Lautenschlager, John Allen
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John Allen Lautenschlager
- b. 6/15/1941 Saint Maries, Idaho USA
Spouse/Family
- Wife: Roberta “Bobbie” (neé Smith), b. 6/13/1944 Saint Louis, Missouri USA m. 3/5/1966
- Children: David Christian (1968), Katrina Ann (Fine) (1969)
Service
| Dates of Service | Field | Call Assignment |
|---|---|---|
| 1970-85 | Nigeria | Missionary Physician |
| 1985-89 | Sierra Leone | Missionary Physician |
Biographical Summary
Dr. John Lautenschlager wanted to be a missionary from an early age, and after attending college at Lutheran schools, he enrolled at Concordia Seminary in St. Louis in 1962 to study ministry. While there he became interested in medical mission work, and chose to leave the seminary to attend Washington University for a year to complete the prerequisites for a medical education, then he enrolled at St. Louis University to earn an M.D. In 1966, John and Bobbie (née Smith) were married. Bobbie had received her R.N. degree in 1965 and worked as a nurse in area hospitals while John completed his education. He received his M.D. degree in 1968, and the Lautenschlagers’ son David was born at just about the same time. The family moved to New Orleans and then to Lafayette, Louisiana, so that John could undertake a two-year residency in general medical practice, during which time daughter Katrina (Katy) was born. Once John completed his residency in 1970, he was commissioned as a medical missionary to Nigeria.
The Lautenschlagers were initially seconded to the Christian Council of Nigeria rehabilitation program after the Nigerian Civil War in September 1970. John headed one of the Lutheran teams based in Asaba, which had been on the western front of the war. He and Bobbie, along with missionary nurses Dorlee Goodger, Annie Voigt, Ruth Kruse, and Lois Weiglein, administered preventive and curative clinics for children under 5 years of age, did immunizations, and ran a center for the treatment of severely malnourished children. That project came to a close after the end of 1971. The Lautenschlagers then spent about three months in Uganda and Rwanda, observing and getting involved in medical projects of other church missions as a learning experience. In Uganda they were exposed to British and to Indian culture, having many neighbors in the hospital compound who were of British or Indian descent. John worked and observed at Mengo hospital associated with the Anglican mission in Kampala, learning mainly about maternal-child health. At the same time he also learned to pull teeth!
When John and Bobbie returned to Nigeria in May 1972, they were posted to the Ukele area in Ogoja Province. Here they were met by other missionary families, the Fajens, Boettchers, and Rupprechts, with whom they would work closely and become like family as the years passed. While the Lautenschlagers did medical mission work, these other families would be doing evangelism, translation, and literacy programs in order to spread the Word of God among the Ukele people. The Lutheran mission had established a health center at Yahe in the Ogoja area, and, prior to the civil war, had planned a more extensive network of outstation clinics. The only clinic to be finished before the war was in the Ukele area. The Lautenschlagers settled in the village of Ukunde, about 5 miles from this satellite clinic. Here, one of their neighbors who became a best friend to them began visiting in the evenings and taught John to speak Kukele, the language of the Ukele people. Besides this, all John’s language learning was acquired through immersion, and he was fortunately adept at the language and was soon able to conduct much of his work in Kukele, including both his medical work and assisting with church matters as an elder of the church.
The Lautenschlagers supported the full-time work of a local auxiliary medical worker at the clinic, a mobile immunization program, and later helped communities to establish clinics in other Ukele communities, as well as one in the Ekpari and in the Bokyi-speaking parts of Ogoja. John’s own work was mainly at the clinic nearest to their village, where he did all sorts of medical diagnoses and treatments. Besides this, he, along with Bobbie, did a lot of emergency and “back-door” medicine - they did several midnight resuscitations and treatments in their kitchen, particularly trying to keep babies alive. John recalls a drive of 45 minutes or more to the hospital with another missionary driving while he did CPR all the way on a baby whose life they saved. John also worked hard to educate people about how best to take care of their children. Often, when twins were born, the weaker twin would be left to die because the mother could not take care of both. John helped educate mothers on how to increase their flow of breast-milk so that both twins could be fed. Also, he was involved in campaigning against the use of baby bottles - many mothers in the area wanted to use bottles for their babies because they perceived that this was “what the Europeans did,” but the use of bottles could be fatal for children because there was no knowledge of how to prepare formula to put in the bottles and the mothers did not know how to use them properly. John also became involved in programs in the Ogoja area to treat epilepsy as well as tuberculosis. While all this work was going on, the Lautenschlagers’ children began attending boarding school in Jos, David starting in 1974 and Katy in 1975, and after this John and Bobbie saw their children only occasionally throughout the years.
