Tuesday, January 30, 2007
Sunday, January 28, 2007
Rurally Immersed in Nebraska
During the month of January we only take one class here at seminary. This "J-Term" I took a course called Rural Immersion. For ten days 3 fellow students, a professor, and I traveled to southeast Nebraska to experience and learn about the realities of rural ministry.
We stayed for the majority of the time in Johnson, Nebraska population 250. Also, in the area around Johnson there are 7 Lutheran churches. To give you an idea of the scale, when I worshiped with my host family attendance was 21. It was a completely different church and lifestyle than what I have experienced.
We did experience tremendous hospitality from our host families and community. I stayed with the Ron, Deb, and Doug Grotrian of Johnson. They were incredible hosts. Ron farms corn, soy beans, and wheat. He also raises cattle. Deb works at a bank in nearby Auburn, Nebraska, while Doug is in 8th grade. While I was there I was able to watch Doug's basketball team play in route to a tournament championship. Ron and Doug took advantage of my visit to get Deb to make several pies, and I certainly did not complain.
We did so much while we were there its hard to include everything in one blog entry. We did lots of things to see how people and churches work and live in a small rural setting. We visited feed lots, dairy farms, and lots of other agricultural aspects of society. We also checked out other factors of rural life like anewly built prison, nuclear plant, and a new chicken plant. If you're interested in a more in depth account of what we did it would probably be helpful to check out my classmates' blog. We had to complete a project for the course and theirs was to blog while we were in Nebraska. My project is a video that I am working on posting here on the blog. Here some of my pictures from the trip.
Class doesn't start back until February 5th. So I'm gonna take this week to get caught up with a bunch of odds and ends before we get back to real classes.
God's Peace,
Zach
We stayed for the majority of the time in Johnson, Nebraska population 250. Also, in the area around Johnson there are 7 Lutheran churches. To give you an idea of the scale, when I worshiped with my host family attendance was 21. It was a completely different church and lifestyle than what I have experienced.
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| From Nebraska Rura... |
We did experience tremendous hospitality from our host families and community. I stayed with the Ron, Deb, and Doug Grotrian of Johnson. They were incredible hosts. Ron farms corn, soy beans, and wheat. He also raises cattle. Deb works at a bank in nearby Auburn, Nebraska, while Doug is in 8th grade. While I was there I was able to watch Doug's basketball team play in route to a tournament championship. Ron and Doug took advantage of my visit to get Deb to make several pies, and I certainly did not complain.
We did so much while we were there its hard to include everything in one blog entry. We did lots of things to see how people and churches work and live in a small rural setting. We visited feed lots, dairy farms, and lots of other agricultural aspects of society. We also checked out other factors of rural life like anewly built prison, nuclear plant, and a new chicken plant. If you're interested in a more in depth account of what we did it would probably be helpful to check out my classmates' blog. We had to complete a project for the course and theirs was to blog while we were in Nebraska. My project is a video that I am working on posting here on the blog. Here some of my pictures from the trip.
Class doesn't start back until February 5th. So I'm gonna take this week to get caught up with a bunch of odds and ends before we get back to real classes.
God's Peace,
Zach
Tuesday, January 23, 2007
Christmas Time
Sorry for the delay, but we'll try and get you all caught up. Christmas was a blur, but we had a great time. We were able to see a whole lot of folks and we made it to quite a few churches. It was great to see so many folks we missed and hang out at home. However, Hannah quickly had to fly off to Montana with her parents on Christmas to see our new nephew, Simon. While Hannah flew, Mr Wilson and I drove back to Chicago shortly before New Year's Eve. After a quiet New Year's at the apt in Hyde Park, Hannah got back to work and I began preparing for my class in Nebraska.
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