Lois Miriam Buckwalter, 102, died March 8, 2024, in Goshen, Ind. She was born Oct. 2, 1921, in Chicago to Ada (Ramseyer) and Nelson Litwiller. She grew up in Argentina, where her parents were sent as missionaries by Mennonite Board of Missions in 1925. In 1941 she went to Goshen College, graduating in 1944. On Aug. 22, 1947, she married Albert Shank Buckwalter in Hesston, Kan. In 1950 they departed for the Argentine Chaco, appointed by the MBM to work among the Toba (Qom) Indians. Over the next decades, they fostered the emergence of an independent Toba church, the Iglesia Evangélica Unida, which they accompanied by regularly visiting its far-flung congregations and by learning the Toba language. After over 40 years of missionary work, during which the New Testament and selections of the Old Testament were translated into Toba as well as Pilagá and Mocoví, Lois and Albert retired in 1993 to Greencroft Goshen, in Goshen, Ind, where they were members of College Mennonite Church. Albert died May 12, 2004.

Lois was a cheerful, curious and sensitive observer of the world around her. She took on the tasks at hand with enthusiasm, impatience and determination. Throughout her life she was an avid correspondent, following up closely on the activities of her friends, children and grandchildren by letter, email and phone. Her faith made her an avid reader of scripture, a critical reader of ecumenical theological literature and a concerned observer of world events.

Survivors include a sister, Beulah González of Goshen; two daughters, Rachel Lois (John) Miller of Lawrence, Kan., and Naomi (Mimi) Rose Buckwalter of El Cajón, Calif.; two sons, Tim A. (Crissie Shank) Buckwalter of Goshen and Stephen E. (Ulrike von Fritschen) Buckwalter of Neustadt, Germany; and five grandchildren.

She was preceded in death by sisters Esther Schertz and Eunice Miller and a brother, John T.N. Litwiller.