When the Lautenschlagers left Ukele in 1983, the formal supervision of the work they had been doing fell to the government, but local communities and the church persisted in their involvement. After a six-month home leave in the U.S., John and Bobbie returned and were posted to the Igbo-speaking part of Nigeria, where John took part in surveys of health needs and got involved in doing health teaching in local congregations. Here the Lautenschlagers met a wonderful Nigerian pastor, Rev. Johnson, and his wife, Ma Johnson. The Johnsons were themselves missionaries from another part of the country and were doing quite successful cross-cultural work. They became good friends with the Lautenschlagers, although in general John and Bobbie were not able to form the same kind of close relationships in the Igbo area as they had been in Ukele. John often created materials for teaching about health and taught in congregations along with Rev. Johnson, who did catechism classes.
The Lautenschlagers left Nigeria for good in 1985 and were posted to a newly formed mission team in the Kono area of Sierra Leone. They found tremendous health needs there, but could focus only on the very important task of immunizing against measles and other infectious diseases and running an extensive mobile tuberculosis treatment program. For a time they lived in the town of Kayima, learning the language and doing some informal medical work among their neighbors as needs arose. After this, they moved to Fensedu, where there was a very severe measles outbreak - some mothers had lost several children, and fully a third of the children who became infected died from the disease. John worked with the government hospital in Koidu to start an immunization program, and he set up a solar powered refrigerator that could hold vaccines provided by UNICEF. Often he would join Bobbie in traveling to outlying areas to administer vaccinations. He also helped with maternal-child clinics and training of medical workers, and during this time he undertook a lot of research and writing on the health issues in the area. Finally, in 1989, with both their children in college in the U.S., John and Bobbie repatriated in order to be near their children and other family members.
Upon their return to the U.S., John completed a second medical residency in family medicine at St. John’s Mercy Medical Center in St. Louis. This residency lasted from 1991-93, and he was board certified in family medicine in 1994. He practiced at North Central Community Health Center in Pine Lawn, Missouri from 1993 until he retired in 2007. He has also volunteered as seminary doctor for Concordia Seminary in St. Louis, taking care of students and their families on a part-time basis, from 1993 until the present time. He remains active in the church and in the mission community in St. Louis, and along with Bobbie he continues to practice his vocation of caring for the sick and sharing the Gospel of Christ.
Nota Bene
John is a contributor to the article, “Detecting Malnutrition at Age 6-12 Months: International Comparisons of Arm Circumference vs. Standard Anthropometry,” in J Trop Pediatrics, 1992.
Phase 2 Information
Biggest missiological issue faced
- One of the main questions the Lautenschlagers ran into during their mission work was that of the role of medical work in the mission program. Many mission organizations do medical work, usually in response to the obvious needs of the people served. Some organizations and missionary personnel, however, think of medical work only as something extra or as a foot in the door for evangelistic work. John and Bobbie always witnessed to their faith and shared the love given to them by Christ in their medical work, and they consider medical work to be just as vital in church-planting as educational ministries and evangelism. It is incorrect and hurts the work of mission to think of medical work as separate from evangelism. And as Bobbie says, “It’s what Christ would do, so we did it.”
