Harmon Schmelzenbach

{{Short description|Christian missionary to Kenya}}

{{notability|biographies|date=October 2013}}

Harmon Lee Schmelzenbach III (December 18, 1935 - January 2, 2019) was the founder of Africa Nazarene University (ANU) in Kenya, East Africa.[https://nazarene.org/article/harmon-schmelzenbach-iii-remembered Nazarene website, Harmon Schmelzenbach III Remembered] He was the grandson of Harmon Faldean Schmelzenbach who began the missionary work of the Nazarene Church in Africa in 1910.[https://dacb.org/stories/eswatini/schmelzenbach-harmon/ Dictionary of African Christian Biography, Schmelzenbach, Harmon Faldean, 1882-1929]{{cite web|url=http://home.snu.edu/dept/PR/ARCHIVES/biograph/hfschmel.htm |title=Harmon F. Schmelzenbach |publisher=Southern Nazarene University |date= |accessdate=2013-10-29}}

As a Career Assignment Missionary to the Church of the Nazarene, Schmelzenbach continued the family missionary work that started with his grandfather and continued by his father Elmer “Vusigama” Schmelzenbach.[https://digitalcommons.olivet.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2659&context=cotn_hoh Olivet Nazarene University website, Herald of Holiness Volume 43, Number 03 (1954), page 15 (67)][https://dacb.org/stories/eswatini/dlamini-enoch/ Dictionary of African Biography website, Dlamini, Enoch]

Schmelzenbach was born to Elmer and Mary[https://www.legacy.com/us/obituaries/chronicleonline/name/harmon-schmelzenbach-obituary?id=9916561 Legacy website, Harmon Schmelzenbach Obituary] in Idaho, raised in Eswatini and educated in South Africa and Idaho. He was first appointed to Africa in 1960, and laid the groundwork for the establishment of the Nazarene Church in many countries across East Africa. This effort culminated with the establishment of ANU in 1987 on land that he chose and arranged for purchase.{{cite web|url=http://www.anu.ac.ke/pages/history/ |title=History |publisher=Africa Nazarene University |date=2010-09-27 |accessdate=2013-10-29}} The purpose of founding ANU was an effort to train local pastors and church leaders for the ever-increasing reach of the Nazarene Church in Africa.

He spent 34 years working in Africa, including South Africa (1960-1976), Namibia (1976-1984), Kenya (1984-1992) and two years in Ethiopia;[http://storage.cloversites.com/huntingtonchurchofthenazarene/documents/nmi%20newsletter.pdf Nazarene Missions International website, Impact for Missions, Summer 2013 ] he retired in 2001.

Schmelzenbach is third in a line of five generations of missionaries of the Nazarene church. His son, Harmon R. Schmelzenbach works in the South Pacific area as the Field Strategy Coordinator for the Melanesian and South Pacific Fields for the Church of the Nazarene; his son Quinton is also a missionary and speaker.[https://transformtheglobe.com/2019/01/09/harmon-schmelzenbach-iii-a-missionary-legacy/ Transform The Globe website, Harmon Schmelzenbach III: A Missionary Legacy]