June 2004

Dear Friends in the faith,

Five weeks ago in Klaipeda, Lithuania, I celebrated my 56th birthday with friends and colleagues at Lithuania Christian College. One week later the movers came and picked up my “stuff”(packed with a lot of help from those friends) for the journey to Hohenbruch, near Berlin, Germany. Two days later I myself trekked off. One day after I arrived, the “stuff” got delivered and with the help of the congregation unloaded at the manse of the Reformed Church. I’ll be serving this tiny village congregation starting in October. On June 1, I flew to New Jersey, and on June 5 I began my fourth interpretation leave in 14 years of mission service by visiting with a delightful congregation in Decatur, Georgia. What, you may well ask, is going on?

Though the story is much longer than I can write about here, an epiphany from last May has been quite miraculously realized, and my immediate future looks considerably different than the past! By God’s design and grace, I have been given a leave of absence from the PC(USA) and Lithuania Christian College in order to pursue doctoral research and study in Germany. In order to afford this interesting venture, a half-time pastoral position in a small Reformed congregation has become available. Many of you remember Berlin Fellowship and its program; I shall be examining this piece of Presbyterian and East German church history, looking primarily at it from the East European perspective. Since there is no known written documentation, I’ll be conducting surveys and interviews with former participants from what was East Germany, doing “oral history” and compiling their thoughts, reflections, impressions, and evaluation. Many of these folks are dear friends, and I rejoice to think I’ll get to be “in their face” again! The small congregation I shall be serving is an eastern congregation as well, and could there be a better way for me to re-acculturate? God is good!

As I closed my office, packed boxes and foot lockers and suitcases in my apartment, hugged and bid farewell to both students and co-workers, I marveled at how quickly the years in Klaipeda had flown by and how deep my conviction is about mission service and ecumenical endeavors like the ministry at LCC and with the Reformed Church. The college has grown and changed immensely, but the ministry, a ministry of presence, is still the same—being with and for students in their education, in their preparation for life-long learning, in their trials and struggles, being with them in a Christ-like manner, welcoming, serving, loving, forgiving, encouraging, and rejoicing. As I delivered the baccalaureate address this May, I reminded graduates that as important and real as their studies and diploma are, the college is about far more, for it is about God in Jesus Christ, who is with and for all his children. Whether that was heard is another question, but I what I have witnessed in these years is that lives are being changed. Keep LCC in your prayers, please!

The Lithuania Evangelical Reformed Church and its young ministry team are ever on the growing edge, but these days are clear testimony to genuine growth and to increasing maturity, as well as to pressing challenges and to ministry yet to be fully realized. There is much for each of the congregations to do and many obstacles and roadblocks, but there are as many possibilities and opportunities. My work this last year with Sigita Svambariene and Gitana Gasiunaite (two newly ordained deacons) convinced me of this truth. Three times during the last nine months, the three of us met for prayer, study, and conversation. The meetings were never long enough, and it seemed we always just scratched the surface, but these times were a great encouragement to me and, I believe, to them as well. My departure was particularly difficult for Sigita, and I shall miss her and the privilege of walking with her as she serves the tiny Klaipeda congregation. On Mother’s Day, the children’s choir sang and, after reciting poems, gave flowers to all the moms in the congregation, me included! Sigita’s gifts with children are but one clear evidence of her call. Please pray for her, Gitana, and the pastors, for partnering ministry with churches from Germany and Sweden, and for daily wisdom and faithfulness.

I covet your prayers for my time of travel and interpretation, for some rest and relaxation, for the as yet unresolved question of a professor to work with, and for reading and study I have planned to do in the months ahead! I am thankful for your faithful support and care, and I look forward to seeing many of you in the days ahead and thanking you in person. My email address will stay the same for some time, the new street address after October 1 is:

Hohenbrucher Dorfstr. 9
Ortsteile Hohenbruch
D-16766 Kremmen
Germany

Grace and peace in Christ,

Jane Holslag
Mission Co-worker

The 2004 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p.338