Immanuel – Radium
On Saturday night July 5 14th I have the privilege of being the mission speaker in the country church in Radium Minnesota, Emmanuel. We had a wonderful potluck dinner earlier in the evening followed by my presentation. I did it without PowerPoint or projector so I was just speaking off the cuff. I enjoyed talking about our witness, mercy our life together and I appreciate being able to use the resources of the office of international missions and all the important things they have put together for us to use and share. I was quite impressed with the knowledge in the depths of some questions that were out there. This little group of Lutherans out in the middle of a wheatfield have a good basic understanding of our church body and want to continue to see our witness and mercy continue in the years ahead. Rev. Mark Buchop is the vacancy pastor and he goes out to Radium from Wittenberg Chapel in Grand Forks every Saturday to preach the gospel and administer the sacraments. It’s obvious that his ministry there is being well received and I’m happy to see a rather exuberant group of Christians in the place. One of the connections that we have is that many of the people that attend church at radium are relatives of some of my members of Zion Grafton. Many old time members of Zion have relatives in Radium. It’s always interesting when I see people at funerals and I remember the face but I can’t remember who they are until you begin to visit. The connections in this part of the country are deep.
There is interest out there is direction and cohesiveness in giving and support of various projects as well. We will talk in the next few weeks about some of those projects and how we are trying to all focus on a few things and a few areas in order to maximize our efforts. Thanks to the folks at Radium for their hospitality. I received a nice box of raspberries and the crops look gorgeous.
