Spring 2020
Providing "home" for students in challenging times
“Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.”
Message of neighborly support, placed outside Bethesda’s “Parish House” - home of YDS students and of Luther House’s gathering space
Welcome from our new Student Leader
Hi y’all I hope you are staying safe in this strange time! My name is Patrick Chappel, and I am rising Sophomore in Davenport College, but most importantly I am the new Luther House Student Leader. At this moment I am currently back home in Columbus, Georgia which is about two hours south of Atlanta.
Being home in this time of change, I have really been reflecting on Luther House and the role it played in my first year, and I thought I’d share that with you. Coming to Yale for me came with so many challenges. It was a new environment unlike anything I’d known before, and I yearned for some experience that would conjure a semblance of being at home. That is where Luther House came into my life. I saw a poster in my old-campus dorm for something called “Taizé Prayer” and I decided to go. It was there, in the quiet of Battell Chapel that I found home. I found a community that was kind, welcoming, generous, and open. I came with the anxieties of a first-year, and I left feeling the calming presence of God.
The end of this year was not what I anticipated. Where I expected a joyful relief at the end of the year, I found anxiety about the future. However even amidst a pandemic, I remember the day I walked in for a Luther House event, and I’m reminded that the anxieties of life are always unexpected, but it is God who led me to Luther House when I sought a home and it is God who will lead me on to the next chapter of what has proven to be an unexpected college journey.
With that being said, Luther House means so much to me, and I am so happy I have the opportunity to serve this community. I look forward to working with all of you even as we are apart, and I would love to talk to you about anything! Feel free to send me an emailpatrick.chappel@yale.edu and we can Zoom away!
Taizé Prayer keeps uniting us
Life at Yale changed pretty quickly when we found out that students would not be returning from spring break. Amidst all the change and anguish, Taizé Prayer moved online and remained a calming refuge to relax and be present with faith. As we all began to grasp how quickly the world changed, it was so beautiful to see that the foundations of this community are strong!
Continuing to serve despite physical distance
In April, when the pandemic was hitting southern CT particularly hard, our very own Pastor Kari, Luther House alum Liz Ellis, and Yale College student Jamie Chan worked together (from across 12 time zones!) to raise money to deliver protective masks to the front line workers at Yale New Haven Health Systems. Renaissance College in Hong Kong (where Liz is a Communications Manager, and Jamie went to school before Yale) had a surplus of masks that they wanted to donate to a trustworthy non-profit in the US. So we set up a GoFundMe campaign to raise the money needed to ship the masks from Hong Kong to New Haven. The funds we raised went above and beyond our goal, so we were able to send even more masks than we originally anticipated; three thousand of them were shipped to our essential workers at YNHHS. Luther House is so proud to see our members and alumni living out Christ's commitment to compassion, love, and service!
LuMin at Yale
As many of you know, when we sold our building at 27 High Street in 2016, we kept the name "Luther House" for our Campus Ministry, with the idea that we had been known as the "Luther House Community" for quite a while, and that continuity was important. The three-story townhouse we sold became an off-campus residence house for Yale students. Much to our surprise, we found out last fall that those students were calling their building, "Luther House"! There were multiple incidents when the name of their house and the name of our Campus Ministry caused confusion.
Because this confusion has come to light just when our "student group" is going through an exciting reboot, we're thinking this is an opportune time to choose a name that fits us better. The leading contender is "LuMin Campus Ministry at Yale", taking on the name that the ELCA Campus Ministry Network chose when it was constituted five years ago. The name LuMin at Yale suggests that the ministry is indeed Lutheran, without saying that we are ALL people with Lutheran backgrounds. And it reminds us of the "illumination" of our learning and vocational formation at Yale, and of the light of Christ that guides us and the vibrancy of faith we are sharing with God's beloved world.
A message from Pastor Kari
Dear friends,
Don’t forget to wear a mask!
I hope you are doing well today and that you have found the resilient spirit you've needed to cope with all that the past few strange months have brought. I reach out to you today to offer my compassion for whatever is your pain and encouragement for your own hopes that God is working through us to bring healing, strengthen faith, and advance movements of anti-racism and justice.
I have way too much to say (!) but I'll stick to some gratitudinous basics. I'm so grateful the Spirit kept pouring out during the crazily disorienting second half of our Spring semester. Through online prayer, support-giving and grief-expressing conversation, and good old phone calls and emails, our community not only stayed together but truly grew stronger, in ways individual and collective.
I'm so grateful that Patrick has jumped into vibrant and effective leadership, that Bella is following her passion to start a new Bible Study in the fall, that Yale college and grad students are connecting with New Haven community members to form new ministries of service, that Liz and Jamie from halfway across the globe stepped up to impact the lives of the people of CT in our time of need!
And I'm filled to overflowing with inexpressible gratitude and still-incredulous grief as I mourn the death of Stephanie Sherry, Chairperson of our board and an amazing rock of faithful leadership and support for every day of my nine years at Yale, and for many years before I arrived. For those of you who have benefited from Stephanie's ministries among us, I invite you to share a word, a phrase, or a paragraph of memories, so we can honor her in a future e-news. Thank you. Your prayers are welcomed and your support deeply appreciated.
May Christ's fiery and passionate Spirit fill you to overflowing as you meet the challenges of today and plant seeds for the future…
Pastor Kari
Kari Henkelmann Keyl
University Lutheran Ministry of New Haven (Luther House)
Text/Call 203-200-7589
Stephanie S. (Scholz) Sherry
November 24, 1955 ~ March 24, 2020
I pray that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have the power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and how long and high and deep is the love of Christ. ~ Ephesians 3:17-18
