Without patience, the missionary adventure is impossible.
The missionary must endure at least eight patient years of formation before he steps foot on his mission. He must be patient in working with his people, especially if they belong to a different culture, a different mentality and a different rhythm of life. He must be patient in carrying out his pastoral work, always for the sake of being prudent and trusting in Divine Providence. And perhaps, most of all, he must be patient with himself. Despite working to build up the kingdom of heaven, he himself is still a man besought by weakness and base desires. In a word, patience, and patience more than anything else, is an essential missionary virtue.
Now, perhaps you are patiently wondering, and what is this chronicle about? Is it a chronicle at all, or is he just going to keep preaching?
Yes, it is a chronicle. It is a chronicle that I have been patiently waiting to write for years; to share with you the story of my great-uncle who also was a religious, a priest, a missionary, a bishop, a founder, and a pilot.[1] His name is Leo Clement Arkfeld. He was a religious missionary of the Society of the Divine Word who spent all his missionary life in Papua New Guinea. Last week, I finally had the chance to visit his tomb, celebrate Mass next to his grave, and see the work of his hands in the Diocese of Wewak.
Allow me to share a bit of his life’s journey, before I recount a little of my own.
Bishop Arkfeld—or as they call him in Wewak “Papa Leo” (not to be confused with Pope Leo)—was born and raised in America’s heartland. A Nebraskan by birth, he was an Iowan farm boy by upbringing, and the oldest of George and Mary Arkfeld’s eight children. Being from the Mid-west also meant that Leo had German Catholic roots. The story that perhaps best captures this facet of his identity is that which he tells about his own birth.
In his short autobiography he recounts that his birth was a risky one. Aware of this, his maternal grandmother was afraid that he might not survive his first moments outside his mother’s womb and so she prayed. Because of her German blood and because she came “from parts of Germany known for real Catholicism”, the bishop would later write, she had a way of praying that even God Himself could not ignore. “I am sure that if my grandmother wanted anything from God, God had no choice.” The bishop was right. His grandmother’s prayers were heard, and Leo survived the first test of life. And unbeknownst to him, when she prayed for his survival, she also vowed to God that Leo would become a priest.
In addition to a lively and strong Catholic faith that was instilled into him by his family, life on the family’s Panama, Iowa farm taught him responsibility, practical ingenuity, work ethic, and compassion; all virtues he would later put to greater use as a missionary.
And how did he discern God’s call to be a missionary? Well, it wasn’t because of his grandma’s vow. He never knew about that until years later as a priest. His discernment took place through a moment of suffering. I like to call it the “Ignatian moment” of his life.
He was 19 years old. He had recently graduated from St. Mary’s School. One Sunday afternoon, after Mass, his family decided to drive a couple of miles away to buy some apples. Everyone in the family went, except Leo. He decided to stay home.
Having “nothing to do”, he decided to go hunting. He wrote, “I took our old double-barreled 12-gauge shotgun and wandered off to our cow pasture.” While walking, a chicken hawk caught his eye. Leo repeatedly tried to aim at it but the hawk “was a wise one and always remained high enough” to stay out of reach. Having given up on shooting the hawk, Leo continued walking through the corn field. While he walked, he rested the two barrels of his shotgun on his right foot. Forgetting that the gun was loaded, at one moment along the way he accidentally pulled the trigger and shot two of his toes. Coming to his wits he immediately shot the other bullets off into the air so as not to repeat the same mistake again.
He then hobbled back to the house and telephoned for help. The lady in the phone office said she would try to find someone with a car. About 30 minutes later his Uncle Ben arrived and drove him to the country doctor in Portsmouth. During the ride Leo experienced much pain. When they arrived at the doctor’s house, the doctor immediately attended to him, injecting him first with a painkiller and then proceeded to amputate the two “mangled” toes.
It was while recovering from this unfortunate injury that his discernment began. He started thinking about where his life was headed. He wrote, “I now had a lot of time to think about what life on this earth had to offer and how to get in touch with it.” Up until then he was set on spending the rest of his life working on his father’s farm. But after a few months of reflecting, he decided that God was calling him to be a missionary. Thus, on December 11, 1931, he wrote two letters, one to the Franciscans and another to the Society of the Divine Word, asking for admittance to their respective seminaries. Both orders welcomed him, but in God’s Providence Leo chose the SVD’s.
That patience that I talked about at the beginning of the chronicle became an early test for Leo. Given the rudimentary nature of his high school education and because he struggled with Latin at the outset of his seminary formation, he was asked to go back and repeat grades 10-12 before beginning his seminary curriculum. With God’s help he persevered and professed his final vows on September 8th, 1942, in the seminary chapel at Techny, IL and was ordained almost a year later in that very same chapel on August 15th, 1943.
Due to World War II, the only missionary territory that was open to the new recruits was Papua New Guinea. The future bishop took this a sign of God’s will and offered himself to the mission. He along with 19 other young missionaries left San Francisco in January 1945, but due to intensified fighting in the Pacific region, they did not reach Papua until September of that same year.
The Sepik region of Papua New Guinea was Leo Arkfeld’s first and only mission. He spent the first two years as pastor of Lae (1946-1948). Then in 1948 at the young age of 36, he was appointed Vicar Apostolic of Central New Guinea taking up his bishop’s residence in Wewak. He would spend the next 51 of his life as a missionary bishop in Papua, serving the later part of his episcopate as archbishop of Madang.
In addition to holding the title of missionary, priest, and bishop, upon arriving to Papua New Guinea he also acquired that of pilot and founder. His practical ingenuity is clearly seen in his early decision to learn how to fly while he was pastor of Lae. Every other Sunday he would have to travel 50 miles in an old army Jeep to reach outlying villages. To make more efficient use of his time the bishop, “got the bright idea of learning to fly and perhaps get a secondhand plane.” Within a few months he acquired both.
His flying career lasted 42 years. During that time, he accumulated 8,615 flying hours and 20,446 flights. The impressive numbers can be explained because his plane was not only his personal means of transportation—and our readers must know that during his time as the bishop of Wewak he took care of a vast territory, which is now five different dioceses—but it also became the Sepik’s ambulance, cargo plane, and trusted means of public transportation.
Finally, the “flying bishop” was also a founder. He founded two local religious congregations that still serve the needs of the Church in Papua New Guinea today: the Sisters of the Rosary and the Brothers of the Sacred Heart.
There is so much more that I would like to tell you about this intrepid Sepik missionary that I have the honor of also being able to call “uncle”, but I am afraid that I may be testing your patience if I continue. So, I will leave the rest of the story, i.e. our recent journey to Wewak, for my next chronicle.
Until then, pray for us here in Papua New Guinea. And, if you feel that God is inspiring you, even pray for Bishop Leo Arkfeld. Everyone in Wewak is convinced he was a holy man, and after my recent experience, I am too. So together we are asking God to grace us with the means of promoting his path to canonization.
May God’s will be done.
Fr. Christopher Etheridge, IVE
Missionary in Papua New Guinea
[1] For those curious about the genealogical connection, Bishop Leo Arkfeld is the oldest brother of my grandfather’s brother-in-law. Mildred Frances Schmitz (my grandfather’s sister) was married to Clement Arkfeld, Bishop Leo’s younger brother.
