File 5 - David H. Loewen sermons

David H. Loewen, minister and missionary, was born on July 18, 1898 in Silberfeld, Manitoba. He was the youngest of 11 children born to Heinrich and Anganeta (nee Dyck) Loewen. He received his early education in Silberfeld and then went on to attend the Mennonite Collegiate Institute in Gretna for one year. For three years Loewen attended the Winnipeg Bible School. He then went on to study for one year at a missionary medical school and one year at Wycliff Bible Translators Linguistic School. Loewen was baptized on May 28, 1917 and became a member of the Bergthaler Mennonite Church of Manitoba. A year later he married Agnes Teichroeb on October 20th. Their marriage produced five children. On October 5, 1932, Loewen was ordained to the ministry of the Bergthaler Church in Altona. For many years he worked as a travelling minister in the Bergthaler community. After his first wife died in 1931 he married Anna Kehler. During the war he worked in the conscientious objector camps. For a brief period he served as a missionary in Mexico. In 1954 they went to Jamaica where they founded the Jamaica Mennonite Church in 1955 which was then taken on by the Virginia Mission Board. Between 1957 and 1963 Loewen played an active part in establishing the Winnipeg Bergthaler Mennonite Church, which later became Home Street Mennonite Church. He also attempted to start another Bergthaler congregation which held all of its services in German but after failing to get support for this congregation, the leadership as well as the Conference of Mennonites in Manitoba, he handed responsibility for it over to the Evangelical Mennonite Church. In 1963 Loewen retired and moved to Clearbrook, British Columbia. Here he continued to serve in the West Abbotsford Mennonite Church until his death. Loewen is remembered above all for his preaching and promotion of missions at home and abroad. According to H.J. Gerbrandt, Loewen was an important voice in the church who for many years was like "a voice crying in the wilderness". David H. Loewen died on November 7, 1972.