Download full-resolution image.HAMPTON, Va. (Mennonite Mission Network) – Genevieve Fern (Lehman) Buckwalter, a pioneering mission worker who helped establish the Japan Mennonite Christian Church Conference (Hokkaido), died Feb. 22. She was 91.
Known affectionately as “Genny,” Buckwalter was one of the first four Mennonite mission workers in Japan after World War II through Mennonite Board of Missions, a predecessor agency of Mennonite Mission Network. She served in Japan for 40 years, 30 of which were with her husband, Ralph Buckwalter, and then for another 10 years after his death, continuing her life’s call and commitment until her retirement in 1989.
The Buckwalters and Carl and Esther Beck arrived in Japan in 1949. They started with language study, and in 1951 began church planting in Hokkaido, Japan’s northernmost island. Their efforts laid the foundation for the Japan Mennonite Christian Church Conference.
Buckwalter was born Dec. 25, 1923, in Kenmare, North Dakota, to Joseph and Stella (Sharp) Lehman. She studied at Hesston (Kansas) College and Goshen (Indiana) College, and trained at the La Junta (Colorado) Mennonite School of Nursing. While at the nursing school, Buckwalter encountered a Japanese woman who had been among those placed in an internment camp by the U.S. government during the war. Their relationship fueled Buckwalter’s commitment to Japan and to compassionate service.
According to an article in Mennonite Quarterly Review, Buckwalter’s lifelong commitment was initially sparked years prior to attending nursing school while she and Ralph Buckwalter were studying at Goshen College. During a chapel service, guest speaker Dr. Takuo Matsumoto, president of Hiroshima Girl’s School, told of how the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima in 1945 by the United States had demolished his school, injured his daughter, and killed his wife, 18 teachers and 300 students. Yet, Matsumoto asked the audience “to forgive the Japanese people and bring the gospel of Jesus to his country.” On Dec. 7, 1941, the Japanese bombed the American fleet in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, which led to the United States entering the war.
The Buckwalters helped redefine mission work, holding together evangelism, peace and reconciliation, and building deep relationships rooted in cultural respect for the Japanese people. The July 2004 MQR article described the compassionate approach of the Buckwalters:
“Ralph and Genevieve Buckwalter’s approach to Mennonite missionary service in Hokkaido, Japan, embodied an emerging neo-Anabaptist vision of missions that stood in sharp contrast to the Mennonite mission movement of the 19th century, which had borrowed deeply from mainstream Protestantism,” the article states. “Their success in realizing this new mission model depended heavily on the depth of their relationships with Japanese Christians who, in equal partnership with the Buckwalters, made the work of church and community building as distinctly Japanese as it was distinctly Mennonite.”
“The strength of the Buckwalters’ witness was their integrity, whole-gospel commitment, and loyalty to the people of Japan,” said Wilbert Shenk, a former director of the Overseas Ministries division of Mennonite Board of Missions during the time the Buckwalters served. “After Ralph’s death, Genny did not hesitate to return to Japan to continue serving the churches she loved.”
“Genny Buckwalter was gentle, generous, and genuine in her commitment to live what she believed about the Christian way of life, and approach to the work of missions,” said Charles Shenk, who with his wife, Ruth, joined the Buckwalters as mission workers in Japan in 1957. “Together, they showed us a lot about what it means to take the culture and language of the people seriously, and to live in humble, horizontal relationship with them. Genny loved the Japanese people, and they loved her.”
Buckwalter is survived by her daughter, Rosemary (Ray) Hershberger of Columbus, Ohio; son, Michael (Yoko Ohmi) of Shintoku, Japan; granddaughters, Emily (Brian Bolton) Hershberger of Harrisonburg, Virginia, Lisl Hershberger of Boston, Massachusetts, and Selina and Marie Ohmi Buckwalter, both of Shintoku, Japan; sisters, Mary Handrich of Grand Marais, Michigan, Ethel (Daniel) Slabaugh of Sturgis, Michigan, and Josephine Swartzendruber of Rocky Ford, Colorado; and brother, David G. Lehman of Goshen.
She was preceded in death by her husband; sister, Ruth Buller; brother, Reuel Lehman; daughter, Dawn Buckwalter; and three young children and a grandchild who died shortly after birth: Karen, Robert and Thomas Buckwalter, and Rosanna Hershberger.
A memorial is scheduled for March 29 at Faith Mennonite Church, 1201 S. 11th St., Goshen. Included will be a 2 p.m. service for Dawn Buckwalter, who passed away Feb. 8. Visitation for Genevieve Buckwalter will begin at 3:30 p.m. followed by the service at 5 p.m.
The family requests that memorial gifts made to Mennonite Mission Network be designated for the JMCCC (Hokkaido) and that memorial gifts may be made to Faith Mennonite Church.
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Mennonite Mission Network, the mission agency of Mennonite Church USA, leads, mobilizes and equips the church to participate in holistic witness to Jesus Christ in a broken world. Media may contact news@mennonitemission.net.
