We’re delighted to be back at work, safe and rested after a time of sabbatical (Deb, Sophia and me) and a summer of internship (Olivia). While Olivia worked at Cleveland-Cliffs’ Middletown, Ohio steel mill, we spent time together at home and did a little travel: to old Scotland, New Scotland (Nova Scotia), and Colorado (for a Christian retreat).
Headline news: Sophia received her high school diploma from Québec’s Ministère de l’Éducation and is ready for the next stage in her life!
Our August newsletter contains a summary of what we expect to be working on the next couple of months, as well as what our sabbatical has led me to emphasize in ministry. Read our In The Way August 2025 newsletter, by downloading it or reading it below.
More about the photos: 1) We worshipped at the Glasgow Cathedral (St. Mungo’s), a Church of Scotland congregation, and had coffee with the pastor who knows LCMS pastors in Fort Wayne! 2) St. Margaret’s is the only part of the old Edinburgh castle that remains standing after the castle was leveled by Robert de Brus in 1314. 3) Holy Rude Church in Stirling was divided, literally, in two from the 1600s to 1935 because of theological and political disagreements. The one pastor responsible for the division was later executed for treason. 4) Dun Carloway Broch is the best example of the old fortresses that were built by the Celtic people before the time of Jesus. 5) St. Clement’s was the last Roman Catholic church built in Scotland before the Scottish Reformation. 6) St. Magnus in Kirkwall, Orkney was a 13th century Scandinavian church (the Orkneys were inhabited by vikings), but was handed over to the Scottish before it could get a good Lutheran pastor! 7) Many Italian POWs during WWII were sent to the Orkneys to build a series of defensive barriers. They were permitted to build their own Italian Catholic Chapel out of whatever materials they could find, with the support of the UK government. It is a testament to faith and artistic ingenuity. 8) The no-doubt beautiful cathedral in St. Andrew’s, Scotland, was torn and burned down by Protestants who found it “too popish.” The Scottish protestants were a testy lot. 9) On our way to visit our former Deaconess in Nova Scotia, we had dinner with the Milette family. Pastor David is the lone (and bi-vocational) called pastor serving the Lutheran Church – Canada in the four eastern provinces of the country. 10) When the British cast out the Roman Catholic Acadians (Cajuns) in the 1750s, they begged good Protestant Germans to immigrate. They established Zion Lutheran, the oldest continually operating Lutheran congregation in Canada. It’s a member church of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada (the ELCA of the north). Beautiful St. John Anglican sits a couple of blocks away.
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