Hello friends at St. Paul,

 It was great to see you at Christmas! We really enjoyed being able to be in town and visit with you. We're hoping to be able drop in more frequently this year. We'll see how it goes…. 
 
So far we've made it through three quarters of classes and Summer Greek. We're a couple weeks into the Spring quarter and, since I just received my grades for the Winter quarter, I thought I'd give an academic update. My grade point average is hovering around 3.6. It's better than it could be but, as a "closet overachiever", it’s a bit lower than I would prefer.

 I've successfully completed classes in Church History (I & II), which studied the Church from the apostolic age up to the dawn of the 16th century. The courses focused on the various doctrinal controversies that arose in those periods and how the Church came to define and defend doctrine through Creeds and Confessions. Classes in the gospels, Gospels (I & II), covered  Matthew, Mark, and Luke, with most of the work being focused on interpreting the texts, translating the original Greek, and learning to study the texts for teaching and preaching.  Liturgics (I), which I may have mentioned before, provided the history behind our forms of public Divine Service and gave us a chance to "perform" each of the orders of service so we wouldn't be completely ignorant of them and, hopefully, when we act as Liturgist during a service, don't disrupt the service for the congregation (or otherwise do anything inappropriate or silly). Homiletics (I) provided instruction in studying for, preparing, and delivering sermons. Dogmatics (I) provided systematic instruction concerning doctrine. I've also completed a course on Baptism, and a course discussing Missions and Evangelism.

 Those are the "main" graded courses on which our academic performance is judged. In addition to these, we study Greek Readings every quarter. We translate the Lectionary readings for each week and discuss how each text could be preached. Field Education is also continuing each quarter. I've frequently been the Liturgist on Sundays at New Hope in Ossian, Indiana, and have preached a couple of times so far. It must be going okay; the congregation hasn't thrown tomatoes or anything (yet).
 
This quarter I'm taking Homiletics II, Dogmatics II, Lutheran Confessions I, and Catechetics along with Greek Readings and Field Ed. I began another requirement in Field Ed this quarter. It's called "Institutional Ministry". I've been assigned to a nursing home where I am gaining experience in visiting, leading Bible studies, and holding "church" services for the residents. It reminds me of some of the things we did at Drake.
 
Okay, so there's the academic update: I'm passing and getting pretty good grades.
 
On the home front, Deb continues to work at the Fort Wayne Country Club and at Jo-Ann Fabrics selling Viking sewing machines. I'm still working at Sears in the tool department. The post-Christmas doldrums seem to be ending and customers are slowly returning to the stores. I've discovered that it's awfully hard to sell things to people when they're not there.
 
The house renovation is slowly moving along. Deb has been a wonder at hanging wallpaper; something I've never gotten the hang of. She's wrapped up her end in several rooms so I'm "holding things up" until I get a few more windows reglazed, refinished, and rehung. Fortunately, the pace each of us can work on it is about the same, so we're both keeping it moving. It's just moving really slowly. Fortunately we enjoy this kind of project. We're to the point where we've got more rooms done than we have left to do, so "victory" is in sight!
 
Spring is slowly starting to reveal itself around here. A few of our flowers are popping out of the ground but little has bloomed yet. We're slowly climbing into the 40's and 50's, but the wind still has quite a bit of the winter chill. 

We certainly appreciate your continued kindness toward us. We're moving into our second year here and your support continues to be a cause for thanksgiving. You remain in our prayers and we trust that our heavenly    Father will continue to bless and keep you in His grace through Christ Jesus our Savior.

Steve Hoerr
407 Arcadia Court
Fort Wayne, Indiana 46807
hoerrmail02@yahoo.com

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updated Marcht 2007