Dear First Lutheran Family,
It is with a heart full of joy and appreciation that I write you! I am so grateful for your continued love and support- in thoughts, prayer, encouragement, and of course by monetary means as well. Allison is grateful as well, of course. Together we thank you for the offering you raised to help support our studies, ministry training and discernment back in March. You can trust that your gracious gifts will be well used in supporting two married seminarians. Your support and continued support helps make our studies possible. It also gives us hope that we will be able to follow and live out our vocational callings in the world while not being burdened with insurmountable debt.
It is probably about time for an update on how we are doing. Our first year here at Luther Seminary in the Twin Cities is coming to a fast close. As we are entering our ninth month of married life, this past year of crazy changes and transition is thankfully starting to slowly settle down. Allison continues to be a Master of Divinity Student, discerning a call towards the parish, an undergraduate professorship, or some other ministry working with young women. My degree has changed slightly here, as some of you may know. I am now officially a Master of Arts student here, working towards a degree in Congregational, Mission, and Leadership. This degree will couple well with the degree I earned from Claremont (MA in Management in 2010), in following my vocational and ministerial call towards work in Lutheran (or generally faith-based) social organizations such as Lutheran World Relief or Lutheran Social Services, etc.
Allison and I have found a nice congregational family to be a part of. It is located on the border of the northern suburbs and rural Anoka County (north-northwest of Minneapolis) at Cross of Hope Lutheran Church in Ramsey. We are doing our contextual education components of seminary there. This means that Allison is able to work with women and youth ministries, and I am doing work designing and redesigning their leadership structures and models, as well as their congregational communication. In addition to these contextual education components, I am on-staff there, serving as the church’s Music Ministry Coordinator (to be renamed Worship Coordinator this summer). As part of this job, I coordinate the church’s musical ensembles, as well as direct its adult choir, and occasionally play piano. Allison currently works at Dining Services at Luther Seminary (in its cafeteria), and also will be working at the church beginning this summer to help with leadership in Cross of Hope’s summer youth program.
We are looking forward to being home for a brief time in mid-May through early June. This will be a bit longer of a trip then we were able to make over Christmas, and we look forward to more time to spend with family and friends while also celebrating Thomas’ graduation from PLU. We will be at First Lutheran on Sunday June 5th, and hope to see you then. If you end up passing through or visiting the Twin Cities, please let us know. We always love to see and spend time with familiar faces.
Thank you for your continued support, prayers, and love!
In Christ’s Service,
Allison and Timothy Siburg
