To Answer The Call

Rachel Perkins and Nkosinathi "Nathi" Gama, live half a world apart, Perkins in Chicago, Gama in the Kingdom of eSwatini, a small nation in southern Africa that many Americans still know by its former name, Swaziland. Perkins, a second-year seminarian at the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago, was expecting to pick up Gama, her boyfriend, at O'Hare International Airport Saturday, a joyous Thanksgiving reunion after months apart. Then everything went horribly wrong. Now, the two are back to living 14,000 miles apart with no idea when they will be able to visit together. Saturday, Perkins, her parents, Terry and Karin Perkins of Janesville, Wis., and another seminarian, doctoral student Rev. Francisco Herrera, went to the airport to pick up Gama, the first person she met in country during her volunteer Young Adults in Global Mission year in Swaziland with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America from August 2018 to July 2019. As soon as her YAGM year was up, Perkins r...

We've reached Reading Week, the midpoint of the Fall 2020 semester. The middle of the very beginning, as it is. If seminary were a marathon, this would be mile 1.6. Hardly breaking a sweat. The reality is that the sweat is pouring off this now 57-year-old seminarian's body, and my mind regularly tells me I won't make it to May 2024. Aiming to be a pastor when I should be starting to anticipate retirement is foolhardy. Taking master's classes online, two hours ahead of my classmates, is maddening. Attending seminary while a pandemic rages around us is preposterous. Doing all three is laughable, but it is where God called me to be. So, there we are. Milepoint 1.6. Gulping water and an energy gel as I repeat my mantra: "You can do this -- just keep moving." The truth is, other than the time zone, there is no big difference. The pandemic has every first-year seminarian taking classes online. Honestly, living at home has its advantages over moving to a new place, b...