Mennonite Church celebrates 100-year anniversary of Congo mission

Berne Tri-Weekly News:

Irena Sprunger, who served for 20 years with the Congo Inland Mission (later Africa Inter-Mennonite Mission), still recalls the way she struggled with God's call on her life when she felt the tug in her heart to become a missionary to Africa.

Sprunger was attending Missionary Union meetings in Berne at the time. On a Sunday afternoon, a missionary from Nigeria was speaking and Sprunger felt her call.

"I felt called to be a missionary, but I didn't want to go," said Sprunger recently at Swiss Village. "I resisted the Lord all summer. Right after the war (World War II) I went to Grace Bible Institute, a Mennonite School in Omaha. I knew that if I was going to go as a missionary, I wanted to be a Mennonite missionary."