Friday 28 November 2008

A SAFARI/JOURNEY THROUGH THE USA - A DIARY - 1 - St. Louis, MO

We are traveling through the USA from the 1st of October 2008 to January, 2009. As we are renewing our term in Kenya for two more years, the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod -World Mission (LCMS-WM) asked us to do presentations in several congregations about our work and to look for funds to support our budget.
God has blessed us in this journey, as we are meeting so many friend from our Brazilian time and form our Kenyan time, and as we are making many new friends. We are sharing some of the contacts, activities and blessings with you through this BLOG. Sorry if we don’t have pictures of all our contacts or if we missed some of our friends. Remember us in your prayers.

We arrived in St. Louis, MO, on October 2nd. I was invited to lead a devotion at the LCMS International Center (IC) the day after we arrived,

and to do a presentation about our work in Kenya to the LCMS-IC staff.

We had several orientation meetings at the IC, coordinated by Vicki Helling, Development Associate - LCMS World Mission Development Services.

The first one was with Jeff Craig-Meyer, Development Services Director. One by one several people came to talk with us:

Debbie Feenstra, Missionary Support Administrator;

– Bill Lapp, Senior Principal Gifts Officer;

Elizabeth Mowery, Mission Communication Manager;
Kama Bernab, International Mission, Assistant to Dr. Dave Birner;

Stacey Welcenbach, Director, Communication Services;

Ross Stroh, Financial Manager; and others.

During our stay in St. Louis, we were hosted by our good friends Rev. Ellis and Joyce Rottmann, former missionaries in Brazil in the late 1960s.

We met also our friends Rev. Otto and Jill Hintze, former LCMS-WM Secretary for Latin America.
The Rottmanns took us to their church at the weekend, St.Paul- Des Peres, where we spoke at the beginning of each of the four services on Saturday and on Sunday. We did a Power Point Presentation (PPS) at the Bible Class on Sunday morning. – St. Paul – Des Peres – pastors are: Rev. Dr. David S. Smith, Rev. Timothy R. Seban, Rev. Mark D. Femmel and Rev. Paul T.Prange.

This was St.Paul’s annual dinner’s Sunday: Potato Pancake + roast beef. It was a good opportunity to meet several people after the services. On Monday evening we had a meeting with St.Paul’s Board of Mission where we did a PPS presentation and where we shared the challenges we face in Kenya.

– On Monday we visited also Concordia Seminar, with Prof. William Schumacher, who was in Kenya last year teaching at the Seminar in Matongo.

On Tuesday I had a class at the Seminar, talking about the mission challenges in Kenya.

The same day we had a meeting with LCMS President Rev. Dr. Gerald Kieschnick and with Dr. Samuel Nafzger (CTCR), showing them pictures about our work in Kenya. We had also lunch with both.

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