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UKD Trip Report

-Liv Larson Andrews, DEM 

St. Catherine of Sienna said, “All the way to heaven is heaven.” Most of the way from Dar es Salaam to Ifakara is bumpy and awkward, punctuated with roadside checks along freeways and unpaved paths of varying quality. But even this section of our two-and-half-week pilgrimage to the Ulanga Kilombero Diocese was heavenly, because we saw the face of God everywhere we looked. 

Bega kwa bega is the Swahili phrase we have used over the years to exemplify the mutual nature of this companion synod relationship we enjoy with our siblings in the UKD. It means shoulder to shoulder and illustrates how we walk together in mission. But our time in the UKD was a full body experience. Face to face, we shared our stories. Hand to hand, we ate together and prayed as one body, especially while we were hosted at the Martin Luther Spiritual Center not far from the offices of diocese. Foot by foot, we traversed the road between Tumaini Lutheran Seminary and Lugala Lutheran Hospital, two essential ministries located in Malinyi that our companionship helps make possible. And hip to hip is how we felt every bump and rock of the roads that added a dose of earthy reality to the heavenly aspect of our travels. 

We also moved hip to hip in a very joyful way when our UKD siblings led us in dancing on several occasions. Dancing erupted in the context of worship, praise, arriving, and leaving. I think the joy and thanksgiving we felt for God’s presence unlocked our western joints and emboldened our spirits. Heart to heart, we could feel God strengthening the connection between us. Though miles and miles lay between our shoulders now, our hearts remain kindled towards each other in faith. Our team of 13 pilgrims, and our synod as a whole, now needs to ask with fresh energy: How will we express this holy connection after our bodies have made the long trek home? 

One moment of our pilgrimage resonates deeply for me as I ponder that question. Eye to eye, Pastor Moses Nwaka powerfully addressed our group at going away party from Tumaini. Before this moment, I had mentioned our synod’s need for prayer during the election season in the United States and the rising fears and anxieties present in our congregations. Pastor Moses looked at us with resolute, tender eyes that showed his heart full of truth and said, “God has placed us each where we are for a reason. God has placed us here in Tanzania. And God will use you in this time where you are, in the US. What happens in the US happens to the whole globe. God has placed you there to be people of peace and good news.” 

Down to the tips of my toes, I was both convicted and inspired. God bless Pastor Moses and all our UKD colleagues for their faithful prayers and the truthful way they spoke about our purpose. As a synod, we are here and connected to each other to take joy in what the Spirit is doing. May it be peace and good news in every place. And we are bega kwa bega with our ministry partners in Tanzania for the same reason: whether in Swahili or English, Spanish or Salish, we together pray that God would make earth “as it is in heaven.” Little by little, step by heavenly step.

I want to close with an invitation that I think many congregations and individuals within the NWIM synod can prayerfully consider as a little, heavenly step. It takes only $800 US dollars to pay for one year of education, including room and board, for a student at Tumaini Lutheran Seminary. This school is dedicated to not sending students, especially girls, home when their families are unable to pay the school fees. Consider rounding up and making an annual gift of a thousand dollars to our partner synod and young women and men will be able to flourish in school. Their flourishing contributes to the health and well-being of the whole Ulanga Kilombero region of Tanzania. The United Nations has reported, based on research, that the most enduring way to eliminate poverty from a community is to educate girls. Tumaini is doing just that, and beautifully. 

The smiles of the girls at Tumaini, as an emblem of the hospitality and kindness we received throughout our pilgrimage, will live in my heart and remind me to seek peace and good news here in my place. May God keep us walking the path to heaven, shoulder to shoulder. 

Welcome to Season of Creation:

A Zoom Launch with Bishop Manlove & Friends

Join Bishop Manlove and friends on Wednesday, September 4, 5:00 pm PT/6:00 pm MT for a one-hour zoom conversation about this year's Season of Creation. Friends include Barbara Rossing and Ben Stewart. Oh, and YOU, of course! Also members of your Worship and Music committee, musicians, liturgical writers, and anyone else interested in living more deeply at the intersection of Faith and Creation Care.

The Season of Creation can include a Feast of Creation, often but not always associated with the Day of Prayer for Creation on September 1, and ends October 4, the Feast of St. Francis of Assisi, the patron saint of ecology beloved by many Christian denominations.

The zoom event will feature the back story on how the Season of Creation came to be and how to preach it (Rossing), and the Season’s connections to a Feast of Creation (Stewart). It will highlight Bishop Manlove’s story of introducing the Season of Creation to Trinity Lutheran in Nampa, Idaho. We will also welcome stories of your experience, questions, and concerns.

