Chapter 11, Five-Year Plans and Words Fitly Spoken: 1960–1969 (excerpts)

“The beginning of witness is taking off one’s shoes and sitting eye-level with a conversation partner. If we wish to speak, we must first listen. If we wish to gain respect, we must first offer respect.”

In order to understand the present, Orie said, one gained the best perspective
by turning to the Scriptures. “You can understand our today’s 1960
world in perspective much better by reading the Old Testament, as well as
the New, than you can by just reading Time. The two Testaments tell us
that God is sovereign and the world, which God loves, is a ‘ripe harvest
field.’” In a rambling speech during an overseas orientation session, July
17–20, 1963, Orie referred to the challenges of population growth, hunger,
revolution, national independence movements, technological advances,
economic imbalance, and the struggle for civil rights.

Mission Work and Independence in Africa
“The maturity of independent status of the Tanganyika Mennonite
Church” was Orie’s immediate response when Gospel Herald editors
asked what in 1960 had been of “more than passing interest” in the life of
the church. When EMM sent Elam Stauffer and Orie Miller to Africa in
1933 to find a mission field, they selected a region that contained “hardly
Christians.” In twenty-six years, the witness begun at Shirati on the
eastern shore of Lake Victoria in 1934 had developed into a “missionary minded”
church of 2,200 members.

What Is Your Vision?
The retention and retelling of Orie’s words were sometimes striking. Later,
as David Shenk traveled as international secretary for EMM, he often
heard people say, whether in Indonesia, Europe, or Africa, “At this very
spot Orie said this—.” Shenk has his own story of a memorable encounter
in Somalia:

I was directing the school at Mogadishu and had just installed a diesel generator
. . . so we had electric lights. I got this . . . electrical system working
before Orie arrived. I was so thrilled! When Orie comes, we’ll have electric
lights, and he’ll be so pleased to see . . . this kind of progress. And so after
having tea, we were walking out to the school, and I said, “Brother Orie,
would you step aside here, I’d like to show you the generator I just installed.”
He kept walking and said, “Mennonites always get the generators
installed. My question is what’s the vision for the next five years?” I mean,
that was a tremendously wise word of counsel to a young mid-twenties
missionary.

That statement was transformative! It formed my administrative style.
During my years in overseas and home missions, the directorship, or even
local church pastoring, I would ask that question. It came to me from Orie.
“What’s the vision for the next five years?”

A Difficult Leadership Transition at EMM
Not everyone was in awe of Orie. Just as he passed the baton of MCC
leadership to his “understudy,” Bill Snyder, Orie relinquished the top
office at EMM to Paul Kraybill. Orie had recruited Kraybill in 1953 to
become assistant secretary, in effect a “candidate secretary,” and nurtured
him until the transition in 1958.25 The MCC transition was smoother than
that of EMM. Kraybill, a bit impatient, was ready for the reins before
Orie handed them over.26 After the swap of offices, Orie’s expansionist
worldview and independent action sometimes vexed Kraybill.

Elta Myers Sensenig
Of more than passing importance in Orie’s personal life was his relationship
with Elta Myers Sensenig, whom he married on January 9, 1960. He
was sixty-seven; she was forty-nine. Elta’s husband Isaac (Ike) had died
as the result of an accidental fall from a roof. Donald Sensenig, who was
four years old at the time of his father’s death, recalls the special interest
that Orie and Elta Wolf Miller took in their family, owing to the fact that
his mother had been named after Elta Wolf Miller.

Rather a Friend than a Son
Edgar Stoesz, who came to MCC near the end of Orie’s era, had the greatest
respect for his mentor. When speaking to the Miller family in 2008,
326 My Calling to Fulfill 11: Five-Year Plans and Words Fitly Spoken: 1960–1969 327
Edgar said Orie “was the greatest man I ever knew.”49 He also said he
wished to be Orie’s friend, not his son. He knew how difficult it could be
to live in Orie’s shadow.