missionaryMAC

Happy Reformation Day!

Two things of note in the past week: 1. I spoke at St. Paul's at the Saturday night service on 10/18 and at all three services on Sunday morning 10/19. I went following the first hymn after a brief introduction by either Pastor Femmel or Pastor Seban. My speech basically outlined what I will be doing and a few of the possible ways to support me. I started off by reading a Bible verse from Psalm 19: 1 The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. 2 Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they display knowledge. 3 There is no speech or language where their voice is not heard. 4 Their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world. Then after each service my dad and I each took a door and we handed out the brochures that LCMS printed for me as people exited. All in all I think the weekend went well...I received lots of compliments on my talk and got rid of probably 100ish brochure

Jeff Hefele, a member of my home church (St. Paul’s Des Peres) and a good friend of my family and I, passed away suddenly on Tuesday, October 7, 2008. He was 38 and is survived by his wife Amie and their 3 daughters: Abbie, Julianna, and Isabelle. His obituary as it appeared in the St. Louis Post Dispatch can be read here: http://www.legacy.com/stltoday/DeathNotices.asp?Page=SearchResults . The reason I put this on here is that it was obvious Jeff had a heart for missions—YLM in particular. On four of my five previous trips to Ysleta, I have been accompanied by either Jeff or Amie, sometimes both. Many of my memories of Jeff are consequently things he did while on these trips: Jeff and his invaluable construction expertise, Jeff teaching me to use a Sawzall, Jeff eyeing the dancers onstage at Ajuua! alongside the high school boys on the trip, Jeff and his “pimpin” hat (my friend Katherine crimped the edges of his cowboy hat and stuck a purple feather in the front—Jeff added some girly