Johann G. Wiens was born on August 3, 1874 in Steinthal, Molotschna, South Russia. In his youth, he lived in Tiegenhagen. He received his elementary and secondary education in the Orloff Zentralschule and attended the Baptist Seminary at Hamburg, Germany from 1899 to 1903. In 1896, he married Helena Hildebrand in Chestand. In 1903, Wiens was ordained. Wiens and his wife served a term as missionaries in India from 1904-1910 among the Telegus. The Wiens family went to Europe in 1910 to seek help for their ailing daughter. They could not return to India because of the war so they returned to the Ukraine and lived in the Crimea. Between 1911 and 1925, Wiens visited almost all of the Mennonite Brethren churches in Russia. From 1918 to 1924, Wiens was leader and teacher of the Tchongrav Mennonite Brethren Bible School, where he taught together with A.H. Unruh, Heinrich J. Braun, and Gerhard Reimer. In 1924 the government closed the school, which had at that time 50 students and was offering a three-year course. The Winkler, Manitoba, Bible School was in a sense a continuation of the Tchongrav school. In 1925, Wiens and his family immigrated to Canada, arriving in Winkler Manitoba where he worked in the Winkler Bible School (Pniel), again together with A.H. Unruh. Wiens taught at the school for twenty-three years, until 1949. He visited many Canadian Mennonite Brethren churches as an itinerant minister. He also operated a service station in Winkler, together with his son. Wiens died after a short illness in 1951. -taken from Mennonite Encyclopedia, Volume IV.