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	July 1, 2005 .................... LCMSNews -- No. 49

	71 new missionaries to begin work in 20 countries

	By Paula Schlueter Ross

	Ryan Tinetti, 22, has a year to kill before entering Concordia
Seminary, St. Louis, in fall 2006. A recent graduate of Michigan State
University, East Lansing, Tinetti is waiting a year so that he can begin
seminary studies with a friend who's a year younger.

	So, Tinetti, who finds himself "overwhelmed by God's grace and
the message of the Gospel" at this point in his young life, has
volunteered with LCMS World Mission to teach English in Bangkok,
Thailand, for eight months.

	"What better way to use my time than to serve the Lord?" he
asks.

	That sentiment is shared by more than 70 LCMS missionaries --
almost all of them long-term volunteers, like Tinetti -- who are
beginning their service in 20 countries this year. That's about double
the number of new, long-term volunteers -- those who serve six months or
longer -- as last year, according to Kurt Buchholz, director of
personnel services with LCMS World Mission. But not as many as he'd like
to see.

	"Our goal is to ramp up to 400 new long-term volunteer
missionaries in the next few years," Buchholz said.

	Only four of this year's 71 new missionaries are not long-term
volunteers. Rev. Ken and Jen Lieber have been called by the mission
board as "career" missionaries to the Cayman Islands. Another couple,
Jon and Julie Muhly, will be serving two years in Moscow, Russia, along
with their 3-month-old son, David, as Jon fulfills a two-year vicarage
leading to continued missionary service.

	Jon Muhly, 27, is a student in the "mission track" at Concordia
Seminary, St. Louis, and is no stranger to overseas mission work. He and
Julie served LCMS World Mission as volunteer missionaries in Poland from
2000 to 2002 -- "one of the wisest things I've ever done," Jon says.
Because of that experience, he now sees everything "through
mission-tinted glasses," he says, particularly seminary classes, which
now have a "real and practical" mission focus.

	Volunteer missionaries "provide a unique set of gifts and
talents to support the strategies and work of our career staff and our
partner churches," said Buchholz. A variety of service opportunities are
available as teachers, pastors, medical professionals, business
managers, and construction workers.

	Likewise, volunteer mission service gives individual Lutherans
and their congregations opportunities to become more directly involved
in mission, he said.

	Rev. Rex Rinne, pastor of Celebration Lutheran Church in
Appleton, Wis., is taking a year's sabbatical so that he and his wife,
Linda, can teach at a Lutheran high school in Slovakia. The couple, who
are in their mid-50s, served the school and its students on several
short-term mission trips in the '90s and are anxious to return, they
said.

	"We fell in love with the people," said Rex, along with "the
challenges and the opportunities that this school has to impact the
lives of Slovakians." Many students at the school are "unchurched," he
said.

	Adds Linda: "It's a great opportunity to model and share the
love of Jesus Christ with the faculty, the students, and the people of
that community."

	Rex said he also appreciates his congregation's support and
willingness to make do without him. "They're tithing with their pastor,"
he said.

	The vast majority of volunteer missionaries -- both long- and
short-term -- teach English-as-a-second-language (ESL) or serve as
"relationship builders" in conversational English classes, according to
Buchholz. Requirements for service include active membership in an LCMS
congregation and, for most positions, a college degree in any field.

	An orientation for new missionaries, held June 12-24 at
Concordia University, St. Paul, Minn., involved 56 missionaries who took
part in worship, Bible study, community-building exercises, ESL
training, and instruction in such things as staying healthy, finances
and fund-raising, moving overseas, maintaining emotional well-being, and
talking about Jesus in cross-cultural settings.

	Most important of all, perhaps, is their willingness to serve
God by becoming "personally involved in the Great Commission's challenge
that the Gospel message be proclaimed to the ends of the earth,"
Buchholz said.

	For more information about missionary service, visit the
www.lcmsworldmission.org <http://www.lcmsworldmission.org>  or contact a
world mission placement counselor at (800) 433-3954 or
mission.recruitment@lcms.org .

	***************************************

	PLEASE NOTE:
	The next convention of the Lutheran Women's Missionary League is
in Sioux Falls, S.D., not Sioux City, S.D., as given in LCMSNews release
No. 48 of June 30.

	***************************************

	If you have questions or comments about this LCMSNews release,
contact Joe Isenhower Jr. at joe.isenhower@lcms.org or (314) 996-1231,
or Paula Schlueter Ross at paula.ross@lcms.org or (314) 996-1230.

	***************************************

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