Last fall I received an email from Gary Bracht, council president of Holy Trinity Lutheran in Ephrata, inviting me out to Holy Trinity and St. Paul Quincy this March. The weekend finally arrived! I drove over yesterday and had dinner with the two council presidents and Interim Pastor Laura Olsen. I knew that my former internship supervising Pastor Ann Frerks was serving these two parishes when I first returned to the synod in 2010. I knew which cluster they are in. I knew St. Paul had received Synod SHARE Grant funds for an after school program. At dinner I learned about how the Faithful Innovations process, a program through our synod, had born fruit at both congregations.

The congregations put me up at Ephrata’s Best Western Saturday night–good thinking since the morning started with pre-worship breakfast at 7:30am! Then we had a nice worship service, a few new songs for me. Pastor Laura did all the presiding and I gave the children’s message, read the gospel, and preached. Holy Trinity has several important ministries, including the Hosanna Preschool and Outreach Ministries for Neighborhood Youth.

We had a few minutes after worship to greet people and then Pastor Laura drove us to St. Paul. St. Paul’s youth ministries include the Loving and Learning Preschool and After School Adventures. This after school program reaches a lot of youth forgotten by their families and the rest of the community. A handful of them joined us for worship. St. Paul also just sold part of its land to the Quincy Valley Fuller Center for Housing (previously Habitat) and a home will be going up this year. On the way back to Ephrata, Pastor Laura took me on the outskirts of town so I could see the data farms (see the Yahoo photo below) which use waste water from irrigation. Impact fees and tax dollars from these data farms has funded many of the nice new government buildings I saw (library, fire department, school….).

The old St. Paul sanctuary, now moved and run by the city. The St. Paul congregation will worship there Easter Sunday with a baptism.