Lars Olsen Skrefsrud was born in Fåberg, Norway, received little schooling, and went to work as an apprentice tinsmith. Dissatisfied with life, he drank heavily, and at eighteen he was arrested after committing a series of burglaries and sentenced to four years in prison. His future seemed over before it had even begun.
In his cell, a visit changed the course of his life: Anna Olsum, connected to the Norwegian Haugean revival, introduced him to the Christian Scriptures. Skrefsrud began studying the Bible and foreign languages, eventually memorizing much of the New Testament while serving his sentence.
Once released, he sought training at Johannes Gossner’s missionary school in Berlin, between 1861 and 1863. Living on little more than bread, cheese, and water, he prepared to serve outside Europe, determined not to repeat the mistakes of his youth.
In 1863 he set sail for India. There he was reunited with Anna Olsum, who had also traveled to serve as a missionary, and they married in 1865. Together with the Dane Hans Peter Børresen, he founded the Ebenezer station in Benagaria, the origin of what would become the Santal Mission.
Skrefsrud mastered Santali, Hindi, Bengali, and Sanskrit, becoming the first European to gain a deep understanding of the Santal language. He published the first Santali grammar in 1873 and completed a translation of the New Testament in 1880, published years later by his successor, Paul Olaf Bodding.
The mission’s relationship with its supporters was not always transparent: when Skrefsrud and Børresen adopted Baptist-style immersion baptism, they did not immediately inform the Lutheran donors who supported them, an episode that caused tension when it came to light.
In 1870, just five years after their marriage, Anna died of malaria in Benagaria. Skrefsrud never remarried and continued leading the mission as a widower for the following four decades.
Skrefsrud refused to impose European customs on converts. He founded schools of agriculture, animal husbandry, and trades, and acted as an advocate for the Santals against exploitation by landowners, moneylenders, and liquor traders. Even so, younger colleagues in the mission considered him authoritarian in his leadership.
He died in 1910 in Benagaria, where he is buried beside the church he helped build. The Northern Evangelical Lutheran Church, the direct successor of the mission he founded, now numbers more than eighty-five thousand baptized members, a testimony that grace reaches even those who began life behind bars.
