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Theodor B. Rath
Pastor Theodor (Ted) B. Rath was born near Tuttle, North Dakota, the son of parents having a German heritage. His father, born in the Ukraine, was brought to the United States as a child. His mothe...view morePastor Theodor (Ted) B. Rath was born near Tuttle, North Dakota, the son of parents having a German heritage. His father, born in the Ukraine, was brought to the United States as a child. His mother was born in Romania and came with her family to the States settling in North Dakota. The oldest of five children, Ted has been married to his wife, Bernice, for fifty-nine years. Also of German background, and immigrants as well, her parents also were born in Ukraine. Bernice is a retired elementary school teacher. They have four children: Corleen, Nolan, Mylen, and Lo Ann.
Pastor Rath is a Korean War veteran, having served his tour of duty at a general hospital located in the Kanto Plains District northwest of Tokyo, Japan. It was a facility that treated and rehabilitated American soldiers wounded in the Korean conflict. While in Japan, he was asked to teach a Sunday morning Bible class to Japanese junior and senior high girls, along with four women who served as their mentors. His translator, Junichi Ehara, was very faithful in assisting him for a period of seventeen months.
After serving his tour of duty, he returned to the United States to continue the college education he had begun during the summer of 1949. Having resisted God’s call to the ministry for nearly ten years, he was ready to resume his studies and to continue his life’s work as a pastor. In 1957, he received his bachelor’s degree in history and religion from Westmar College in Le Mars, Iowa. He then attended the Evangelical Theological Seminary in Naperville, Illinois, and received a bachelor of divinity degree in 1960. In 1980, he received a doctor of ministry degree from the McCormick Theological Seminary in Chicago, Illinois.
Ted began his ministry in 1955. In May of 1960, he was ordained by the Dakota Conference of the Evangelical United Brethren Church. This denomination merged with the Methodist Church in 1968. He then served in three appointments in North Dakota for a period of thirty-five years. They included McClusky and Mercer; Cavalier (Trinity), Concrete, and Hamilton; Cando, Church’s Ferry, and Starkweather. During the time when parishes were realigned in the Cavalier area, he also served the Presbyterian Church at Crystal. The Hamilton congregation worshipped with Presbyterians during his tenure in that congregation. He retired in the summer of 1995. During his ministry, he served on the Dakotas Conference Commission on Archives and History, serving as its chair for two terms.
In June of 1996, he travelled to the Ukraine to visit ancestral villages. After touring areas in the Ukraine not far from Odessa, he then visited communities in southwest Germany and northeastern France. Shortly after returning to the United States, he served as an interim pastor in a yoked parish of Presbyterians and ELCA Lutherans for seven years.
The Raths have admired Michael Flowers and his wife, Dakota Conference missionaries who serve the Spirit Lake Ministry Center near Devils Lake, North Dakota, which is not far from where they have lived since retiring. The Spirit Lake nation is home to a Sioux Tribe of Native Americans who have been in that area of North Dakota since 1867. While living in Arizona, the Raths have attended the Chandler United Methodist Church, Chandler, Arizona. On Palm Sunday, 2014, they were the recipients of the inaugural Joyce Hammack Humanitarian award presented to them for expanding the vision the congregation’s ministry to include the Spirit Lake Ministry and other needs beyond the local community. This award is established in perpetuity by the Chandler congregation in recognition of outstanding Christian service and dedication by disciples committed to the ministry of missions with the Chandler United Methodist Church and its worldwide communities.view less