by Theodore Wiesehan

    "What I call it is a blessing," the Rev. Helen Goltl of St. Andrew's Episcopal Church said of Paul Schmidt's gift. "It's one of those rare blessings that comes along."
     Schmidt, of Seward, left his more than $1.5 million estate to 12 Seward churches, Memorial Hospital and Sundermann Homes upon his death Jan. 17.
     Born near Utica, Schmidt was a veteran of World War II. He farmed with his wife, Anna May (Westerhoff) Schmidt, southwest of Seward before moving into Seward in 1981. Anna May died in 1997 and the couple had no descendents.
     Schmidt attended United Church of Christ, Seward. According to the Rev. Alvin Smith, "he was there every Sunday.'"
     "He was a very pleasant man, very friendly and could relate to people. He was well thought of by people," Smith said. "He lived very carefully. He didn't require a lot, so he saved a lot."
     Still, Smith said Schmidt's large gift to the church and community surprised and pleased him.
     Indeed, the inclusion of so many different Seward church bodies in Schmidt's will caught many in the community by pleasant surprise.
     "Some of us knew him," the Rev. Jim Miller of Faith Lutheran Church said, "but I don't think any of us knew he was going to share such a gracious and generous gift with the community."
     Calvary Baptist, St. Vincent DePaul Catholic, St. Andrew's Episcopal, Evangelical Free, Faith Lutheran, St. John Lutheran, Grace Lutheran, United Methodist, Faith in Christ Fellowship and First Presbyterian churches as well as Memorial Hospital and Sundermann Homes, all of Seward, each received seven percent of Schmidt's estate - slightly less than $100,000 each. United Church of Christ received nine percent.
     "We are still in the kind of stunned phase of being thankful for such a generous gift," the Rev. Eric Ford of United Methodist Church said.
     Ford said the church is thinking of investing the sum and putting the generated interest to work toward mission and ministry.
     The Rev. Lowell Myers of the Evangelical Free Church echoed Ford's sentiments of stunned gratitude.
     "We can just say thanks at this point," he said. "We have never had, even within our own congregation, a gift of anywhere even near this kind of amount. What an incredible gift to the community and certainly to us as churches."
     The congregation at St. Andrew's, meanwhile, hopes to use the donation to help fund a building improvement to increase outreach in the community. The church has wanted to build a new parish hall for some time, Goltl said, but was unsure how the project would come together.
     "It's kind of a long-range plan that we have and this is just a wonderful cushion of money to help with that project," she added. "(A new parish hall) will enable us to have a nice facility that we can make available to the community for different ministries or programs."
     The Rev. Mark Haefner said that Grace Lutheran Church, the parish he serves, will use the resources to assist Christian education and for the church's building fund.
     "We're going to send half of it to Trinity Lutheran School in Waco and Nebraska Lutheran High School," Haefner said, "and put the remaining half in our building fund."
     Faith Lutheran will tithe (donate 10 percent of) the gift to the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America to be used in mission work, Miller said.
     "Beyond that, each member is to prayerfully consider for the next month some ideas how the money can best be used to serve other people," he added. "We see this as being more than something that will benefit us as a congregation. Who knows, hopefully the impact of (Schmidt's) gift will be felt around the world."
     In addition to churches, health care institutions in Seward benefited from Schmidt's generosity.
     "People ask me, 'Now why would people donate to medical care when they pay for it or their insurance pays for it,'" Jane Reamer of Memorial Hospital said.
     Reamer explained that much of Memorial Hospital's specialized equipment purchases depend on donations.
     "The fact that you could get a CT scan in Seward County was made possible by donors," she said. "And often it's made possible by donors who will never use the equipment, as in Paul's case. He had the compassion to make sure others in the county could."
     Schmidt's gift impacted more than just the recipients of his estate, and its positive effects will continue to ripple through the Seward community.
     "I was pretty moved," Attorney Byron Norval, who prepared Schmidt's will, said of Schmidt's decision. "You don't see something like this very often."
     In fact, Schmidt's gesture inspired Norval so much that he wrote a tribute entitled "For Whom the Bell Tolls" marvelling over Schmidt's gift to the community.
     "From what I learned about him since (his death) he was extremely well thought of," Norval said. "I just wish I had known him better than I did."