Friday, July 3, 2026

Higher Things Day 3

Day 3 started as Day 2 did - with an early breakfast to get our choir member to practice. The we began with Matins, where I preached on the Parable of the Sower. I'll get that posted soon. A terrific plenary session followed, then lunch.

But in the morning, it was meet old friends day! 



First up was Kathryn Peperkorn. When we lived in New York, she would fly out to have a lesson from her voice coach in New York City and stay with us in our house. We haven't seen her in many, many years, so it was great to catch up a little.


Next up were the Hensleys! With me here are Mary, John, and Lucy. When their father was finishing up his Ph.D. dissertation, they lived in Virginia and attended my church. I baptized John and Lucy in those years, and now here they are attending Higher Things! They now live in Saint Louis where their father teaches at the Seminary.


Preaching at Matins.

After lunch there were two breakaway sessions with an adult/group leader thank you reception in between while the youth did a service project. I taught in the second session of the day (the final breakaway session) and it went much better than yesterday. I get to teach this twice more in Colorado. Someone took a picture of me teaching, but I didn't receive it yet.

After dinner, we went over to Concordia Seminary for Evening Prayer, free time activities, and Compline. We had two youths in the talent show, and they both did really well. The winners of points for their tetramorph teams will be announced tomorrow morning.





The Hensleys also sang with the group from their church.

But this wasn't just old friend day - we also made new friends. I met the pastor of a former member who now works as a recruiter for the Fort Wayne Seminary. We took a picture together and sent it to her.



The youth made new friends, too. And the free time activities were a lot of fun.


Had to get this giant ball around an obstacle course!

Now it's late and we have to get up early in the morning to load the van and check out before breakfast so we can get to the airport right after the Closing Divine Service. Hopefully nothing will go wrong with the flight home!

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