Hey folks! I am privileged to be writing to you from Eisenach, Germany, the town where Martin Luther was actually held as a knight (yes, like with shining armor) for 1 year while he hid from people who were out to kill him for being not so agreeable with the Roman Catholic Church. This week has been an incredible experience. Right now I am finishing my second class, history and theology of the Reformation, so after spending last week studying day and night about the Reformation, this week we get to travel to some of the sites where those things happened!
In brief summary, the week started out last Saturday with going to Dresden (east Germany) which holds an impressive collection of art from all over Germany, we then went to Berlin for the afternoon and saw the Deutsches Historical Museum there, later that day we traveled to Wittenberg and visited Luther’s house, the church he preached at, and the church he nailed the 95 theses to, and then after a couple days in Wittenberg we traveled to Erfurt and saw Luther’s monastery.
It’s been a thrilling experience to see all of these things; to walk where Luther did; to learn about and see how he lived. The Reformation was 500 years ago, so it’s easy to become detached from those events that have shaped our faith today, but we should not loose sight of where we came from. It’s been good to get a little more attached to those events by seeing the places. Just as we can’t comprehend what WW2 was like without talking to our grandparents and seeing the battlefields, it’s difficult to comprehend the Reformation without doing these things. In that way this has been a huge blessing.
I praise God for the chance to be here. If you haven’t experienced a different culture I would highly advise it! It has been a humbling thing to realize how little I know. It’s also easy to start to think that one’s own culture is better than the others. I was surprised to discover how much that had become my own thought, but in reality there are tens of thousands of cultures in this world that all view life very diversely and they are all equal and loved by our God.
Blessings,
Ken
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