Tag: WELS Missions

“We Are Different.” It was a saying often repeated during our time together. For two weeks, Gambela Evangelical Lutheran Church leaders studied God’s Word with Missionaries Dan Kroll and Joel Hoff. Time spent in Scripture helped the leaders become more confident in their beliefs. It also helped them better understand what made their church different from all the others in Gambela, Ethiopia.

God builds a family in unexpected ways. That thought filled my mind eleven years ago as I first looked down at my son in my arms.  I was standing in an orphanage just outside Kinshasa (the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo, or the DRC).  My son was nine months old, but it was the first time I’d held him.  Through earthly loss and God’s unsearchable providence – with no small amount of paperwork and prayers along the way – he became my son, and I became his father.  And the strangest thing was how it didn’t feel strange at all.  Unexpected, sure.  But without a doubt, we were family.