Vicar Updates

2018 marks the third year at another RLC - Redeemer Lutheran Church - in Ann Arbor, MI.  Megan and I got married in June 2016 in California and continue to enjoy life with all the activity of a university city. 

This past summer we both went back to the WELS worship conference (where we met), where Jacob participated in the festival choir and played oboe, and afterward spent a weekend in downtown Chicago.  In August, we celebrated the completion of our church renovation after more than two years of planning.  Although it was a lot of work for me as the project manager, we were able to use it as a big outreach event.

Our campus ministry is now funded through WELS Home Missions, and with God`s blessing, we`ve seen increased Bible study and worship attendance.  I enjoyed planning our district Reformation 500 service on the district Commission on Worship and am staying busy this winter with a conference presentation on hymnody. 

Megan continues to enjoy working as the office administrator at LimnoTech, a water environmental engineering firm.  This past fall gave the biggest surprise: we became homeowners a lot sooner than we thought - all in four days!  We now are settling in to a condo about 5 minutes from church.  We enjoy hosting our parents when they come to visit and the many classmates who got assigned to our area. 

We look forward to attending the Grow in Grace retreat for pastors in April.  For more information, see our website at rlca2.com or find us on Facebook @RLCA2.

Jacob

Ben, Molly, and Emma

We do not have all that much new to add.  I am currently starting my last semester at WLS and God-willing I will be receiving my call in May.  We hope to see some of you then! 

Molly is a part-time assistant and Star of Bethlehem in New Berlin, where she had previously done her student teaching.  Emma is now 5.5 months old and doing well. No teeth yet, but they seem not too far off. 

I am currently the senior assistant at St. Johns in Newburg and I work part-time at the winery in Cedarburg.  We are looking forward to what God has in store for us and for our RLC family as we go forward in his grace.

Tim Rosenow (July 2012- June 2013)

Hey all! Pastor Tim, like Vicar Tim, is still single, but the count of my niblings (nieces and nephews) has now increased to 7 with an eighth arriving in February! I`m blessed to have many of them quite close so I can visit and spend plenty of time being the favorite uncle.

I am now in my 4th year of serving at St. Paul`s in Prescott, WI. We are a small congregation, but are working on being more mission-minded (and the congregation has always been quite welcoming). We`ve added a monthly game night as a fellowship opportunity, and have just begun a 3-year Bible reading program called 2020 Vision.

A challenge that we`re facing is that a significant portion of the congregation is becoming elderly, but I see that as an opportunity for the younger members to step in and step up. I`m glad to hear that God has so richly blessed you in Verona (and Monroe!) and pray that he continues to shine on you and through you.

David and Katie

Here`s a succinct summary for RLC. To be sure, I can provide any other interesting details or members can ask, but this is probably what you`re looking for.

Regarding our family, Katie and I are blessed with Hezekiah James Sigrist, 4 years old, a creative, social little guy who is getting ready to start kindergarten this fall, and Samuel Levi Sigrist, almost 4 months old, who loves seeing new faces. We still and will always remember our daughter Hadassah Noel Sigrist who was born August 21 2016, baptized in the hospital room, and passed away the next day due to expected health conditions.

Regarding my ministry, after graduating from Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary I deferred a call to pursue a Master`s Degree in Biblical Studies to focus on the Dead Sea Scrolls and Septuagint at Trinity Western University. In short, after a few months, the Canadian mission board called me to serve part-time a nucleus of a few families meeting monthly in Vancouver while I continued my studies. After a few years, we officially formed a church, Saviour of the Nations, and began growing slowly but surely, and then began to receive support from a combination of Home Missions, World Missions, and the Joint Mission Council so that we called Geoff Cortright to serve full-time. Now we are continuing to grow and spread to Gospel quite seriously all over the world as we meet with prospects and members who come and go from all over as Vancouver is a very transient, global city.

At this time I am finishing my doctoral studies in Cognitive Linguistics at a distance at Stellenbosch University (which shares a relationship with TWU) in South Africa, and am busy with many linguistically focused Bible research projects and biblical language teaching at Trinity Western University. At Saviour of the Nations we are training a PSI student from China, Qiang Wang, who will soon be called as a vicar, and I am doing occasional teaching and curriculum development with our sister seminary in Hong Kong, Asia Lutheran Seminary. The Lord will determine how things go, but we have plans to start a second site beginning with South Sudanese ministry in the near future in Surrey, which is a very quickly growing city in Metro Vancouver.

We are also now proud "landed immigrants" to Canada and will continue to see how the Lord blesses my family and our ministry at Saviour of the Nations.

Peace,
David

Caleb & Kristin Free

If our family was at all musically talented, our band name would be, Kristin and her July Boys. My birthday is July 13, three year old Clay`s is July 4, and brand new Aaron`s is July 15 (Kristin`s is April 14). Funny story about Aaron`s birth...he came three weeks early, and he also came on the same day I was officiating a wedding. Fortunately, I was able to see him born, quick perform the wedding, head back to the hospital to hold Aaron, all in about 2 hours. Everyone is doing well, and I can`t thank God enough for my beautiful family.

Ministry at Risen Savior in Lakewood Ranch, FL is exciting. We are coming to the close of a building project, finishing our sanctuary and education wing. We are scheduled to hold a Grand Opening on March 25, 2018, and we pray the construction will be done by then. We are also looking at the potential of starting a preschool at Risen Savior, with the earliest starting date being the Fall of 2019. We thank God for the opportunities he gives us to spread the gospel in our community, and we pray he gives us the strength to be faithful servants in his kingdom.

The Free Family

Eric & Jennifer

ecmelso@gmail.com

UPDATE!

Living Hope had its` first preview service, May 13th, at the movie theater! We were blessed to have 41 people come to church; 9 more than the Easter service. Everyone who attended Easter came back, which was awesome! The day before the preview service we had a crew of people learn how to set up and take down our "Church in a Box" equipment. We are thankful for the many people who spent their Saturday learning how to do this, and then come the next day to set up and take down. Everything went smoothly. 

Our next preview service is June 10th. Because of God`s grace we will be renting a bigger theater that seats more than the first theater we were in. To God be praised!

Thank you for all your support and prayers. Have a safe, fun, summer!

Eric & Jennifer Melso

Jennifer and I are living in Ooltewah, TN, on the east side of Chattanooga. This January Jennifer will begin to sub in the public school system while I continue to work with our small group at starting a new church in the city of Chattanooga. Right now our home is also serving as the ministry center for our new mission church. We currently have worship once a month in our living room and conduct Bible class or hold church planning meetings on all the other weekends in the month.

We have chosen the name Living Hope for our church and are going to be delivering God’s message of hope to the people of Chattanooga. We even created a logo about a month ago after getting feedback from over 350 people at a Christmas Expo where we set up a church booth. We now just completed our initial website (www.livinghopechatt.com) and look forward to taking the next big steps before opening our doors!

We will be renting a movie theater auditorium for our once a month worship services starting in May and then September 9th, 2018 will be our grand opening when we start every week worship services at the movie theater. In the months leading up to May we will be getting the word out about Living Hope Lutheran Church and spend time meeting lots of people. We will also take the coming months to work with our core group as we get ready for the big launch, discuss how we will operate our church, and make sure we have a strong foundation for the future. Even though we are just taking baby steps right now, God has continued to bless our outreach efforts and has brought a good number of interested people into contact with us.

We miss our Resurrection family and hope you can come visit us in Tennessee sometime!

Eric & Jennifer