Thank You Concordia Seminary!

CFNA Note: Each year for the past several years, Concordia Seminary has provided a Servant Event Team to assist with various cleaning and improvement projects at the Peace Center. Here Professor Rick Marrs, who served as the Coordinator for the Seminary Team, provides his observations.

As part of Concordia Seminary’s Orientation Week each fall, all new students in all programs participate in a 5-hour Servant Event in the St. Louis area. This Servant Event is designed to help students in various residential and on-line programs to interact and develop relationships. M.Div students were working alongside those in the Graduate School as well as in the Specific Ministry and Ethnic Immigrant programs.

Many new seminary students help in various community gardens in the city, but nine students and four staff came to the Peace Center to help with various cleaning, painting, and other improvement projects. CFNA staff participants (Al & Carol Buckman, Dr. Stanish Stanley) provided a list of projects, some of which were preliminary to other church groups coming to do later work, and worked alongside the visitors as well. An orientation by the staff helped teach the participants what the Peace Center does to reach out to numerous refugee communities in urban St. Louis.

At lunch the Peace Center brought in Shiva Gurung, a New American from Nepal, to tell the students how the Center had worked to help her and her family become a part of the St. Louis community, as well as reach out with the Gospel to her and her family. She then told of how the Center and various congregations had helped them, and how she and her family are now helping others to connect with that Gospel of Jesus, as well as learn the practical issues of navigating this new culture. Most of the students were very unaware of the ministry of the Peace Center, and this Servant Event helped to connect them with possible cross-cultural outreach options while they are studying at Concordia Seminary.

Dr. Rick Marrs Concordia Seminary

CFNA: Thank you Concordia Seminary, for another great Servant Team, and for your helpful assistance at the Peace Center!