By Joy Lingerfelt, associate in ministry and music leader, Holy Trinity Lutheran Church, Port Angeles

This past fall I was one of 16 church musicians and pastors in the ELCA who traveled to Germany to seen where Martin Luther lived.

The trip was a whilrwind tour of Leipzig, Halle, Lutherstadt Wittenberg, Berlin and Graefenhinichen, and was filled with worship services, devotionals, walking tours and museums. In our jet-lagged voices, we joined together as friends we'd not met before, and sang "Wake, Awake, for Night is Flying."

In this day when Christianity is maybe 18 percent of the world population, and Lutheranism is a small percentage of that, our trip was an opportunity to learn more about Luther and his surrounds, as well as the the people that partnered with Luther in creating the Reformation.

It is all in a part of Germany that we knew as East Germany, and most of the Lutheran population has not had much opportunity to visit it in a way the Romans have had pilgrimage to Rome. But now the government of Germany as well as the Church there recognize that the 500th anniversary of Martin Luther is soon upon us, and, unlike the celebration at 400 years where only Germans were welcomed, they are inviting the world to come, see, and develop a greater understanding of this heritage.

Wittenberg, where Martin Luther and Katie lived, preached, made beer, and held the famous Table Talks, is under much construction, the result of large grants by the German government to restore, rebuild, and make available to all the many sights related to the Reformation. Our Sunday worship at the Castle Church (where the 95 theses were hung) included a full service with communion. While our calendar called it Christ the King Sunday, in Germany it is the All Saint's Sunday. Many people in the village were there to worship, and remember the saints that have died in the past year, much like we do. While the service was in German, the sermon had been translated in advance for us. But the hymns, prayers, and creed were not translated, and we all knew "where we were." We had a tour of the new Luther Garden, just outside the Castle's archeological dig, under the direction of Hans Kasch- Global Missions, ECLA.

Our walking tour included the famous Luther House which is notably the finest museum of Reformation history. There we saw the first German Bible (translated not from the Roman's Latin but from the Greek and other original languages), and one of the early song-books. Our tour took us also to the City Church (St. Mary's), where Luther preached, where the congregation was invited to sing a hymn for the first time, and where the Mass was first spoken in the language of the people. Our tour included many other sights, taking us back to the Castle Church, where we all sang A Mighty Fortress around Luther's grave. We walked the city streets where people cried out in large crowds to have confirmation classes.

But our tour included far more contemporary sights, as well ... such as St Nicholas church in Leipzig, where the cry for peace ultimately grew so loud, in 1989, that the wall came down in Berlin. At that time, inside the church was the only place where one could safely speak openly of the discord and oppression of the government. A church Reforming even then.

We learned of the secular confirmation that had been imposed on young people - any person that participated in the church's confirmation classes was banned from future employment or college attendance. Instead, a very unrelated series of events were held for all of the young people to attend. Had the socialist government been able to continue even just another 10 years, all memory of the Gospel might have been completely wiped away from the population.

And we saw something of life in the 1700s as well. Just a few blocks away from the St. Nicholas Church is the famed St. Thomas Church, which had been bombed significantly in world war II, and still it was rebuilt to afford the opportunity to hear the musical works of J.S. Bach as he had iknown them.

Perhaps it is time for some of us as a parish to visit these sights and become more keenly aware of our heritage. Certainly it is an appropriate time to consider our identity as Lutherans, maybe now more than ever, as to know where we are from is an important part in knowing who we are. Yes, these are hard economic times, but coming to stand on the ground in these places would do much to enrich us all.

To better portray what we all saw, I will present a slide show of the photos that I took, along with some commentary, within a few weeks. For the time being, let us continue our preparations to face the Christ Child being born into our midst! Wake, awake! The night is flying!

Pax,

Joy

Pictured: Joy Lingerfelt at THE door.