Cowboy Hat and Boots

Dancing at a Hoedown

    "Where are you going next year?"  A question asked many times about what comes next after year two for a seminarians?  "So do you get to pick or they just place you wherever?"  Then, I always explain how I have no idea and that churches apply to our school and then we interview with them and then we rank each other and then someone decides and we find out... they have usually wished they never asked and look as disinterested as I am in explaining it all again, but as of a week ago something changed.  Someone did decide, and I will be spending a year in Austin, Texas as the intern or Vicar (fancy word used more in my Lutheran Church Missouri Synod (LCMS) days) for First English Lutheran Church.  I was so nervous to find out, that I scheduled myself to work so that I would not be around to find out.  But I had my classmate Chris pick up my envelope and text me where I would be.  I remember sitting at work knowing that the time was right around the corner and as I was in the middle of doing something I felt my phone buzz and I felt a chill come over me.  I slowly drew my phone out of my pocket and there it said simply and plainly...First English Austin, Texas... there was no congrats or you are at... but rather it was just the words I needed.  I felt so confused and excited, I thought surely someone else should have, would have gotten this site.  Or, maybe Chris is playing a joke, but really he is not that mean and he has not said anything else.  I excuse myself and call a couple key family and friends to get the weight off my chest a little and text my supervisor at the church I work at now and a couple of others I wanted in the know.  Then I worked the rest of my 5 hours knowing my fate for the year.  Since a week has passed since that crazy day, I have been answering those questions with a new found confidence..."Austin, Texas."  To which now I hear, "Better pack your cowboy hat and boots..."