Reflecting on the days just after learning the news of the Steinkrauses death, Rev. Mooney penned
these words:
“I am convinced that the servants of the Lord are indestructible until their work is done.
Therefore, I believe that Walter and LaVonne had completed their assignment. They left behind
as a memorial of their own…the greatest book in the world…the New Testament in part…in the
Tifal language, twelve years of linguistic work.
Thoughts of comfort flood my mind, great truths to live by. “God is too wise to make a mistake
and too loving to be unkind.” “Don’t forget in the dark what God told has told you in the light”,
not somehow… but triumphantly!!!
Walter and LaVonne Steinkraus, Kerry Lynn and Kathy, received a directive from their Heavenly
Headquarters calling them into immediate service in the Home Office. They had served their
term as Ambassadors to New Guinea “in Christ’s stead,” and discharged their duties honorably.
In the providence of God they had discharged their term of field duties, and their General
Director transferred them to permanent furlough in the Gloryland.”
Arthur Schreurs, reflecting on the death of his daughter, son-in-law and two grandchildren at the
memorial service at the Sheboygan Evangelical Free Church said:
Sometimes when tragedy strikes, we ask ‘WHY’, forgetting that we are the clay and our Lord the
Potter. It is not for the clay to demand, ‘What doest thou?’ Job had the right answer: ‘The Lord
gave and the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.’
When we feel compelled to ask, ‘Why has he taken away from his work which was still not
completed?’, I feel the answer to be this…
Our Lord said, ‘Walter, you have labored so hard all your days that I am going to let your work
for others to be finished, and I am going to take you home. You have loved your family so dearly,
and they have been so close to you and you have loved them so much, that I want you to stay
together and all come home to me together that where I am you may be also.’
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