missions

     On November 2, 1845 four German Lutheran missionaries arrived in the province of Chotanagpur in the jungles of northern India.  They were sent there from Berlin by their professor and superior, Rev. Johannes Gossner.  They settled in the city of Ranchi and began their work among the Oraons and other area tribes.   […]

     My family has been Christian for many generations.  For a time I was the pastor of a small rural congregation that my ancestors were members of after immigrating to Minnesota from Germany in 1875.  My great-great-great grandfather, Johann Christian Frederick Stier is buried on the hillside east of the present church building.  He

           (…continued)  I Peter 3:18 says, “Christ died for sins once and for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God.”  To bring you to God, it says, and that brings to mind all the things that have been done over the centuries by the many different nations

     Hawaii is the most remote place on earth.  Nowhere else in the world is a piece of land so far from any other land.  About fifteen centuries ago some Polynesian islanders headed out into the open sea with their little boats, and somehow made it to these small islands 2500 miles away.  It

           In 1606 a chain of eighty islands in the South Pacific was discovered by Fernandez de Quiros of Spain.  In 1773, the islands were explored by Captain James Cook who named them ‘New Hebrides’ because of the similarities with the Hebrides Islands off the Northwest coast of Scotland.  In 1980,

     I completed my seminary education in December of 1979 and was ready for my first congregation.  I was called to Christ Lutheran Church in Lignite, North Dakota.  Lignite is in the far northwest corner of that wind-blown, barren state.  On a windy, 30 degree below zero day in January, my wife and I