- Polygamy was a major theological issue that the mission and the Lutheran Church of Nigeria (once it was established) consistently faced. In the areas where the Lautenschlagers and other missionaries worked, it was common for a man to have more than one wife. Missionaries and local church leaders of course discouraged this practice, but the question was what to do if a man who wanted to become Christian was married to more than one wife. To divorce one or more women would create an untenable situation for the women who were divorced. Given how deeply rooted polygamy was in the pre-Christian culture of these areas of Nigeria, eventually the missionaries realized that it was the Nigerian church that would really have to deal with the issue - it needed to be addressed by Christian leaders who were part of the culture by birth.
- A particular question that divided some of the local churches for a time was that of whether a person who had done “everything but” become a member of a Christian congregation could receive a Christian burial. Some people would come to worship services, participate in church activities, and make sure that their children were baptized and members of the church, but would not themselves join the church out of respect for the religious beliefs of their dead parents and ancestors. Generally the children of such a person would want him or her to receive a Christian burial, and congregations had to make decisions about whether this was appropriate.
Most significant contribution during missionary service
Establishment of a community and church-supported health program in the Kukele speaking area of the Ogoja area of southeastern Nigeria. The church in this area grew rapidly, and this was in large part due to the medical work of Bobbie, John and others in this area. The “jujus” that people used in religious practices were often used at times of illness, and when medical missionaries were able to heal the sick without recourse to jujus, it helped develop a new way of understanding the world and spirituality for the people who were served. The realization that they did not need to rely on jujus for their well-being allowed many people to open their eyes to the message of the Gospel, which then touched their hearts.
Connection to today’s mission
- The government of Nigeria has taken over the administration of the health clinics that John, Bobbie and other medical missionaries founded and worked at. However, many of the clinics still have members of the Lutheran Church of Nigeria in important positions. That fact in particular keeps the connection strong between Lutheran work in Nigeria and medical work in areas that need it badly. The legacy of the medical missionaries is also one of caring - medical missionaries helped instill in the medical workers of the county a sense of medicine as a vocation of caring for people, not simply a business set up to make money. Bobbie and John continued to demonstrate their conviction that healthcare is a vocation of love when they worked in Sierra Leone.
- Some of John’s ongoing service include serving on the board of Lutherans in Medical Missions shortly after its inception; member of LCMS Board for Mission Services from 1998-2004; consultant for Lutheran Hour Ministries in Vietnam in 2007, for Lutherans in Medical Missions in Cambodia in 2007, and for Central American Lutheran Mission Society in Guatemala in 2008; and an active member of the Lutheran Society for Missiology. In 2009 John was appointed to the board of Lutheran Bible Translators. Along with Bobbie, John volunteers for Christian Friends of New Americans, an organization dedicated to assisting and sharing the love of Christ with new immigrants to the St. Louis area.
Lessons Learned
- It is important to instill a sense of mission when working with daughter churches, lest they see mission as a receiving rather than a sending activity.
- In Nigeria, there were missionaries who were assigned to live on mission compounds and those who were placed in villages alongside the people they served. The Lautenschlagers observed that living arrangements did make a difference - the missionaries who lived among local people were able to create more lasting bonds and do their work more effectively than those who were more removed.
- It’s extremely important to accept hospitality when serving as a missionary, even from those who can’t afford it.
- Because missionaries have certain resources at their disposal and because mission organizations do provide financial and other support for local churches, it’s important for missionaries to be mindful about how they use their resources and what forms the generosity they practice takes. There are often so many needs on a mission field that one could give away all one’s money without reservation, but the question is how to foster relationships through sharing of the Gospel, through forming friendships, and also through use of resources.
Best Practices
- Strategic planning should be done before implementation of mission activities. Much of the time these two are reversed.
- When John was in the Ukele area of southeastern Nigeria, he worked in a closely coordinated team, with three other missionary families. One missionary concentrated on Bible translation, one on church planting, one on literacy and community development, and one - John and Bobbie - on medical work. The Lautenschlagers did not live on an isolated compound, but each family lived in and related to a different village in the area. Teamwork without isolation from the communities served led to a closer identification with the local culture.
- When the local church became independent and the structure of the field changed so that missionaries served under the national church rather than vice versa, the transition was difficult but very necessary. It’s a best practice for missionaries and local church leaders to be mindful and plan carefully for how the administration and spread of the church can be handed over to the national church organization - both real authority over the work of the church, and real responsibility for the results of the work.
