missionaryMAC

[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

[Current location: St. Louis, MO] It's a mystery to me how the organizer of the Rapid Waters Zone's spring LWML rally in Grand Rapids, MI, got my name, but when I mentioned to an October 2023 team from St. John's in Grand Haven, MI, that I'd be in their area in mid-April, a visit was a foregone conclusion.   The St. John's crew insisted I come to their prom-themed school auction Friday night - just the occasion I'd been waiting for to break out my mom's '70s prom dress. Zoom in to see the cars and stoplights! Saturday morning, my host family graciously let me borrow their car to drive myself ~45 min. to Messiah Lutheran Church, where an empty table awaited the paraphernalia I'd brought. Just outside the room where attendees were wrapping up a continental breakfast was ALL. OF. THIS. My mind ricocheted from awe and gratitude to the fact that I'd flown to Michigan. With a carryon, and ONLY a carryon. Skip ahead to the end if you're dying to

[Current location: Springdale, AR] If it seems like I've been traveling a ton on home service, you're not wrong. I have had a fair amount of speaking engagements in the St. Louis, area, though. Certain missionaries purposefully refer to missionaries' US stints as "reconnects," for perhaps obvious reasons that rang true for me about a week and a half ago between Colorado and Michigan.  The secretary at Grace Chapel Lutheran School in north St. Louis invited me to lead chapel on a Wednesday. I'd been there a handful of times before...for volleyball games in middle school! Both pastors met me at the door, as did the principal, whom I'd totally forgotten I knew. We'd met years ago at a young adult Bible study group called Quarterlife. Reconnected ! Coincidentally, he's Jamaican; the fact that he's now a Lutheran educator is a direct result of LCMS missionaries there in the late 90s and early 2000s.  The following day, I headed to the LCMS Internat

Thus read the body of an email two-time LAC volunteer alumna Joleen sent me on August 4, 2023, mere days after her most recent international experience, in Panama . She'd attached a flyer for the 2024 Northern Colorado Ladies' Retreat she'd been talking up.  I was going to be on home service...I didn't have anything that weekend...I knew I had other contacts in Colorado ... ...so two weekends ago Joleen, fellow Panama volunteer Debra, and I joined 20+ other Lutheran women for a weekend in the Word against the backdrop of a canyon carved by the Fall River.  We took a circuitous route so Joleen could show off her home state, stopping first at Red Rocks (OK, first for a bathroom and coffee)... There I go... And here I come! ...then at the 7,300 ft. Lookout Mountain... Golden, CO, home of Coors, is nestled on the far left side of the photo.  Buffalo Bill's final resting place sits atop the peak.  ...then for lunch in downtown Golden.  THEN we started our ear-popping

[Current location: Baltimore, MD {layover @ BWI!}] What better song to listen to when driving through the foothills of the Rockies on a gorgeous day? Before I headed to the Northern Colorado Ladies' Retreat in Estes Park with two short-term volunteers turned friends, though, I frontloaded my trip to the The Centennial State with four other visits: 1. Bethlehem Lutheran School, Lakewood, CO When I hosted "Vicar Ben" and his wife Amelia as part of a Mission Education team from Concordia Seminary St. Louis  in January 2023, I semi-jokingly warned the whole group of students I'd be hitting up their vicarage congregations and first calls on my next home service. Guess I made good on my threat (promise?) in at least one case :) Ben connected me to DCE Sarah about leading a Wednesday chapel service, then created a Google Sheet for teachers to sign up for individual classroom visits as an afterthought. Every single slot filled up! Ben & Amelia must have been taking copiou