Greetings!

Hello there, this is Stephen, and I'm a first year, MDiv student, from Trinity Lutheran Seminary in Columbus, OH. I've lived in Maryland my entire life before transplanting myself in Ohio for seminary. We couldn't just let the Wartburg students have all the fun by going to Iceland so we jumped on board! But seriously, with so many amazing offerings for J-Term classes from the different seminaries I thought this would be a great opportunity to meet some new people and experience something a little different.

I'm also a bit embarassed to admit that this is my first time traveling a distance out of the country, so I'm very excited about this trip. Before I got involved in my vocation in the church and seminary I spent some time (as well as my degree) in the landscaping field, so I'm always interested in checking out the physical landscape of a new place.

Outside of the little reading I've done, my classmate from Iceland, and all the "oh, did you know"'s that I've gotten when I tell someone I'm going there, I can't say that I know much more than that about our destination. So my first question for guiding my experience there is how the Lutheran Church differs in Iceland than from America. Are there things they do that are different from what we do, are there things we can learn, and how can that "we" be a more universal and collective Lutheran-Christian we?

I've spent about nine years living in the greater Washington D.C. area which is full of new immigrants and different cultures. Although our trip will only be a limited time of being tourists, I want to experience what it's like being immersed into a different culture. What does it feel like to be an outsider? How am I treated? I'm hoping that even a brief glimpse of this total immersion will help me to understand what immigrants into our country feel like and how we can minister with them. (Ok, so maybe a bit of a stretch, but a glimpse is all I can hope for!)

This is looking like it will be quite an experience, and I'm looking forward to it and meeting a whole bunch of new people. See you tomorrow!