Covenant News

Second Service Planned for Maynard, Loraine Londborg

EAGAN, MN (October 22, 2004) - A second memorial service has been scheduled for retired Evangelical Covenant Church pastor and missionary Maynard Londborg, who died September 5, and also for his wife, Loraine, who died May 12.

The second service will take place at 3 p.m. Sunday, November 7, at the Evangelical Covenant Church in Eagan with pastor Kendall Carlson officiating. Another memorial service will be conducted tomorrow (Saturday, October 23) at Covenant Village of Colorado in Westminster, Colorado, beginning at 2 p.m. A third service is being planned to take place in Alaska, with those details to be posted to this online Covenant news report as they become available.

Born May 11, 1921, in Lynch, Nebraska, the 83-year-old Londborg had shared in ministry with his wife for many years, both in mission and church ministries. He became an ordained Covenant pastor after finishing his education at both North Park Junior College and North Park Theological Seminary in Chicago.

The Londborgs – married on March 12, 1945 – were called to serve in Alaska with the Covenant's Department of World Mission, beginning their service there in September 1946. They started mission work in Yakutat, but served primarily at Covenant High School in Unalakleet and nearby Covenant Children's Home.

Along with his work with the Covenant in Alaska, Maynard Londborg served an important role for the territory, helping produce a significant document that helped determine Alaska's future. He and 54 others met from November 1955 to February 1956 at the University of Alaska in Fairbanks to write the document (which would determine how the Alaska Territory would eventually operate as a state following its ratification in 1959). The group included noted legislative figures such as U.S. District Judge James Von der Heydt. But it also included six women and an Alaska Native, a diversity that was unique to legislative processes of that magnitude during that era, according to a story documented at www.AKLegislature.com.

In 1966, the Londborgs left Alaska and Maynard taught at Minnehaha Academy in Minneapolis, Minnesota, until 1976. He was also the chaplain there. Meanwhile, Loraine, a graduate of Swedish Covenant Hospital's nursing program after having attended North Park, was assistant nursing supervisor at Augustana Nursing Home in Minneapolis. The Londborgs headed to Little Falls, Minnesota, in 1976, where Maynard served as pastor of Grace Covenant Church and chaired the ministerial association for the Northwest Conference. The couple's ministry of hospitality was an important part of their ministry in Little Falls, stated daughter Linda in a recent obituary for her mother.

In 1985, the Londborgs returned to Alaska and the couple helped start church planting ministries in Anchorage and Palmer (Mat-Su Covenant Church). After retirement in 1990, the Londborgs stayed in Alaska until 1998 when they moved to Colorado. They most recently had attended Heritage Community Bible Church, a Covenant congregation in Arvada. Maynard still had involvement in Alaska, however, serving on the staff for the Amundsen Educational Center in Soldotna for a time.

The Londborgs are survived by four children: Linda, Peter, John and Elizabeth and their families.

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