Mennonite Weekly Review

HESSTON, Kan. — Irene Weaver didn’t want “a lot of hoopla” for her 100th birthday.

Lakshmishri Balasobramanian and her mother, Rekha, greet Irene Weaver during her 100th birthday celebration. — Photo by Angela Rempel/MMN

But Whitestone Mennonite Church insisted on throwing her a party anyway.

A crowd gathered Jan. 23 to honor Weaver, who has served in mission on four continents.

“The older I get, the more I realize that the whole purpose of life is to love people into God’s kingdom,” Weaver said. “That is my strategy of mission. People say to me, ‘Irene, that’s too simple.’ But I just tell them, ‘That is the finale of my experience in mission.’ ”

In keeping with Weaver’s commitment to Christ, her birthday celebration included communion. While Weaver held a container of bread pieces in her lap, people filed past, touching her shoulder as a sign of blessing or speaking a few words with a hug before moving on to dip the bread into chalices held by family members.

“I feel so blessed,” Weaver said at the end of the service. “I have come through many things, not all of my choosing, but God has been with me. I thank him.”

Weaver, now a resident at Schowalter Villa, was born in India, 11 years after the first Mennonite missionaries arrived. She grew up on the Dhamtari mission station, immersed in the ethos of those who described their work as that of being “light-bearers to a dark and famine-stricken land.”

Weaver and her husband, Ed, began their mission careers in India. Although they spoke out against administration exclusively by expatriates, they always tempered their remarks.

“I can’t criticize the way [the previous generation] worked, because if I had been there in that time, I would have done the same thing,” Weaver said. “But, this is a new day in mission.”

In 1959 Mennonite Board of Missions and Charities, a predecessor agency to Mennonite Mission Network, invited Ed and Irene Weaver to respond to a request from churches in Nigeria.