Move to South Dakota scheduled

We have more information about the move to South Dakota! The plan is to move out of our apartment on campus Friday, July 31st and into the parsonage on Saturday, August 1st. We'll spend the first two weeks in South Dakota getting settled in and oriented.


Also next week all the Internship supervisors are on campus Tuesday thru Thursday. I'm looking forward to meeting my supervisor Rev. Randall (Randy) Koeller. I'm excited to get started, but I keep reminding myself that I need to stay focused until the semester is over.

Internship 2009-2010

Starting in August Mike and I will be living in Bancroft, South Dakota - population 37 (not a typo). I will be serving as an Intern at St. John's Lutheran (37 members - average attendance on a Sunday 16) in Bancroft and American Lutheran (728 members - average attendance on a Sunday 165) in De Smet. We will live in the smaller town in a 3 bedroom parsonage. The assignment is an interesting mix. I'll spend half my time working fairly independently (with back-up from my supervisor) at St. John's in Bancroft and the other half of my time with my supervisor at American Lutheran in De Smet. We're very excited about the assignment and we think it will be a great place to be for a year. The church in Bancroft has been training interns since 1970 and we know they will teach me what I need to learn. We start in August, but we don't yet know the exact date.

A fun and interesting side note - De Smet was the setting for 5 of the 9 books written by Laura Ingalls Wilder about life on the prairie in the late 1800s and is a popular tourist site featuring the LIW homes, museum and annual pageant! As a Little House fan I couldn't be more pleased :D

Pictures from the afternoon we received the assignments!



I was excited before we even opened the envelope











"We're going to....
SOUTH DAKOTA!"





(Thanks to Jealaine Marple for taking pictures on Assignment Day!)

Announcement postponed

We got our assignment and we're very excited to announce... but we've been asked to wait until the supervisor has been notified. Sorry!

Update on Endorsement, China, and Internship

I have been very lax in posting. Can it really be that I haven't written since October? So much has happened since then! Three things to report.

1. I am officially Endorsed by the Northwest Minnesota Synod Candidacy Committee. We got the official paperwork while I was away in China. Being Endorsed affects #3.
2. I went to China and back in January and it was incredible! Expect a new post sometime soon.
3. Now that I am officially endorsed I am cleared to go on Internship. Internship Assignments are coming to our Seminary mailboxes on March 11th.

A few words about Internship... Internship lasts for a full year. We will leave sometime this summer and then be back for my final year of school in the summer of 2010. This is an assigned placement. The Seminary has an internship committee that reviews the student and church applications and tries to make the best match. We have some say in where we go because we fill out a lengthy preference form as part of our application. Some students choose to restrict their location for a variety of reasons, but Mike and I chose not to restrict. We're looking at it as an adventure and we're hoping 1) for a good supervisor fit, 2) for a great congregation and 3) to learn a lot. Watch for a post in mid-March letting you know where we'll be summer 2009 - summer 2010! see the post from May 2008 about the seminary process - recently updated!

Endorsement

Sorry for the delay in news on Endorsement.

Pr. Laurie Natwick, Assistant to the Bishop and Pr. Dale Pepelnjak, from Pelican Rapids were here to do the two interviews for our Synod. All the students from NW MN and their spouses went to dinner with the candidacy committee representatives on Tuesday night. My interview was at 7:15 am on Wednesday morning. After our interview they are recommending endorsement to the rest of the committee at the next meeting in December. So until then I am provisionally endorsed awaiting official endorsement. I'm so glad they were able to make the trip - we're a long drive for them and it was nice to have them on campus, even for a short time. Overall it was a very good experience!

SH <><

Two bits of news

I am posting with two bits of news with the intention of posting more at a later date about both items.

First, I am headed to China January 5th - 19th! Each year students at Wartburg take one class during the month of January (called J Term). We're allowed to choose for ourselves. Last year I stayed nearby and took the Violence Against Women and Children class. This year I'm joining the trip to China led by our Lutheran Confessions professor Dr. Chung who is originally from South Korea and has many connections in China. We will be visiting Shanghai, Hangzhou, and Nanjing. I'll tell you more about the trip as more information comes along.

Second my endorsement interview will be this week on Wednesday morning. Two members of the NW MN Candidacy Committee will be on campus Tuesday night through Wednesday afternoon to conduct two interviews. Mine is at 7:15 am! I will let you know how it goes, please check out the info on candidacy from an earlier post for more info on endorsement.

SH <><

Back to life, back to reality!

So I'm back in Dubuque after a summer away in Wisconsin. Over all it was a nice summer, but challenging to be away from home so much. After CPE was over in early August I was home for a few days and then off to visit family. I spent a week with my parents and then took my nephew Ethan home on the train after a month with grandma and grandpa. I was at my sister's for a few days and then I headed back west. I stayed with friends in Fargo for a couple of days and then we met Mike for camping and the MN Renaissance Festival in Shakopee, MN over Labor Day weekend.

Mike with the Washing Wenches at Ren Fest!

Me writing my Endorsement Essay while camping

It's good to be home. Mike seems happy to have me back and I'm beginning to feel settled. School started the 2nd with Prolog week (Our first week of school is always a week long 1.0 credit class) and then regular classes began September 8th. After two weeks of class I'm starting to get back into the routine of things. I'm doing work study in the Library again for 10 hours a week. I'm also still in partnership with a local congregation as a Youth Ministry consultant 10 hours a month. So I'm keeping busy for sure. So far the biggest challenge this year is Hebrew! My brain doesn't want to go right to left and the letters are very foreign, but I'm taking it as a challenge and hoping things will improve if I work hard.

Endorsement (see the post from May about the seminary process - recently updated!) is coming sometime in the next few months. We're still awaiting details. I'm excited about taking the next step in the process. We also just had an informational meeting about Internship. I'm really looking forward to Internship and both Mike and I are thinking of it as an adventure. We're open to going anywhere and focused on finding the best Internship fit possible. Of course the assignments won't be made until next spring so we have a lot of time before then to wait and get nervous.

It's great to be back at Wartburg! The fun of seminary is that you take the journey with your class, but meet other classes along the way. The Senior's from last year are off being pastors at their first call. In their place we have a new Senior class, back from their Internships. The Middlers from last year are busy with Internship now and we have a brand new Junior class. So the campus is full of new faces and new friends to make. What fun! Well I should go study Hebrew so TTFN (Ta Ta For Now)

Susan Haukaas <><

9/16/2008 - 8 years of marriage to my favorite red head!