Remembering C. Russell Deibler

A GOOD SOLDIER FOR JESUS CHRIST

1935

Russell went home on furlough. At a district Young People's Rally in 1936 in Boone, Iowa, the Reverend C. Russell Deibler, the missionary from Borneo challenged many hearts by his message. As soon as the service concluded as Darlene McIntosh was hurrying down the aisle to meet a friend, a hand grabbed her by the arm and she heard a lady from her church saying," Mr. Deibler, here's a young woman I think you'd like to meet." She was introduced and he was told that Darlene was preparing for missionary service at St. Paul Bible School. She turned to shake hands and express appreciation of his message, asking that if he were ever in the St. Paul area, would he plan to speak at their Friday night missionary service? He assured her that he would and she hurried off to meet her friend.
The following spring of 1937 special meetings were being held celebrating the Golden Jubilee, the fiftieth year of the Christian and Missionary Alliance in St Paul and Minneapolis. The missionary from Borneo was one of the speakers. One night after one of the meetings, Russell confessed to Darlene that when he had met her in Boone that night in 1936, the vowed he was going to marry her. However, he was quite distressed to learn that she was only 19 and he was 12 years her senior. But she knew that if this was God's will for her life to marry him and go to the mission field with him that she would be accepted by the Mission Board and her age would be no barrier. At every opportunity, Russell had visited her and her family in Boone, Iowa and when he proposed, Russell assured her that he had long since had the consent of her parents.

Darlene McIntosh and C. Russell Deibler were married on August 18, 1937 in Boone, Iowa

After six months studying the Dutch language in Holland, C. Russell Deibler, a veteran missionary, and his young bride, set sail aboard the RMS Volendam, en route to the Netherlands east Indies.

They landed in Batavia, Java, on August 18, 1938, their first wedding anniversary.
Russell learned that deeper in the interior there were still thousands of natives unreached. The Monis, Danis, Uhundunis and the vast and populous Baliem Valley all of whom have never yet heard.