A Red Letter Day!

Dear Friends,
February 18, 2007 was quite a day for ordinations! Blessings to James & Mary as they venture out into their new life of ministry! And congratulations and blessings for Paul Phillips who was also ordained in the Presbytery of Giddings-Lovejoy on the very same day. Paul will be serving at St. Luke's Hospital in St. Louis MO as chaplain. The hospital, I believe is somehow affiliated with Presbyterians. Leanne Van Dyk, former prof of Systematic Theology at SFTS and current Dean/VP of Western Theological Seminary was also ordained on Sunday, February 18. So all-in-all, it was a RED letter day to be sure. I attended Leanne's ordination and felt that I was standing amidst a great cloud of witnesses in the chapel at Western -- and somehow felt a sweet connection to the ordinations of James and Paul. Call it a Spirit thing!

The man who preached at Leanne's ordination used to serve on the board of trustees at SFTS and was part of the search committee who called her to SFTS back in ?? and is now pastor of Westminster Presbyterian, Grand Rapids. Leanne has an identical twin sister who was there too -- kinda freaky in a good kind of way. Leanne and Greg Love are pals -- in fact, Leanne encouraged Greg to apply for the position at SFTS way back when. Interestingly (to me), he, too, has an identical twin. BUT they didn't know that about each other -- luckily, yours truly was able to make that connection for them! Another man with whom I spoke (Don Butyne) at Leanne's ordination was on the faculty at SFTS for 8 years and served as interim dean for 3 of those years. So I felt very close to my community at SFTS even though I am, at times, what seems light years away.

But that's for another blog. For now, I just wanted to let you know about the other ordinations. Think of you all often and send you loads of love!! Keep in touch when you can!!