South Dakotans to Mission Field
Joseph William Lehman, son of Mr. and Mrs. C. W. Lehman of Sioux Falls visited in his home town before boarding ship December 14 for the Belgian Congo, Africa, where they will be busy in soul-winning service for the next six years.
Elder Lehman was recently appointed to the post of station director of the Rwankeri Mission of the Congo Union Mission by the foreign mission board. He left Sioux Falls about December 1 for New York where he will board the S. S. Morgenster bound for Capetown, South Africa. Accompanying him will be his wife, Rose, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. John Picasso of Sioux Falls and their five-year-old daughter, Nona Clare. Elder and Mrs. Lehman both were born and raised in Sioux Falls and attended grade school and graduated from high school there.
During World War II Elder Lehman served in the USAF Air Transport Command. “It’s a strange thing,” mused Lehman, “but after 65 missions flying the ‘hump’ from Assam, India, to various airports in China I can’t remember the slightest desire to ever return overseas for any reason, and now we can’t seem to wait to get to equatorial Africa to start our new work.”
Elder Lehman received his ministerial training at Union College, Lincoln, Nebraska, graduating in 1951. Since then he has served churches in San Antonio, Houston, and Corpus Christi, Texas.
Their new station wagon will go with them on shipboard and they will motor north from Capetown some 3.000 miles to the town of Ruhengeri, visiting mission stations and Union headquarters along the way.
Although living but three degrees below the equator, they will enjoy a near perfect climate and an abundance of fresh milk, fruits and vegetables. Mrs. Lehman is looking forward with pleasure to the immediate benefits of a garden already planted for them by missionary neighbors.
Donald D. Hawley
Press Secretary. Sioux Falls Church
(from Northern Union Outlook, December 11, 1956, pages 7, 8)