missionaryMAC

Another team, another logical point at which to split their week into two blogs; here goes part I. No matter though: these nine wonderful humans asked me the title question at least once a day, everyday, because I was sick for a majority of their time here, and because southern hospitality. I'm talking about Trinity Lutheran Church in Athens, GA! I have to hand it to the Rev. Tim Davis (below, 3rd from left) for getting an international mission trip off the ground a mere year and a half after accepting his call there (he previously served in the DR in March 2022 with his former  congregation mere weeks after relocating cross-country).   Trinity represents a team we'd been recruiting for a number of years, to help us put on the first ever national youth retreat for the confessional Lutheran youth of the five DRLM congregations. The retreat took place at a Catholic retreat center in the mountains, but first, we spent two full days in Santiago planning, shopping, and prepping for

In the immortal words of Rudy, our bus driver for the week...let's go [to the capital]!  As often as feasible, I try to give mission education teams a taste the DRLM's two vastly different contexts: Santiago and Santo Domingo. In that vein, Friday morning we drove 175 km southeast to "the capital" to be tourists by day and missiologists by night.  First things first: lunch at a historic restaurant on the corner of Parque Colón. The server complimented my plan of having scoped out the menu beforehand and selected a handful of dishes to share, family style. Not my first rodeo. Be forewarned, though: next time, I might  just order the chivo guisado  and not tell you what it is.  With me as your Zona Colonial  tour guide, you're almost guaranteed to visit my favorite art gallery and take a picture by this anchor found off the coast of Samana in the 1700s! Paleta #2/3 for these guys! Friday night, we paid a visit to Iglesia Luterana Amigos de Cristo to meet Pastor Luc

Somewhere at my parents' house, there's a scrapbook from my junior year at Lutheran High School South (LHSS) called "Spring Break in Spain." Seventeen fellow Spanish students & I traipsed from Madrid to Barcelona with some tour outfitter, watching our textbooks come to life as we fluttered our language wings for the first time outside the nest of our basement classroom.  You might imagine, then, that I was beyond thrilled when LAC regional leadership approved a similar yet fundamentally different "Mission education" trip to the Dominican Republic for LHSS's current Spanish students. Culture: check. Opportunities to practice listening and speaking in an immersive context with native speakers: check.  Experiencing the church in another part of the world: also check.  Ten students + the two Spanish teachers + the Head of School joined me in the DR for a week that brought things full circle similarly to  hosting my home congregation as a missionary at Ys