Their Lives Forever Imprinted
on the Lives Of Africans They Served

Remarks by Jim Klobuchar introducing the Rev. David and Eunice Simonson at the presentation of the Luther Institute’s Wittenberg Awards for humanitarianism and witness to faith, Nov. 6, 2004, in Washington D.C.

Good evening, Lutherans. Before introducing the Rev. David and Eunice Simonson, I’d like to share a portion of a letter Mark Hanson, the presiding bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, has written in recognition of their years of service in Africa.

The letter, David and Eunice, is written to you. It tells us:

“Before our world became so interconnected by networks of communication and globalized economy, you created bridges between the people of Tanzania and the United States. Your vision of ministry is holistic—proclaiming Jesus, educating all, healing diseases, developing sustainable communities. You have consistently reminded us that we meet the risen Christ, who is the center of our lives, when we stand with those who live on the margins.

“You have invited us to experience the wonder and beauty of God’s creation on the Serengeti and in the Tanzanian people. You have extended hospitality to countless visitors, challenging us to listen to the faith and struggles of Tanzanians and to experience our unity with them. You are both modern day prophets. You have known when to challenge bureaucracy and when to ignore it. You have modeled for all of us what it means to pick up our cross and follow Christ into the world.”

I probably don’t have to tell you, ladies and gentleman, that nobody ignores the bureaucracy as eloquently as David Simonson.

This is a night to remember for all of us, hundreds of people coming together with their thanksgiving and their profound respect for those the Luther Institute is honoring for making this a better world.

And yet there are thousands whose faces we can’t see here tonight, whose voices we can’t hear. But they are here, joined with us in expressing their love and their gratitude for the lives of David and Eunice Simonson.

David and Eunice, they ARE here tonight—the Maasai of Loliondo, of Arusha and Kitumbeine; who told you, “you are one of us, forever;” the patients in that little hospital in Wasso; the school children of Tanzania, of Kenya and more, all of those thousands to whom over the years you made a gift so precious, one they couldn’t have imagined just a generation ago—a school, THEIR school.

And those thousands of men and women, Eunice, who with such great affection and complete trust called you … “momma.” And still do. And the hundreds of young women from the secondary school for Maasai girls at Monduli—some of them here tonight, college students now. That is a revelation to all of us.

To these, David, you can add the young man whose life you saved, one of many, with your own blood in transfusion.

I’m a child of the newspaper world. The newspaperman meets generals and presidents, kings and quarterbacks. Many of those people are worth their fame. And after awhile they blur into a kind of mosaic of the world’s celebrities. But here are David and Eunice Simonson. We have seen up close, for many years, their work and mission, their footprints and handprints on the soil of Africa and on the soul of Africa. There is nothing blurred about those prints. They are clear, permanent and breathtaking.

Six of the Maasai girls who are here tonight are students at Concordia College in Moorhead, Minnesota, where Dave and Eunice studied. And what a beautiful and powerful connection that is to the mission and service of David and Eunice Simonson, to the school at Monduli they helped build. That school would have been unthinkable just 15 years ago in a culture and tradition that has given us much to admire but which in the past has marginalized women and left them with little hope or dignity. These young Masaai women have both today.

David Simonson went to Africa from Minnesota nearly 50 years ago as a Lutheran missionary. His wife, Eunice, was a registered nurse. They arrived in the midst of the Mau Mau revolution in Kenya and the rising surge for independence throughout Africa. It was an exciting and dangerous time. In many ways prophetic. Both of them believed absolutely that it was God’s will that they should go to Africa. They were guided by a blunt and uncomplicated code of service: Find a need, and respond to it.

The impact they have had on literally hundreds of thousands of lives in Africa cannot be measured on any conventional scale of economics or social development. What they have done in their nearly 50 years of mission and care-giving was to take the parable of the Good Samaritan and invest it—each day of their lives—with such energy and devotion that in ways large and small they have changed the life of every African they served. In doing that, they also served us.

