Katie Steider always prayed that her grandson, Ken, would become a mission worker.
Though she died before he left for his overseas assignment, her prayer was answered. Ken Steider, who died Sept. 15 at Schowalter Villa in Hesston, Kan., spent 27 years of his life as a mission worker in Taiwan, serving the bulk of the time with the Commission on Overseas Mission (a predecessor agency of Mennonite Mission Network). He was 85.
Sheldon Sawatzky, interim general secretary for the Fellowship of Mennonite Churches in Taiwan, remembers Steider as a lifelong bachelor with an impressive necktie collection, an adept storyteller, and a man of devout faith.
“At the annual mission conferences he would give a demonstration to display the neckties and tell the stories associated with many of them,” Sawatzky said. “Ken had a dry sense of humor. The missionary kids loved him and the stories he told of his experiences. He was reserved and humble, always deferring to others.”
The bulk of Steider’s service in Taiwan, which began in 1966, was spent at the Mennonite Christian Hospital in Hualien, where he served as the English secretary for superintendent Dr. Roland Brown, handling English correspondence and reports.
He used his expertise in library management to start a medical library for the hospital.
Brown said Steider’s door was always open.
“Frequently I would see a staff member in his office,” Brown said. “The hospital staff really appreciated him. They’d stop in just to visit or to consult him on something if they had a problem.”
Ken was active in the life of the Po-Ai Mennonite Church in Hualien, and in the weekly interdenominational missionary prayer meeting.
Early on, Steider taught English to junior-high and high-school students at Morrison Academy in Taichung, worked with the Christian Children’s Fund in Taipei, and taught English classes to Taiwanese professionals. He was loved by his students, who paid his way to return to Taiwan three times after his retirement in 1993. Many of his students were influenced by his devout Christian faith, Sawatzky said.
Steider, a member at Hesston Mennonite Church, led an active life. He rode his bicycle to work and church in Taiwan, and would do Tai-Chi exercises at a local park. After retirement in the United States, he would walk up to five miles a day while he was still able to do so.
Steider was born May 18, 1926, to Lee and Emma (Saltzman) Steider on a farm south of Shickley, Neb. He attended Hesston College for one year, and was then given a farming deferment during World War II, so for the next two years, he helped his father on the farm.
Having attended college for one year, he was eligible to receive a teacher’s certificate and taught in rural schools near Grafton, Neb., and Shickley. He graduated from Hesston College in 1949. He continued his education at Goshen (Ind.) College, graduating in 1951.
Beginning in the fall of 1949, he again taught school, teaching in a rural school near Garland, Neb., near Shickley. At the urging of the Hesston College president, he continued his education at the University of Nebraska and the University of Illinois at Champaign, Ill., and received a Master’s in Library Science. From 1955 until 1966, he served as librarian and part-time English teacher at Hesston College.
He also took a year of sabbatical from his duties in Taiwan to attend Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary in Elkhart, Ind.
In a speech at the 1978 Mennonite World Conference, Steider wrote about his receiving a new name, Sheh Kan-lin, given to him by Taiwanese pastor Andrew Lu. “The surname Sheh, always written first in Chinese, means ‘to bestow,’” Steider said. “The given name, Kan-lin, means ‘a soft, gentle rain upon the parched earth.’ I hoped I could be that and not just a drip.”
Steider was preceded in death by his parents, Lee and Emma (Saltzman) Steider; a brother, Lester; and a sister-in-law, Bernice Steider. Survivors include brothers Lowell Steider of Shickley; Delmer Steider and his wife, Eva, of Highlands Ranch, Colo.; Leonard Steider and his wife, Jan, of Hesston; and Madonna Swartzendruber and her husband, Dan, of Shickley.
Services were held at Salem Mennonite Church in rural Shickley on Sept. 19. A memorial service will be held in the Schowalter Villa Chapel at 1:30 p.m. Oct. 7.
Memorials may be given to endow the Kenneth Steider Memorial Scholarship for Taiwanese and other international students attending Hesston College.
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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 Andrew Clouse at andrewc@mmnworld.net, 574-523-3024 or 866-866-2872, ext. 23024.
