Elizabeth "Lizzie" Pauls (1876-1957) and Henry V. Wiebe (1871-1943) were the first Mennonite missionaries in America to work among southern blacks. Under the sponsorship of the Krimmer Mennonite Brethren Church, they began a mission and an orphanage and school for black children at Elk Park, North Carolina (1900-1908), in a climate of racial hostility and rigid segregation. For five years of their stay in North Carolina the Wiebes and their growing family shared their house with another missionary family and 20 black orphans, which resulted in an integrated school, illegal at the time. The missionaries suffered verbal abuse and physical harassment, but persisted. They expanded their school work to Sunday school and youth work and continued with church services. In 1908 the Wiebes returned to Kansas where Henry pastored the Lehigh Krimmer Mennonite Brethren Church. The work in North Carolina developed into a small conference of churches that became part of the United States Mennonite Brethren Conference in 1960 when the Mennonite Brethren and Krimmer Mennonite Brethren merged.   

Bibliography

Adapted by permission of Herald Press, Harrisonburg, Virginia, and Waterloo, Ontario, from Mennonite Encyclopedia, Vol. 5, p. 930. All rights reserved. For information on ordering the encyclopedia visit the Herald Press website.

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