IN MEMORIAM continued

Between 1986 and 2003, Jones was repeatedly named as one of the 100 most influential black Americans by Ebony Magazine and received numerous other awards and recognition.

Funeral services were held on June 16 and 17 at Galilee Baptist Church.

Jones is survived by wife, Leslie, sons, Deryl and E. Edward II, and daughters, Carolyn and Donna.

Christians were threatened or treated with physical violence and overseas workers faced expulsion.

Rema galvanized the Christian community in India to protest persecution and a legislative bill in Arunachal Pradesh state, aimed at Christians, which was introduced to prohibit conversion from one’s religion. A longtime member of the Baptist World Aid Committee of the Baptist World Alliance, Rema also served on the BWA Commission on Christian Ethics, the Commission on Freedom and Justice, the World Evangelization Strategy Workgroup and the Evangelism and Mission Workgroup.

Prior to taking up his position as mission director, he was director of

Panchayats

(local self government) and Community Development in Assam and was later promoted to deputy development commissioner for the state. Rema was an Indian Administrative Service officer, a prestigious and selective title in India.

Chhangte Lal Rema, former head of mission and representative to the North Bank Baptist Christian Association (NBBCA) in India, died on August 3. He was 91 years old. In January 1969, Rema left his government position to take over much of the mission work in Assam after the Indian government expelled western missionaries from the Northeast Indian region. He had turned down a position in the government’s Department of Defense in Delhi, India’s political capital, to do so. That government appointment covered oversight of all military construction in India, and his acceptance of the new role in the church was regarded as a personal and family sacrifice.

The invitation to take over the mission

in Assam came from the Baptist General Conference, based in the United States, which had started work in the region in 1946. Assam was one of eight major provinces in India during British colonial rule but, in the 1970s, was broken up into several Indian states, including the state that still retains the name of the province. Rema’s responsibilities included two hospitals, three clinics, several dispensaries, a nurses’ training school, two high schools, a boarding school and a radio ministry. An important achievement was his ability to register church properties in Assam, a task missionaries had previously failed to accomplish.

He founded and chaired the Evangelical Fellowship of India Committee on Relief and the North East India Committee on Relief and Development, organizations that have been involved in relief and development in Northeast India and have partnered with international nongovernmental organizations. At least twice he made personal representation to former India Prime Minister Indira Gandhi on issues related to religious freedom and the status of Christians in Assam. Christian churches were attacked and burned,

30 BAPTIST WORLD MAGAZINE He held degrees and diplomas from St.

Paul’s Cathedral College in Calcutta and Calcutta University, both in India; and the International College in Honolulu, Hawaii and Bethel Seminary in St. Paul, Minnesota, both in the United States. While a university student in India, he was active in Youth for Christ Ministries and student evangelization. Funeral services were held at the Baptist Church of Shillong in Meghalaya state in India, on August 5, and in Aizawl in Assam state, on August 6.

He leaves wife, Hrangkungi, sons, David and John, and daughters, Lalrinpuii, Lalnunthangi and Rothangliani, former director of Baptist World Aid.

identify refugees who may be resettled into Canada and the United States, as well as into West Germany, from Eastern Europe, that was particularly devastated by the war. “Norquist estimated that 29,000 Baptist refugees had come to West Germany since 1945,” wrote James Enns in his 2012 dissertation for St. Edmund’s College of the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom. He “believed that by working in harmony with the [West German] government’s economic resettlement incentives, the BWA would help bring a permanent solution to the ongoing relief needs of refugees and restoring a sense of dignity to their lives.” Among Norquist’s responsibilities was a home the BWA had opened in Munich to care for aged and infirm Baptists who could not qualify for admittance to the US. The home was eventually transferred to the care of German Baptists.

He oversaw the construction of church buildings for refugee congregations and the rebuilding of existing churches. “Norquist argued that an important step in the resettlement process for Baptist refugees would be the provision of a church building of their own which could provide them with a sense of both stability and identity,” Enns wrote. “Since the government plan involved group resettlement, it was possible to establish new Baptist centers and strengthen the fledgling ones which had recently sprung up in south-western Germany.”

Norquist provided hospitality and

Kenneth Norquist, a Baptist General Conference minister who was assigned by the Baptist World Alliance to oversee post-World War Two refugee relief in Europe, died on August 29 in Isanti, Minnesota, in the United States. He was 95 years old.

In 1950, Norquist was sent to Germany as the CRALOG (Council of Relief Agencies Licensed to Operate in Germany) representative for the BWA. CRALOG, comprising 11 relief agencies including the BWA, was a nongovernmental organization formed in the United States in 1946 to help coordinate relief efforts in Europe following the war.

Norquist worked closely with German Baptist Union leaders to setup relief and to

assistance to visitors. “He would pick up the sailors from the ships and take them wherever they wanted to go, shopping, amusement parks, and if they were interested and time allowed, the German (Baptist) Immanuel Church, where the Norquists were members,” said Manfred and Anita Niemetschek. At various points in his life, he was pastor at Eastern Heights Baptist Church in St. Paul, Minnesota, in the US; was director of Amerika Haus, American Military Government in Heidelberg, Germany; taught at Bethel College and Seminary in the US; taught at College of Marine, California and Manchester College, Indiana, both in the US; and, in 1970, founded a mission for foreign speaking Merchant Marine in Long Beach, California, in the US.

“There is a special place in our hearts for those that helped refugees,”

Anita

Niemetschek said. “My parents were helped to come to America by the BWA after WW2, from Germany. My husband’s father (as a child) fled Poland, after WW1 to Argentina, also through the Baptists.”

Norquist held degrees and diplomas from the University of Minnesota, Bethel Seminary in the city of St. Paul, the University of Stockholm in Sweden, and Tübingen and Heidelberg Universities in Germany. Funeral service was held on September 4 at Elim Baptist Church in Isanti.

Norquist leaves wife, Elisabeth, son, Vaughn, and daughter, Ramona.

CHHANGTE LAL REMA

KENNETH NORQUIST