A Tribute To A Mentor, Role Model And Friend

Eugene Kraybill Souder 
October 12, 1927-June 3, 2023

I had the privilege of sharing the following message at my friend Eugene Souder's memorial service at the Zion Mennonite Church today:

It’s December, 1946. A 19 year old Pennsylvania farm boy finds himself in the Neapolis Harbor in Greece, having for the second time accompanied one of numerous cargo ships to locations across Europe in desperate need of help after the Second World War. This one carried nearly 1000 draft animals he helped take care of on the long ocean journey. 

Eugene Souder, having been brought up in a preacher’s home and gone to Eastern Mennonite School, recognized this as the very place the apostle Paul landed after responding to a vision he received in Asia Minor of someone just across the Aegean Sea, in Greece, calling, “Come to Macedonia and help us.”

Here he was at the very spot his admired apostle Paul had been, and Eugene and others walked the ten mile Roman Road to Philippi, and saw what he was told was the jail where Paul and Silas had been held. In the Acts 16 story they sang as  a duet until midnight, when there was an earthquake so violent that it demolished the jail and freed those held captive, and that night Paul baptized the traumatized jailer and members of his family.

Later Paul writes a letter from a prison in Rome to encourage the house church at Philippi, writing,"I thank my God whenever I think of you, and when I pray for you, my prayers are always joyful, because of the part you have taken in the work of the gospel from the first day until now.” 

Eugene is inspired, feels a renewed sense of calling to follow Paul as Paul followed Christ. So these two images come to my mind as I reflect on Eugene’s life—apostle and prophet. 

As an apostle, a "sent one," he and Alice followed the call to go to wherever they saw people in need of God’s good news. As a young adult he traveled all over the eastern part of the country as a member of a quartet involved with evangelist B. Charles Hostetter, speaker for the new Mennonite Broadcasts, where he later worked for many years. Then for most of his adult life he carried out God’s call as a dedicated pastor to the emerging Mount Vernon Mennonite Church and to serve with Alice as a beloved shepherd to so many in the surrounding Grottoes community.

He was not unlike Paul the first century apostle, who when writing to the church at Thessalonica, said, “As you know, we dealt with each of you like a father with his children, urging and encouraging you and pleading that you lead a life worthy of God, who calls you into his own kingdom and glory.” Eugene was laser focused on fulfilling this kind of life calling as a good father to his children and grandchildren, here today as a witness to what he and Alice were able to give birth and life and direction to as a remarkable and blessed family. But he was also as an apostle to God’s larger family, like Jesus, anointed, commissioned, sent to bring good news to the poor, proclaim release to the captives, recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, and to announce the Jubilee Year of the Lord.

I know Eugene wanted Jesus, not himself, to be the primary focus here in today’s service, but Jesus’ plan has always been to live on in and through his chosen followers, his disciples, his sent ones. Paul the apostle taught that our Lord, head of the church, gave some to be apostles, and some prophets. I know he  would be “appalled” at being compared to the apostle Paul, but he was certainly a committed follower of that pioneer church planter, and he named his firstborn Paul, maybe partly because he had two brothers-in-law by that name. Most of the scriptures he chose for his service were by the apostle Paul, and like Paul he was a singer (remember the jail story?) and a writer, reaching thousands through the printed page, through free papers he launched and edited like TOGETHER and LIVING magazines and OUR FAITH DIGEST.

That brings me to the prophet side of his life mission. Eugene spoke out against public school segregation in our community when it was extremely unpopular to do so, working with a group called the Rockingham Council on Human Relations to encourage integration of not only local schools but of Rockingham Memorial Hospital and work places. Even some of his fellow ministers felt he was going too far too fast, and his barber no longer welcomed him to his shop. 

What made him even less popular in the eyes of many was his vocal opposition to the Vietnam War, and his part in organizing Christians for Peace, producing bumper stickers like Peace is Patriotic and Blessed are the Peacemakers. and circulating thousands of copies of "Letters to the President," an appeal from our missionaries in Vietnam to end the awful bloodshed and destruction in that part of the world. 

Later he was co-chair of Rockingham Concerned Citizens, a local group opposing Coors Brewery locating in the the Valley, in spite of actual threats he received for his stand. Even in his retirement was writing frequent letters to the editor and when his health was in decline he had me read a number of them and suggest editing changes. He was also one of the only pastors in the area to speak out against VMRC demolishing a row of Park Village along Park Road valued at hundreds of thousands of dollars in order to make room for upscale retirement units for the privileged.

In the last two months of his life, I made weekly visits to Eugene as a way of showing my gratitude for the kind of mentor and role model he was. On the last visit in which we were able to communicate with each other, just days before his passing, I felt led to sing to him, "Come and go with me to my Father’s house... where there's joy, joy, joy." That's the kind of song he would want us to hear from him today.

Here on the platform you see a ceramic pitcher and basin given him when he was named Alumnus of the Year at Eastern Mennonite High School. Today we honor him by recognizing him as Alumnus of a Lifetime. 

Eugene Kraybill Souder, apostle and prophet, you have fought the good fight. You have finished the course. You have kept the faith--and passed it on. Enter into the joy of the Lord! 

Amen.