran Bible Translators (LBT) in Aurora, Ill., and he and Helena moved there.  Walt’s chief responsibility was Representative Coordinator, but later he was appointed as Director of Program Ministries.  In this position he had general supervision of all of LBT’s overseas work.

 

Along with his duties at the LBT Service Center, Walt worked with a team in Togo to complete the New Testament in Moba.  The Moba New Testament was dedicated October 18, 2008.

 

Walt has retired from LBT and is currently serving as part-time assistant pastor at St. Paul Lutheran Church in Aurora.  Helena is trying to retire from her specialty nursing practice.

 

Nota Bene

Phase 2 Information

Biggest missiological issue faced?

Walt: “We were sent to Ghana to work in an urban area.  But that was God’s sense of humor coming through.  We had wanted to serve in a rural area.  Six months after our arrival the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Ghana asked us to open mission work in the Moba area (northeastern Ghana) around the village of Bunkpurugu.  That was quite a change from an urban setting.  Someone wrote in our guest book, “Now I know what the end of the world is.”

 

“The problem was that no one had a clue what a missionary should do in this setting.  So we had to fly by the seat of our pants.  For some of what we did we were praised.  And then there were things for which we caught a lot of flak.

 

“But we got a lot of experience in Ghana and when we were asked to open the mission in Togo (right next door) we were able to dig right in and go like gangbusters.

 

“Back in those days, the paradigm was that the mission paid for everything.  One missionary who served in another country put it that ‘The mission came with baskets of money.  And when those baskets ran out, they came with more.’  Currently the economy is such that the mission is not able to come with ‘baskets of money.’  The current idea is ‘local ownership’ meaning that support for and direction of a mission program is to come from the people.  They now balk saying, ‘Whoa, Mr. or Ms. Missionary, you’ve got it all wrong.  You are supposed to pay for everything.’

 

“So some bad precedents were set not just by LCMS World Mission but all mission agencies.  And there are some that still operate on the old paradigm.”

 

Most significant contribution during missionary service?

Walt writes, “It would seem in answering this question that I would be boasting.  Let’s put it that God made some contributions through me.”  For example, he was a strong voice pushing for the idea that a missionary should learn the local language of the group with which he was working and not rely only on the national language (often a European language like English, French, Spanish, etc.).  Most basically, it helps to learn the language because it would be a real pain to have to look for an interpreter every time you wanted to say hello to someone!  Besides this, a missionary’s willingness to learn and speak in the language of the people created a bond of trust and allowed for best communication of the Gospel.  Walt found that LCMS was not always an advocate for requiring missionaries to learn two new languages in their work, and granted, it may have seemed unreasonable for missionaries who already had to learn another European language just to function, to learn yet another local language.  However, his feeling was always that if a missionary needed to learn two new languages to serve in a particular area (for example, in his case, French and Moba), that is what the missionary must do.  Walt writes, “I was hardnosed and I insisted on it.  Those who followed my lead did quite well.  Most of the others washed out.  We wanted to have fun doing mission work and learning the local language was one way to have fun.”

 

A second contribution the DeMosses made to the mission was their willingness to be sent to a francophone country and learn French.  This opened a whole new world for LCMS World Mission.  Now LCMS-related churches operate in at least six francophone countries in Africa.

 

A contribution in Ghana was their willingness to go to a rural area.  Having now broken the ice through the DeMosses’ work, the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Ghana undertakes a lot of rural work.  The DeMosses’ move up north to the rural area opened to them a new paradigm.

 

Connection to today’s mission?

Walt: “I am connected to the Ghana work through relationships that still exist.  I am connected to the work in Togo in two ways.  From time to time the mission invites me to come and teach a two-week intensive course at the seminary in Dapaong.  I have done that about four times.  The second way is that back in 1986 I got into Bible translation quite by accident.  What started as a minor revision of an existing Moba New Testament, ended up being basically a new translation.  Even after leaving the field and going to work for Lutheran Bible Translators, I continued on this project – at times by correspondence and at times by visits to the field.  The resulting Moba New Testament was dedicated October 18, 2008.”

 

The Evangelical Lutheran church of Ghana is a partner church with LCMS.  The new Lutheran Church of Togo celebrated the ordination of its first five pastors in 2002, with a further five ordained in 2006.  A newer church, it works in partnership with LCMS missionaries.  However, all over West Africa there is still a dire need for theological training, particularly for teachers with the theological background and experience to instruct seminary students properly.  The partnership between the churches could be better utilized if LCMS could supply missionaries to train national pastors.

 

Lessons Learned

• God has a sense of humor.
• Walt: “I have often counseled students here in this country and overseas to learn everything they can because I could see how God used everything I learned while we served overseas.  I had a love for language and that was certainly put to use.  My dad was very good with mechanics, electrical work, carpentry, plumbing, etc. and I learned a lot from him.  I used every one of those skills on the field.  I took my BA in math.  Many times over my math skills helped me in difficult situations.  I took mechanical drawing in high school (they probably have another name for it now) and I used those skills in designing a number of houses that I ended up building.  So if I were to talk to someone who had the desire to be a missionary, I would encourage that person to learn everything possible.  God will find a way to use any skill you have.”
• Mission work, including leadership training, should be done in the context of the culture in which one is working.  In Ghana and Togo, theological education encounters difficulties because of culture as well as the educational system those countries have inherited from colonial days.  Innovation is not generally rewarded, and in school the students are taught to memorize what the teacher writes or says and then re-create what they have memorized for exams.  Seminary students, however, must be able to apply the knowledge that they gain, to be innovative and creative in their sharing of the Gospel and counseling those in their congregations.  This means that teachers must be sensitive to the need to teach and practice creativity and practical ministry.  It also may mean that students need more time in seminary than is common in the United States.  Based on his life and work in Ghana and Togo, Walt suggests that even seven or eight years of seminary training would not be too much to make sure that pastors are truly trained as leaders who can think theologically and apply their knowledge in a congregational or mission setting.
• Another way in which missionaries and mission churches must learn to adapt culturally is in the techniques in which pastors are trained.  For instance, Western congregations and West African congregations respond spiritually to very different types of sermon formats.  Westerners are used to hearing a few abstract points laid out, explained, and concluded.  West Africans appreciate concrete speech and stories, more in line with an oral tradition of passing on wisdom.  National pastors who are trained to serve in congregations in West Africa should learn sermon techniques that will speak to them and within their own culture, rather than trying to force their thoughts into a Western mold of sermon-writing that will likely not touch the hearts of their congregation.