Please register here. This event is hosted by the newly-formed and super-friendly NWIM Synod EcoFaith Action Network.

Our Presenters:

Rev. Dr. Meggan Manlove assumed the duties of Bishop of the NWIM Synod in July 2023, previously serving Trinity Lutheran in Nampa, Idaho. Bishop Manlove graduated from the University of Chicago Divinity School, was ordained in September 2004, and holds a Doctor of Ministry from San Francisco Theological Seminary. She previously served at Soldier Lutheran Church, Soldier, Iowa and has been very involved with synod outdoor ministries. She also serves on the Board of LEAP Housing that is dedicated to developing affordable housing in Idaho.

Rev. Dr. Barbara Rossing is an ordained Lutheran minister and professor of New Testament at the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago. She is the Environmental Ministry Coordinator at the seminary, practicing retirement from her home in Leavenworth, Washington, and a passionate member of the Synod’s EcoFaith Action Network. She is the author of The Rapture Exposed: The Message of Hope in the Book of Revelation, and lectures on public theology, scripture and ecology, Revelation, and global Lutheranism. She loves to hike and ski, and is keen on energy efficiencies too!

Rev. Dr. Benjamin M. Stewart serves as Distinguished Affiliate Faculty at the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago and as Pastor to Emmanuel Lutheran Church, Two Harbors, Minnesota. A recent migrant to Duluth, Minnesota, Ben is a member of the North American Academy of Liturgy and contributes to its Ecology and Liturgy Seminar. He is author of A Watered Garden: Christian Worship and Earth’s Ecology (2011). One of Ben’s special research interests is the practice of natural burial, especially conservation burial.

Additional Resources whether you join the zoom call or not:

The website Preaching for God’s World during the Season of Creation or anytime you want to preach with a creation care lens or ear.

Preaching, music, and other worship resources from Lutherans Restoring Creation.

A deep dive into all things environmental from a faith-based perspective.

The (im)Possible Promise of Enough

“Stewardship in a Box” 2024 is dropping! “The (im)Possible Promise of Enough” is a new resource from our friends at ChurchAnew.org (remember “Lent in a Box”?) and has been updated for this year’s lectionary and focus. “Stewardship in a Box” is an affordable, customizable guide to an annual campaign that takes congregations and their leaders through conversations about faith and finances on Sunday mornings and throughout the week of any given stewardship push. Some of the early resources, particularly for sermons (for lectionary and non-lectionary readings), are quite promising. ChurchAnew has partnered with Luther Seminary’s Stewardship Leaders Program in this endeavor, so thought, intention and trusted methods have gone into this material. We’re excited to partner with them again with this fully customizable stewardship offering just in time for fall. NWIM Synod DEM Liv Larson Andrews created materials for this resource.

Church Council Members Monthly Check-in

ELW Narrative Holy Communion

Have you been looking for faith formation materials on the pattern of the Holy Communion liturgy in Evangelical Lutheran Worship?“ Narrative Holy Communion” can be a helpful tool for congregations. Several other worship helps can be found on https://www.elca.org/Resources/Worship.

Grant Writing Webinar is being held today

From “shall” to “will”

A Message from the ELCA Presiding Bishop, Elizabeth Eaton

August 9, 2024, Living Lutheran

Recently the Louisiana Legislature passed a law mandating that all state-funded schools and universities prominently display the Ten Commandments in classrooms and cafeterias. Alabama, Oklahoma, Texas and Utah are considering similar legislation. This initially seems benign, even beneficial. After all, in our baptismal liturgy we ask parents and sponsors to promise that they will teach the newly baptized the “Lord’s Prayer, the Creed, and the Ten Commandments” (Evangelical Lutheran Worship, page 228). Martin Luther even placed the Ten Commandments first in his Small and Large Catechisms.

Clearly the Ten Commandments are an important part of our corporate and personal life.

Let’s take a closer look at a Lutheran understanding of the Ten Commandments. The first use of the law is to compel civility through legal restraint and the threat of punishment. In short, it restrains the basic urge to look out for oneself at the expense of others. Without this, life would be violent and chaotic. The second use of the law is theological. The law accuses those who disobey it and makes offenders aware of their sin and the need for forgiveness. In this sense the law exposes our absolute inability to save ourselves and our complete dependence on God’s free gift of grace. With this, sinners are put to death and believers are raised to new life.

There is a third use of the law spoken little about by Luther that sees the commandments as a guide for justified sinners. The reformers did not want the commandments turned into a vehicle for “works righteousness”—or worse, self-righteousness. The Lutheran understanding is that keeping the Ten Commandments doesn’t make a person holy or justified—the death and resurrection of our Lord does.



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