Uruguay
To our brothers and sisters in Christ at la Iglesia Luterana de Nuestro Salvador,
Greetings from Good Shepherd Lutheran Church. We continue to be thankful for the relationship we have with all of you, as we have been blessed over and over again because of it. We think about you and pray for you often, but sometimes we don’t do as well as we should do at staying in touch and letting you know how things are going here. It is amazing that it has been almost two years since some of you visited us. Much has happened here at Good Shepherd since then, and we want to take this opportunity to update you.
But first, we were excited to hear that you have called a new pastor. We will hold up Pastor Octavio in our prayers and ask that God bless his ministry at Nuestro Salvador. We are also very thankful for Pastora Wilma’s leadership and for the opportunity that we had to work with her. All of us who had the opportunity to meet her grew spiritually as a result and we wish all of God’s blessings to her and she moves on to the next stage in her life and ministry.
We, too, have a new pastor. As those of you who visited Minneapolis may remember, we had an interim Senior Pastor when you were here. Since that time, we have gone through a process to select a new senior pastor, and Rob and I served on the committee that identified an individual and recommended her to the congregation. Thanks be to God, we found a strong and gracious leader and the congregation agreed to call Pastor Debra Samuelson as Senior Pastor. Pastor Samuelson began her ministry here in June of last year, and we are blessed to have her. She is strong and compassionate and she is helping us look past some difficult time that we have been through and to look ahead as a congregation to greater spiritual growth. We hope that you will have the opportunity to meet Pastor Samuelson.
We have also hired a new Director of Performing Arts, Tor Johnson, who is also a long-time member of our congregation. Tor has brought a lot of energy to our congregation. We staged a play in December, based on the famous English book, a Christmas Carol. He has also started a drumming group that uses taiko drums make out of car tires. The drumming reminds us a great deal of the Candombe drumming you showed us in Montevideo.
We were also sad to learn recently that Pastor Jay Rudi, who visited Nuestro Salvador on our first visit, will be leaving Good Shepherd. He has served Good Shepherd for ten years very faithfully and very well, and he helped our congregation through some difficult times. We will miss him greatly, but we are also excited for him that he is moving on to another stage in his life.
Many of the activities and ministries some of you learned about when you were here are continuing. Here are some updates on a few of those. A group from Good Shepherd recently returned from a trip to Ethiopia, where we have a sister relationship with a Lutheran Church and where we support several projects, including supporting a seminary and an orphanage and a project to help reforest the area. The visit was very inspirational for the group that participated and it will help us maintain our relationship with our other “sister congregation.” We also continue to support programs and ministries in Minneapolis, such as Plymouth Christian Youth Center, the school and activity center that works with struggling students in a disadvantaged part of the city. Groups within Good Shepherd also continue to deliver meals to the homebound and to help at a local food shelf.
We hope that this will in a small way help to maintain our relationship, and we look forward to the day when we can see you again in person. God’s blessings to all of you.
~Dwight Larson
On March 5, a group from Good Shepherd had fun and helped cook some amazing food at La Conexion. Thank you, Dwight & Heather Larson, for organizing such a fun event!
Learn more about La Conexion »
