missionaryMAC

The end of home service - leading up to my trip to southwest MO and northwest AR - was peppered with a few more local engagements; it all came to a close with a day trip to Columbia, MO, on Sunday, April 28.  My colleagues Rev. Herb & Markie Burch (Belize) joined me for Meet the Missionaries Night at Lutheran Church of the Webster Gardens. It was the very first presentation of their home service; ahhhhhh, I remember those days ... Mrs. Mindy Hanke invited me to share with the Kindergarten class at my alma mater, St. Paul's Des Peres; my mom is her aide! My first introduction to Trinity Lutheran Church was 2006, when they shared a servant event week at Ysleta Lutheran Mission with my home congregation. Besides Rev. Brian Thieme, at least one other member of Trinity's Ysleta mission team, who also happens to be a fellow Drury University alum, was in attendance the day I visited...19 years later. The Sunday school had been collecting offerings for me for several months, as e

A Cardinals game was high on my list of must-dos when in St. Louis during any part of the season. I managed to squeeze one in on a chilly Friday night; let's just say the company was better than the outcome of the game. We left during the 7th inning stretch. It went against every diehard bone in my body, but I was so chilled I didn't care, plus I needed to rest up for a 3 hr., 45 min. drive to southwest MO around midday on Saturday.  I pulled up at Faith Lutheran in Branson just in time for a good 'ole Lutheran potluck and forum for sharing my presentation prior to their regularly scheduled evening service (6:00 pm, so visitors can attend and still make an evening show). My connection to the congregation is a couple that used to snowbird in El Paso every winter; we lived together my first couple months as a GEO Missionary at Ysleta Lutheran Mission. They're IA transplants who now live in a condo overlooking Lake Taneycomo and graciously hosted me for the night.  Sunday

[Current location: Montevideo, Uruguay...DONE with home service (and  therefore sharing my location at the beginning of each post) and back to field duties!] The Southern IL District represents a burgeoning partnership with the DRLM, specifically Concordia the Reformer Seminary (CMSCR), and its furthest reaches are a stone's throw from my home service hub: St. Louis. I made a total of three day trips across the Mighty Mississippi to present at various fora, oftentimes adding a few CMSCR-specific slides to my standard PowerPoint. Public libraries and coffee shops made great landing spots with free Wi-Fi whenever I needed to kill a few hours so as to avoid traipsing needlessly back and forth. Wednesday, April 17 8:00 am: Chapel, St. John's Lutheran Church, Chester, IL - No photos, but it bears pointing out that few venues have hosted me three times (pre-deployment, home service 2021, and home service 2024). I loved Rev. Tim Sims' brief homily before he yielded the floor to