The monuments to that work fill the landscape of Tanzania: More than 2,500 one-room schools built primarily with money raised by Dave Simonson, his partners in Operation Bootstrap and in hundreds of churches across America. Add to this the remarkable campus of the Maasai girls’ school at Monduli, built in cooperation with the Tanzanian government, the Lutheran Church and the Maasai elders, on a coffee plantation that will someday provide most of the money to operate it; and the modern hospital at Selian near Arusha, where Dave and Eunice once maintained a tiny commissary that gave free pills to the poor. That hospital at Selion has saved hundreds of lives and is a leader in the worldwide struggle to control AIDs.

Each morning for years, Eunice would get up to find 15 to 20 African women sitting on benches outside their home. This was Eunice’s Back Door Clinic, which became an institution in Tanzania. She gave what medicines she had. She gave water, advice, shelter when it was necessary, embraces and friendship. Over the years, they came by the thousands. She was, simply, momma. No one was turned away. Later she flew with the flying doctors and learned to fly herself. She even became a passable anesthesiologist in that little hospital at Wasso. And you must remember, Eunice, the first patient you put under the anesthetic—you, holding scissors for the doctor in one hand and, in the other hand a manual on how to open those valves. And then you were somewhat astonished to see the operating doctor holding his own manual to learn what do to with an appendix. It was Medicine in the bush.

And she also ministered to her husband, who over the years was struck by anthrax twice, malaria twice, diabetes, cancer, a heart blockage and a stroke last year. They almost died together in a light plane crash last year. David today shows the wear of that stroke. But this is an oak of a man. I’ve never met one like him, in the power of his commitment, his utter belief that he is doing the work of God and his undefeatable spirit. Dave’s speech is impaired in the aftermath of the stroke and he now needs a wheelchair, but next month they plan to return to their home in Tanzania, to spend Christmas in Africa.

Mark Hanson mentioned Dave’s struggles with bureaucracy. You should know that David Simonson, in his more intense moments, can be a load. He was a big guy, a football hero in college, a driven man in his mission. He has never considered himself qualified for sainthood. In her more candid moments, his wife might agree. If there were barriers, he knocked them down. If he couldn’t knock them down, he found a way around them. In his first year as a missionary the Maasai of a remote village asked if he could bring his Land Rover and his shotgun to the edge of the village. A rogue lion was threatening to kill their cattle and menacing the children. David was a hunter in Minnesota but he had never encountered a lion. He drove to the savannah in darkness. The lion appeared, roaring and advancing toward him. He trembled with the gun at his shoulder and fired. The lion fell dead. And the next day, there were a lot of villagers considering the virtues of becoming new Lutherans.

I remember walking 200 miles in the African Rift with Dave Simonson and other friends to raise money for those primary schools. We’d offer a small prayer at 5:30 in the morning and then start out. On this day we were walking through lion country, and we heard lions roaring nearby. David was not above dramatics now and then, a kind of white collar Hemingway. He had two Ruger revolvers strapped to his hips. I fell in with him and talked tersely about the prospects. “Reverend,” I said, “do you think those revolvers can stop a lion.” He considered that for a moment. “Probably not,” he said. “I’ve always felt that in the tough spots the Lord will take of me.” I considered that for a moment. “Wonderful,” I said. “But what about the rest of us?”

Somebody took care of us. Dave Simonson helped bring thousands of Africans to Christianity, yes. But that was not the central part of their mission. When we think of Africa today, we think in stereotypes—civil war, AIDS, corruption, genocide, poverty. There IS that, of course. But there is another Africa—the thousands of Africans who are living expanded lives of hope and self-respect today, knowing something about disease prevention, better educated Africans, Africans who now feel that they matter.

Many of them are Africans whose lives were and are part of the lives of David and Eunice Simonson. When you look at the mission of Dave and Eunice, you are moved to examine the grace of God. To look at their work and the beauty of their faith is to tell yourself: In the eyes of those they have served, their work flowed from the grace of God. And so it has. When they went to Africa David and Eunice took with them an unbreakable faith, an unbreakable love for each other and for family, and a commitment to serve that never wavered. It is still there, glowing bright and strong, through illness, age and the changing times, a faith that is a benediction for all of this. Because of this and so much more, they richly deserve the honor they receive tonight, deserve our admiration and our love.

---Jim Klobuchar

Copyright (c) 2004 Jim Klobuchar