Our first joint Home Service visit was to Christ Lutheran Church located in Costa Mesa, California. Our visit here was initiated by Gena’s life-long family friend, Mary Scott. We were blessed to be able to talk with several people in between the two worship services led by Rev. Drew Ross.
As is often the case, we ran into several people with connections to Asia and even Indonesia. I also spoke with a woman visiting her family, who was very familiar with church I spent my early childhood attending in Indianapolis. It’s a very small Lutheran world more often than not!
Gena’s not fond of this photo, but it was a beautiful day, either way! We were well taken care of by Even Kittelsen, who heads up both Youth Ministry and International Ministries for Christ Lutheran. Thank you very much for taking good care of us during our time with you!
Later in the evening we were blessed even further. Mary and her husband Dan arranged a dinner gathering at their home. We were joined by Lisa and John – Lisa is the director of the Missions Program for Orange Lutheran High School in Orange, CA. We first met her briefly back in 2024 when we spoke to some of their mission students. We were also joined by Rizzo, a long-time friend of Mary’s who also works at Orange Lutheran and has served overseas in a variety of roles, including at Concordia International School Shanghai.
It was a great evening of sharing stories and learning from each other. Different positions and responsibilities provide different perspectives on a common area of the world, and that’s always helpful to me in increasing my still-very-inadequate understanding of LCMS work in Asia both currently and historically. Hopefully through connections like these I’ll be even better at my work of facilitating relationships with church partners, international schools and interested individuals in the dozen or so countries I oversee.
The Nelson Family Indonesia 