Bender from Goshen, came to France to work with the Mennonite Central Committee in the 1950s. He and Widmer collaborated on many projects, including a translation into French of The Anabaptist Vision, and the creation of a children's home at Valdoie, near Belfort. Widmer was also instrumental in creating American-style Sunday school classes for children at many French Mennonite churches. He organized the first summer camps for children at Laxou near Nancy. Widmer was the motor behind the creation of many French Mennonite associations. He was the co-founder and president of the Comité Missionaire Mennonite Française (French Mennonite Missions Committee) which supported missionaries abroad, co-founder and president of La Mission Mennonite Française (collaborated with the MCC to support evangelisation and relief efforts in post-war France), co-founder and first professor of the Mennonite Biblical Institute in Basel, Switzerland, co-founder of the Evangelical seminary at Vaux-sur-Seine, co-founder and president of the Entente Évangelique du Pays de Montbéliard, among others. In 1962, Widmer's wife Hélène died of cancer. Widmer remarried two years later to Christianne Buy, the widow of Robert Gaudry, the director of the children's home at Valdoie that Widmer had helped to create. Later work With the mouthpiece of the journal Christ Seul, Widmer brought articles about peace and social justice into the homes of thousands of French Mennonites. Widmer published Pages Choisies de Pierre Sommer (selected writings of Pierre Sommer) upon his father-in-law's death in 1952, in which he emphasizes Sommer's commitment to peace. Widmer was part of a committee of French Mennonites which, with the help of General Neyhauser, unsuccessfully petitioned successive French governments from 1949 onward to allow the creation of civic service as an alternative to obligatory military service. He also fostered an opening of the French Mennonite church to other denominations. He was the elder member of the Mennonite committee to the Lutheran-Mennonite dialogues of 1981-84. He did not hesitate to propose joint activities with other churches, such as the creation of the Evangelical Seminary at Vaux-sur-Seine. But Widmer was also conscious of preserving a distinctive Mennonite identity, even as the church embraced fellow Christians. His book Ce que croient les Mennonites (What Mennonites Believe), published in 1981 during the Lutheran-Mennonite dialogues, is an affirmation of the core beliefs of the church, including a commitment to peace and service. Widmer also wrote Il y a des gens qui vous troublent (There are those that trouble you)