Dear Bishops Mark and Marie,

It is so good to write to you both since I pray regularly for you personally and at worship. I am grateful for your dedicated service in a challenging time for our church and our relations with others. I realize the LWF Assembly approaches rapidly. Darhon and I arrive in Frankfurt a week from today. Marie and others from our synod leave for Zimbabwe and Zambia in a few short weeks.

I will be preaching in Talheim, Mössingen, Germany Sunday, July 25. I have been writing Pastor Matthias Wagner. I sent him a copy of my sermon (in English) so he could better prepare a German translation. I realized late last night that I wanted to share an excerpt from that sermon with you since it tells a bit of my family connection to LWF that had lain dormant in my memory. I guess I had not realized how my family history might have influenced my global connection and passion for our sisters and brothers in other Lutheran churches. The spiritual connection has always just seemed right. As you pray for the LWF assembly I also ask your prayers for me as I will be the Recorder for the English speaking Village Group 2 and its challenging topics. I continue to pray for you in your ministries. The sermon excerpt follows:

Some youth here today are taking a step toward their confirmation. They receive a copy of the Holy Bible. You have heard stories from your families. You will hear more stories of faith from your pastor, from your family and the family of God as you prepare for your confirmation. Stories of faith are important. That is part of caring for one another.

This links to part of my heritage. For many years my father's mother, my Oma, served as the church secretary in Toledo, Ohio for the Rev. Dr. S. C. Michelfelder. In 1945 and 1946 he headed the ecumenical office of postwar construction in Geneva. He helped establish the LWF and became its first general secretary. I heard from my family of his passion of Lutherans caring for each other.

At the end of the war people came to him saying, "Let the government feed the starving people of Europe and let the Church get the Gospel going again."

He replied, "You don't walk up to a starving man and offer him a Bible to eat - or you don't go out to a river where a man is drowning, with only one hand showing, and stick a Bible in his hand and go away and let somebody else pull him out. Christ himself fed the 5,000 and then he taught them."

In Christ's service,
Paul Rees-Rohrbacher

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