missionaryMAC

This past weekend (11/14-11/16) I had the opportunity to attend the National LCMS Servant Event Leadership Conference. My future coworker, Chris Hill, was able to fly from El Paso to attend as well. The event was held at the Our Lady of the Snows Shrine in Belleville, IL, a wonderful facility that took amazing care of us. Plus they have one of those deals where you can drive through and look at a whole bunch of Christmas lights, and they turned them on Saturday night...it was perfect with the SNOW!!! The conference included devotions, hymn sings, Bible studies, breakout sessions, a worship service (which we skipped to reunite with the group from St. Paul's that went to Ysleta in July 2008...), and a commissioning service. It was great to make some new contacts (we managed to generate 3-4 groups that may be interested in coming down to El Paso sometime), meet others who have been to Ysleta and love it (like the group from Caro, MI, who built the new sanctuary at San Lucas in Anapra)...

Although I get reports on my account from LCMS every Friday, I couldn't check last week's until yesterday afternoon because I was at Heit's Point all weekend as a counselor for a Confirmation retreat, and we had to leave before I could check it on Friday. When I did though, I was met with exciting news: I now have the first year (plus a little more) completely taken care of! That is one of LCMS's requirements for anyone serving over 12 months--the first year technically needs to be covered before leaving for the field. Not that I was worried about making it to that milestone at all--in fact I am uncharacteristically not worried about reaching my overall goal for that matter--but it means I can officially go! T-minus a little over 2 months!

So LCMS likes to send me a lot of mail and I got one today that I wanted to share--my "Solemn Appointment." So official sounding...I feel like I should frame it like a degree or something (I'll have one of those too in a month and a half now!). Here is the opening paragraph: "To Ms. Erin Mackenzie of Saint Paul Lutheran Church in Des Peres, Missouri Having called on the Lord, our God, for guidance and in the exercise of authority with which He has vested in His church, we, the members of the Board for Mission Services of The Lutheran Church Missouri Synod in lawful meeting on July 29, 2008, have appointed you to the office of Long-term missionary and herewith extend to you this formal notification of your solemn appointment. " Pretty cool, huh? School is going pretty well too. I no longer spend every free second working on my honors project because it's DONE! Well, not like REALLY done, but entirely written, revised once, sent to my committee of professors, ...

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 ...

Hola! This is where I'll record happenings, thoughts, ideas, feelings, etc. during the remaining weeks and months leading up to my stint as the Servant Event Coordinator at Ysleta Lutheran Mission in El Paso, TX, and also during my missionary service for 18 months starting this January. The name missionaryMAC comes from something I got in the mail from LCMS not long after I was officially accepted for this position. They were sending me about 8 trees worth of paperwork every week for awhile; one letter I got was addressed "Dear Missionary Mackenzie" and it pretty much made my day. So what am I up to right now? I leave in a little less than 4 months and I am working hardcore on support-raising! The total that I need to raise to cover everything for 18 months is approx. $17,000. I would also like to raise up an army of people to pray for me before, during, and after my time in El Paso. Currently I am about 1/6 of the way there. The next step will be speaking to my congregat...