Genevieve Shuppert Bertsche, 95, died May 30 at Goshen (Indiana) Hospital after a brief illness. Bertsche devoted much of her life to serving God through Africa Inter-Mennonite Mission, a Mennonite Mission Network partner.
Born Oct. 21, 1921, to LeRoy and Maggie (McDonald) Shuppert in St. Joseph County, Indiana, Genevieve – better known as Jenny – was the youngest of eight children. In 1945, she graduated from Taylor University in Upland, Indiana, with a major in sociology and a minor in history. The following year, she married James Edwin (Jim) Bertsche.
The Bertsche couple both felt God’s call to overseas missions, and in 1948, went to what is today the Democratic Republic of Congo. Jenny’s 25-year career there included mentoring young women, teaching, providing short-wave radio communication to other mission stations, and hospitality, in addition to being a mother of three children. Often, Jenny found herself single-parenting during Jim’s frequent travels within Congo and internationally.
Jenny Bertsche led a project to encourage Congolese families to permit their daughters to get secondary school education. In 1968, Jenny wrote of this all-girls school at the Nyanga mission station:
"New confidence developed as [the girls] began to express themselves in a classroom all their own. During the final exams, a few girls were in the top grading bracket along with the boys who had studied from the same texts … Whereas just two decades ago, few Congo chiefs and elders would send a girl to the mission school, now the young men are seeking educated girls for wives … [Girls], we’re on the way!"
Charles Buller, who facilitates the Congo Leadership Coaching Network for Africa Inter-Mennonite Mission (AIMM), grew up as a missionary kid in Congo. He described Bertsche as "missionary-mom-in-chief," who took in children when their parents’ ministries called them away for extended periods.
"Mission, as we commonly think of it, is so much more than saving the lost," Buller said. "It is being present to whomever needs a home, to whomever needs to know they matter. Aunt Jenny was most definitely a mom-on-mission!"
Leola Falk Becker, another missionary kid, remembers Bertsche "with a gigantic smile on her face. I will never forget her welcoming smile and absolute delight in meeting people. She was love incarnate!"
Sara Regier, a missionary colleague, told of how Bertsche had mentored her in the art of living in Congo, "sharing all the survival skills, traditions, and unspoken conventions of living and raising children on a mission station … She [also] dreamed and worked tirelessly on her vision [of] making it possible for women to get a quality education and develop professional skills."
Jenny’s greatest tests of faith happened during rebellions in Congo in the early 1960s. The family experienced an emergency evacuation in 1960 as the country fought to throw off the shackles of Belgian colonization. Soon after independence, with a relatively stable political environment, the Bertsches and many other missionary families returned to their homes in Congo. However, four years later, missionary lives were again threatened by a youth movement that attempted to overthrow corrupt Congolese politicians and purge the country of political and social factions they believed were trying to undermine traditional culture. The Bertsche home was totally destroyed along with AIMM offices and most of the mission station on which they lived.
In 1974, the Bertsches were called to the United States to continue their service at Africa Inter-Mennonite Mission’s home office in Elkhart, Indiana. Jim was asked to take administrative leadership of the agency. Jenny coordinated the AIMM Women’s Auxiliary, provided office administrative support, edited a monthly newspaper for AIMM personnel, and hosted countless travelers and friends.
Jenny Bertsche was a member of Salem Mennonite Church in Gridley, Illinois, and an associate member of Silverwood Mennonite Church in Goshen, Indiana.
She is survived by three children, Sandra (Rodney) Bertsche King, Goshen; Linda (James Yoder) Bertsche, Parkersburg, West Virginia; and Timothy (Laura), Morton, Illinois; seven grandchildren; and one great-grandchild.
She was preceded in death by her husband (2013); her parents; two sisters, Vera Benson and Helen Hartke; and five brothers, Vernon, Harold (stillborn), Bonn, William and Robert.
A memorial service will be held Sunday, July 16, at 3 p.m. in The Gathering Room at Evergreen Place on the Goshen Greencroft campus, 1300 Greencroft Drive. Memorial contributions may be given to Africa Inter-Mennonite Mission or to Elkhart County Hospice.