- Partnership with and education of local church leaders and workers is crucial on the mission field. It’s important to create a local structure that can survive beyond the time of foreign missionaries on the field, and there are some kinds of work that can be better done - or done only - by local Christians.
Phase 3 Information
Inspiration for entering foreign missions
When John was a small child, his parents instilled in him the importance of mission as he grew up in a rural California community centered around a Lutheran church and parochial school. Missionary service was a live option, and when Harold ("Hector") Ottemoeller married Mary Tritch, one of their neighbors, while serving in the Nigeria mission, he became John’s model. John decided he wanted to be a missionary around age 11. He attended Concordia College, Oakland, CA; Concordia Senior College, Fort Wayne, IN; and Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, MO with the help of a scholarship from Dorothy Schoknecht, a Lutheran member in Kalispell, MT. While at the seminary, John came to know more about the medical mission activities of LCMS. With much encouragement from the seminary nurse, Virginia Reinecke; the seminary physician, Charles Obermeyer; members of the St. Louis chapter of the Lutheran Medical Mission Association; and the seminary dean, Leonard Wuerffel, he dropped out of the seminary program after his first year to study medicine at St. Louis University.
Quotation by/about or brief story:
- In Nigeria the Lautenschlagers knew a woman named Mama Agnes who was a strong, influential and independent older woman. Mama Agnes had a bicycle that she rode everywhere by herself - not a common undertaking for a woman of her age. One day the man who served as ambulance driver for the medical mission came upon Mama Agnes riding her bicycle along the road, and as the two vehicles passed close by each other her bicycle tipped over and Mama Agnes took a hard fall which injured her. The ambulance driver immediately got out of his truck, picked her up and drove her to the nearest hospital, which was some distance away. After this experience, Mama Agnes put away her jujus and became a Christian. She said, “it wasn’t a juju that picked me up off the road, it was a man.” The care shown to her by a Nigerian Christian man made an incredible impact on Mama Agnes, and after this she devoted her life to the spread of the Gospel. She became instrumental in founding a Christian medical clinic in another village, organizing area women to build and run it. Mama Agnes was also involved in the care of others, in particular a young woman who needed to be flown to a hospital because she was in prolonged labor but was having no success in giving birth. Because Mama Agnes had never flown on a plane before, most people thought she would never be able to handle it - but she readily agreed to go with the young woman, stepped on to the plane, and never looked back! Later when she was asked about the experience, she said, “We just went up, and went along the road up there, and then came down again!” She was a remarkable lady and an incredible force for the spread of the Gospel.
- Kumba, a woman in Kayima, Sierra Leone, who cooked for the Lautenschlagers nearly every night while they were working to immunize against measles, was another example of a strong and dedicated woman. She in many ways made Bobbie and John’s work possible for the first few months of their time in Sierra Leone.
- Bobbie tells a story about John’s skill in medicine, when John was able to reattach a man’s fingers that had been almost completely severed by an accident. By the light of a kerosene lantern, he sewed the fingers back together and placed them in a bulky dressing in the anatomical position. With the help of prayer and a few weeks time, the man's hand healed and became usable again. To reattach dangling fingers with the basic supplies available to him was seen as almost a miracle and was a testament to God's healing power as much as John’s ability. A similar experience involved reattaching the severed wrist tendons of a young woman injured in a hunting accident, placing the wrist in a cast, praying, then after a couple months seeing a functioning wrist after removing the cast.
- Bobbie and John often felt that God was watching over them during their time on the mission field. There was a time when they were driving home after getting vaccines in the state capital. It was during the dry season, so the fields were being burned in order to clear them for the next season’s crop. John was at the wheel, and he saw something moving immediately ahead of them and slammed on the brakes. The car stopped just as an enormous tree fell across the road in front of them - so close that the front of the car bumped into the tree as it fell. Bobbie, John and the others who were with them, though shaken, were amazed at God’s providence in allowing John to see the danger and in sparing them from it.
