Soon we shall begin our flights and bus rides, but before we get started, a few notes about how this trip and tour came about.
In the fall of 2013, Rev. Jon Sachs pitched a brilliant idea during a monthly conference meeting of church leaders of the TRC. "With the 500th anniversary coming in the next couple year, how about a trip to Germany to visit the sites of Luther's Reformation?" Immediately, I was in. And almost just as immediately, I was wrangled into being one of the leaders. I'm not going to pretend like I did most of the work - all of that credit goes to Laurie Carlson of the Tomorrow River Lutheran Parish and Rev. Jon Sachs of Trinity Lutheran in Waupaca. These two deserve the credit for organizing this trip - I'm just tremendously lucky and blessed to be along for the ride and learn how it's done...for the next time.
The tour company shuttling us along the way is Christian Tours. This tour company has been used by many within the ELCA, including the ELCA Bishops Academy in January 2015 and numerous trips for Wartburg & Luther Seminaries.
We fly with Airberlin out of Chicago on July 5th, scheduled to land in Berlin on July 6th at 7am (local time). Germany is 7 hours ahead of US Central/Daylight time, so the posting of these blog entries will likely be at odd hours for US readers. From July 7th through the 14th we'll be visiting important sites in Germany that were influenced by Luther's Reformation. In the early hours of Friday July 15th, we'll be making our return to the US.
I don't want to give too much away in terms of what we'll see and when. As this is the year leading up to the 500th anniversary, I understand that many of the sites are under renovation, repairs, and upgrades in addition to potential travel & weather delays; so we'll see how it goes. Regardless, we'll fill you in as we go! Until then, Auf Wiedersehen!
I first spoke with Rev. Sachs when Pr. John Poffinbarger arrived on a "temporary" basis as an interim before you arrived.
ReplyDeleteI was scouring the area seeking supply pastors and hit the jackpot with Trinity in Waupaca. I explained what was what and was almost immediately assured they would take care of us when and if necessary....... :) ........and they did!