This past week students at the seminary received their vicarage/intern assignments. Graduating students received their first calls.  Now many students know ahead of time where they are going.  However, formerly we did not.  At least I didn’t; thus, it was exciting to discover that my vicarage would be in Oshawa, Ontario.  During my interview for my first call I was asked about being a missionary abroad.  I said, that I was pretty much a Midwesterner.  All I wanted was a place with a college, so Becky could finish her degree.  She had spent the past year at Cape Girardeau.  My first call was to Winona, MN which had three colleges.  A catholic men’s school and St. Theresa’s was for women.  However, Winona also had Winona State.   As it turned out Becky did not complete her degree until after she had born four children and by then we were in Marshfield, Wi.  She finished her degree at UW Stevens Point.

This past Sunday Philip, not one of the apostles, received a call, to Gaza, the desert road south of Jerusalem. (Acts 8:26-40)   He spotted the treasurer to the queen of Ethiopia in a chariot headed back to Africa.  At the Holy Spirit’s urging, Philip approached the chariot, discovered the man was reading Isaiah and needed some one to tell him what he was reading.  The result was that the man was baptized.  He went on his way rejoicing and the Spirit whisked Philip away to preach the gospel along the Mediterranean coast.