 

Best Practices

• The importance of learning the local language and communicating in it cannot be emphasized strongly enough.  Walt found that when he spoke to the Moba people in their language, he became more than just another white person in Ghana/Togo and was able to develop true relationships.  His whole family learned the Moba language while living in the Moba villages, and it helped them truly to be part of the community.  Helena did not have as much chance to practice the language as Walt did, since she was more often in their home teaching the children, but she did go out into the community and used the language she had, especially as a midwife.  By the time she was acting as a midwife, she could take their daughter Martha along and Martha would help interpret!
• Combining evangelistic work with medical mission work is a wonderful way to show and to spread the Gospel message of love.  The DeMosses’ medical work demonstrated that they cared about the Moba people physically as well as spiritually.  Walt quotes a French proverb, “The empty stomach has no ears.”  This seemed to be true, as the work they did to care for people physically both made it possible for people to listen to the Gospel message at all, and made them more willing to hear it.
• Missionaries are not fully able to build community and trust until they have lived in a place several years.  Mission work should be long-term enough for missionaries to learn the culture, learn the language, and develop meaningful relationships with nationals.  There is a crying need among partner churches for teachers at all levels of pastoral training, and this need could best be filled by teachers who are, ideally, sent for at least ten years.

 

Phase 3 Information

Inspiration for entering foreign missions?

When Walt started his undergraduate studies at Valparaiso University, his first goal was to become a math teacher.  He recalls being home from college and attending a church service in Pittsburgh, PA, when suddenly it came to him, “You should be a pastor!”  Up till that time he really didn’t know how pastors became pastors, but he talked with the pastor of the church, who told him about seminary.  Walt went back to Valpo, and when a group from Concordia Theological Seminary in Springfield, IL came to campus, he met with them to receive advice about how to direct his studies.  From there, Walt made ready for seminary, and he attended Springfield thinking he would be a parish pastor.  He and Helena were married at the end of his second year.  During Walt’s fourth year of seminary, the students were asked to fill out a form noting where and in what setting they would like to do ministry.  The final item on the list was foreign missions, and it was as if that phrase was flashing in front of him as he read it.  He went home and talked to Helena about it, and she lit up at the prospect!  As a young girl she had wanted to be a missionary but didn’t know if it would be possible, so she was very excited about the possibility of going on foreign missions with him.  A further indication of their call came when Prof. Otto Hintze invited a group to his house to meet with a former missionary to Cuba; this made the DeMosses even more excited about foreign mission work. They were called to Ghana, and although they had wanted rural work, they ended up in Takoradi, the third-largest urban area in the country.  However, it was not long before work in the rural north part of the country opened, and they accepted the call.  For the rest of their mission work, they were in isolated areas in both Ghana and Togo and truly loved it.

 

Quotation by/about or brief story:

 

• “No matter where you are, if you make an attempt to learn and speak the language, even in the beginning stages, you are respected for that.”

 

• Like most people who have tried to function in a second language, Walt has some good stories about his speaking mishaps.  In the beginning of the DeMosses’ life among the Moba people, Walt and Helena were startled by what seemed to be a huge shadow on the wall of their small temporary living quarters.  The shadow was cast by a mean-looking spider which frightened them enough that they called the watchman for help.  The man laughed, took a stick and killed the spider.  Walt knew that the story would circulate of the white folks who were afraid of this insect and that people would have some fun at their expense, so he asked the watchman for the name of the spider and spent the night concocting a story of how this huge and menacing spider came into their house and they had to kill it.  However, when he told the story with great flair, the people of the village laughed anyway.  It turns out that he left a syllable out of the word for “spider” and had told the village that a menacing, tall woman came into their house and he killed the tall woman.

 

• The Moba people knew nothing of Christianity, and certainly not of the Bible, when the DeMosses arrived.  When they would be invited into new villages to spread the message there, the mission would ask that each village provide two people who could be trained in the Scriptures and worship leadership.  Those who were sent had no Christian background, so they had to learn from scratch.  Walt would first help his students to understand that the Bible was God’s word, then go through the mechanics of how the Bible was split into the Old and New Testaments.  From there they learned about books, chapters, and verses and began to look up references.  Theses students are likely better at finding references in Biblical books than many church-going Christians in the U.S.!  After this start, the group would work slowly through the books of the Bible; doctrine; theology; and how to lead worship.  Walt tried his best to show them that they could vary their worship and to emphasize that they could use their creativity rather than just memorizing a worship style, although this didn’t catch on very well in many cases.  Nevertheless, some of those who were trained as lay leaders in this way, from zero knowledge of Christianity, became pastors and went on to be key leaders in the Lutheran Church.

 

• The DeMosses really felt that God took good care of them during their work.  They did face some serious health challenges, but these never appeared until they were in a place where they could get adequate help.  Any problems seemed to hold off until the family was either back in the United States or in a more populated area with greater medical resources than the rural areas where they lived most of the time.