Happy Summer from LuMin at Yale!

The picture shows two smiling people in the courtyard of Jonathan Edwards College at Yale; Pastor Kari is on the left, and Anne Northrup YC '22 is on the right, wearing her graduation cap.

Peace and joy to you and welcome to this Year-end Celebration edition of the LuMin eNews! Congrats to all of our students for succeeding through another year — never a small accomplishment — and especially loud-and-proud congratulations to our graduates, of Yale College and Yale Divinity School. Woohoo!

Pictured here with me is Anne Northrup, whose leadership and collaboration this past year have been vitally important to all of our ministries. Thanks be to God for you, Anne, and for your enthusiasm to share what you love about faith, to imagine the new things we could do, and then work to make them happen.

And thanks be to God for YOU, dear reader, for cheering us on and joining in our celebration. Enjoy the words and pictures below which only begin to tell all the joys these past months have brought. As heartbreaking as it is to say goodbye to students who've been such a big part of our lives, it's also wonderfully rewarding to join them in their deep gladness, eager to see how the Spirit will continue to work through them in the world.

Pastor Kari

~Kari Henkelmann Keyl

Campus Pastor for LuMin at Yale

What a year it has been...

Vicar Kurt is a tall white man with short blonde hair. He is shown hear preaching from a book, wearing a pastor's uniform.

Two masked people are shown in a blurry photo taken in the basement of Bethesda Lutheran Church. Anne Northrup YC '22 is on the left, wearing a Jonathan Edwards shirt. Vicar Kurt is on the right. Both are waving and wearing face masks.

Vicar Kurt smiles goofily behind a table littered with hot chocolate, cups, and Advent calendars. He is bundled up with a Carolina Panthers hat, and the image is captioned "Hot Chocolate and Advent Calendars on Cross Campus!!"

Five LuMin members stand behind a table, which contains bagels, cream cheese, and coffee. It is a sunny day, and the picnic tables behind the five people are busy with lunchtime New Haven diners.

Wow.

The one word that comes to mind when reflecting on this year. Wow in the sense that there is so much that has happened. Wow in that we managed to do so many things this year in modified, safe, and yet still incredibly meaningful ways. Wow in that we have made it to the end of the year! Wow my heart is full. It has been such a joy and privilege to be a part of the LuMin Community this year as the vicar, or intern. This community has provided me a wonderful space to nurture my own spiritual life and also for me to live into my pastoral identity in new ways. I have enjoyed the friendships that have formed from this place and will continue to carry them with me into the future. It has been such fun to learn the wonderfully unique things that make Yale, Yale. I will forever have a soft spot in my heart for the Bulldogs, wherever I go. Wow. What a blessing this community has been to me, and to so many others. God is indeed at work here in our midst!

Vicar Kurt

~Kurt Saenger-Heyl

ELCA Intern Pastor, Wartburg Seminary

Two occasions to bless, honor, and celebrate

Patrick Chappel YC '23.5 takes a selfie containing nine LuMin students and clergy. They are sitting on blankets covering green grass sharing in a meal of sandwiches and brownies.

The image shows a banner pinned to wood. The banner is black with golden images of a diploma and a graduation caps, and it reads in the font of the TV show Friends, "Season: 20. Episode: 22. The one where they graduate."

One event couldn't capture all the celebrating we wanted to do! First came our final Taizé Prayer of the semester, full of our favorite songs and beautiful words of prayer. Then we gathered around all who would be graduating and going through transitions, and raised a hand of blessing over them, giving thanks for all God had done through them in our midst and at Yale. (See "A Prayer for You" below for a bit more on this time of blessing and sending).

Our after-prayer conversation time is always sweet, but this one was an especially meaningful time. After handing out gifts to the grads, we circled up for a time of sharing memories from the past year and how much this community of prayer and friendship meant to us.

Then we gathered again on the last day of finals, picnicking in a sunny spot on Cross Campus, in front of Sterling Library. We laughed a lot, gobbled up a delicious lunch, and shared what was next for us, this summer and beyond. The picnic really served as a nice bow on what was, by all accounts, an awesome year for our community.

More pictures, more joys!

Four smiling people are pictured standing in front of a cross. One is Pastor Kari, and two are wearing graduation caps and gowns; it is the day of their graduation ceremony from Yale Divinity School.

Pastor Kari and Vicar Kurt smile alongside Jenny, a LuMin member who has just graduated from YDS. She is wearing her graduation gown, and the sun is shining on all three of them. Jenny is a white woman with long, blonde hair.

Three men smile on a sunny day in front of Sterling Memorial Library in New Haven. They all wear caps, gowns, and sashes. Two wear colleges that say "Morse College," and the other wears a Yale African American Cultural House sash.

Two people smile on a sunny day; on the left is a tall man wearing a graduation robe, and on the right is a shorter, female-presenting person wearing a black shirt and black and white skirt.

Four young people smile indoors. They are celebrating a graduation; one of the four wears a cap and gown.

Thank you for the support!

We have been and continue to be blessed by the support we receive from the great LuMin community - including you! Whether it's through engagement, donations, or prayers, we are grateful for the role that you play to support this essential ministry!

If you'd like to make a donation, consider using the options below! We appreciate any form of support you can provide us as it enables us to continue to do meaningful ministry with and for Yale students.

A quick way for you to support LuMin is to click on the "Donate" button on the top right-hand corner of your screen to donate with credit card or via PayPal.

If you would prefer to donate by check, they can be mailed to:

LuMin at Yale

305 Saint Ronan Street

New Haven, CT 06511

A Prayer for You

At the close of our last worship gathering of the academic year, we stood in a half-circle around our grads, all raising a hand of blessing, feeling the Spirit's presence powering us forward. We don't have a picture from that holy moment in time, but we can give you the words of prayer we spoke to our dear graduating friends. Whether these words are new to you or are "old faithful friends," we offer them to you, for your own holy moment…

O God, you have called your servants to ventures

of which we cannot see the ending,

by paths as yet untrodden, through perils unknown.

Give us faith to go out with good courage, not knowing where we go,

but only that your hand is leading us and your love supporting us;

through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

(To learn about the origins of this prayer written by Eric Milner-White, listen to this seven minute Holden Village podcast).

Summer 2022