It was a cold day in late autumn that Jim and I were out in the woods, each of us operating a snarling chain saw that was biting and chewing its way through one tree trunk after another. These chunks would feed his mother's hungry wood stove over the long, cold winter. Jim and his wife had started attending our church that year, and we'd developed a close friendship. After an hour or so of cutting wood, we took a break and sat on our wood pile, watching the first big flakes of snow drifting down through the trees. "Isn't God a wonderful artist?" I said to Jim. "Yeah, he sure is," he answered. After a moment of silence, Jim said, "You know Gaylan, for much of my life I've been mad at God, but I'm not mad at Him any more." He told me the story of his years of wrestling with God, how God's love had broken through his resistance, and then he announced that he had come to believe God's message for himself. He now wanted to follow Jesus as His disciple. The Words and Wounds of Christ had profoundly touched Jim's life.

At your Lutheran Brethren Seminary, it is our prayer that the "Words and Wounds of Christ will shape students to serve as evangelical Lutheran Brethren pastors and workers in God's Kingdom." We trust that all of us are part of God's answer to that prayer. How have we been doing?

Although its history dates back to 1903, since 1970 your seminary has graduated over 250 people in certificate, diploma and degree programs. These graduates have gone out into congregations and ministries in North America, Taiwan, Japan, Cameroon and Chad in Africa in direct ministries of the Church of the Lutheran Brethren. But our graduates have also served through other organizations such as World Mission Prayer League, the United Bible Society, The Navigators, the Association of Free Lutheran Congregations, the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America and many other ministries. LBS graduates serve God's mission near and far around the world, and the Lord is using them to make an eternal difference in the lives of millions.

For example, LBS graduates have a history of holding positions of leadership in the Church at large: Dr. Leslie Stennes, whose publications are standard resources for today's students of linguistics, translated the Bible into the Fulfulde language (spoken by 12 million Africans) and helped establish written languages for 12 other West African oral tongues. Our Lutheran Brethren missionaries produced full Bibles in four languages (out of the total 450 Bibles that have existed to date) and many New Testaments (with four more now in progress). Former CLBA president, Robert Overgaard, is also a past president of the Evangelical Foreign Missions Association (Overgaard and Stennes also partnered in pioneering the use of computers in translation work through their ministry/business, Worldwide Computer Typesetters, setting type for many languages in Africa and South America), and his brother Wilfred opened a new work in Thailand for World Evangelization Crusade. Now retired, Major General G.T. Gunhus served our country as Chief of Chaplains in Washington, D.C. After 25 years of Air Force chaplaincy, Rev. Darrell Morton is now assistant to the Presiding Bishop for Federal Chaplaincy Ministries with the ELCA in Washington, D.C; Dr. Richard Erickson directed Fuller Theological Seminary's regional center program in Seattle and now teaches there as a professor of New Testament; Dr. Jonathan Lunde teaches New Testament studies at Talbot Theological Seminary. Certainly there are other graduates who have made similar contributions, and could also be mentioned.

For every one of these names, however, there are dozens of other faithful, trained workers who daily give their lives to the service of the gospel as pastors, elders, trustees, teachers, carpenters, restaurant managers and numerous other vocations. Our aims as a seminary are that our students will grow in understanding God's teaching in Holy Scripture, that they will grow in ministry skills and attitudes and that they will develop Christ-like character shaped by the Word.

We give thanks to the Lord of the Harvest who works through all of our graduates to encourage and prepare God's people to grow in their walk with Christ, that our churches might clearly proclaim to a lost and dying world, through their words and actions, the transforming message of salvation in Christ alone. As LBS endeavors to be a biblical, learning community in the service of this gospel, we rejoice in the fact that with you we inherit the promise given to Abraham, to be sent as a blessing of God's grace to all nations: locally, nationally and internationally.

Gaylan Mathiesen, Ph.D., is Professor of Mission and Evangelism of Lutheran Brethren Seminary in Fergus Falls, MN.