Levi 

Word on Wheels - Levi's literature distribution work in Congo 1962-66 - video

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Levi Onesimus Keidel

1927-2012

(by Lynda Hollinger-Janzen)

In 1951, Levi went to, what is today, Democratic Republic of Congo, with his wife, Eudene, and a one-year-old son, Paul, to begin his 25-year ministry in evangelism and literature with Congo Inland Mission, a predecessor agency of Africa Inter-Mennonite Mission.

Congo declared independence from Belgium on June 30, 1960, at the end of the Keidel family’s second term. By this time, the family had grown to include two daughters and another son. In the anti-colonial fever that raged after independence, people turned against “foreigners.” This included those from other tribes, as well as missionaries. Some missionaries protected the students at their schools at the risk of their own lives, before fleeing overland to Angola in a convoy of dilapidated vehicles.

At one point, Keidel prayed that if the rebels, killed him, it would be out of sight of his wife and four children. But, all members of the Keidel family finally made it back to Illinois after a series of journeys on cargo planes, trains and cars of compassionate individuals that took them through Ghana and France.

Jim Bertsche, missionary colleague in Congo and longtime AIMM administrator, remembers good times with Keidel both at Northwestern University, where they studied after the evacuation, and back in Congo again when it was safe to return.

Keidel entered into research for a writing project whole-heartedly, Bertsche recalled. He allowed his beard to grow so he would not stand out among the crowd at a rescue mission in downtown Chicago.

Keidel had “a personal sense of call to reach out to the people in the back row,” Bertsche said.

Keidel received a Masters’ degree in journalism from Northwestern in 1962,

Bertsche also remembers driving up to the Keidel home in Kananga, Congo, and seeing Keidel with “a pencil perched behind his ear, waving the first edition of Tshiluba-language newspaper, Tuyaya Kunyi? (Where Shall We Go?).” Keidel had a deep passion for making Christian literature available in African languages, Bertsche said.

From 1962-1966, Levi set up a Christian literature distribution system of small book stores through East and West Kasai Provinces in Congo, as a collaborative effort between the Mennonite and Presbyterian churches in Congo. This system became a model for other mission groups in Africa.

Levi O. Keidel was born to Levi and Anne Keidel on Jan. 18, 1927 in Goodfield, Ill. He was so ill as an infant that the family doctor gave him “one chance in 300 of surviving,” Keidel recounts in his autobiography.

Keidel served as a radio transmitter engineer in Navy for a year and a half during World War II. During this time, he gave his life to Jesus. Soon after his conversion, he met Eudene King, who was in nurses’ training in Bloomington, Ill.

“When Levi indicated serious interest in her, Eudene said that she was on her way to mission service in the Congo and if he wanted to marry her he'd better get used to the idea of going with her to Congo,” Bertsche said.

After their marriage in 1948, Keidel graduated from Bob Jones University with Bible and English majors in 1950 and was ordained by the General Conference Mennonite Church. A year later, beginning their ministry in Congo, Keidel’s expertise in the Navy enabled him to set up short wave radios on all eight of the AIMM stations. Communication via this radio network probably saved many lives during the chaotic violence during the 1960s.

In the 1970s and 1980s Levi and Eudene worked closely with many Mennonite pastors and church leaders in evangelism, church planting and church leadership development.

Keidel’s work in Congo was interspersed with periods of ministry in the United States where he served congregations, taught in colleges, earned a Masters’ degree in Mission and Evangelism from Trinity International University in Deerfield, Ill. and authored six books.