Intern's News

Happy Advent and Merry Christmas!

Thank you members and friends of Trinity Lutheran Church for helping to make the beginning of my time here in Victoria, Texas fun and exciting. I have certainly enjoyed meeting all of you and finding my own place here in the ministries of the congregation.

Having said that, I do admit that I have been struggling with homesickness since arriving here. Being so far away from both my family in Virginia and my seminary classmates in South Carolina has been harder than I thought it would be when I first arrived here. That’s mainly why I have decided to take a week of vacation for the Christmas holidays and fly home to Edinburgh, Va. After celebrating Christmas Eve with all of you, I will fly out from Austin on Christmas Day and get to Dulles airport that evening.

Since coming here to Victoria, my parents back in Virginia have recently bought a new small house right in the middle of the tiny town of Edinburgh. I know the town well but haven’t seen the house yet, so I’m excited to go home and see how they have moved in. My sister, Erica, who has just finished her final academic semester of college, and will be starting student teaching in January, is home for the holidays as well. Her fiancé, Bryan, works with my dad, who is in charge of the kitchen of a local restaurant. My mom is a Lutheran pastor, and serves a country parish that is 250 years old and has an average attendance of fifty on a Sunday.

My mom and dad, sister and my future brother-in-law are all ecstatic that I will be home for Christmas, and are already planning fun family activities. My sister and I will probably go on a date together to the local tea-shop around the corner, owned by a British family, where they serve hot tea, scones and crumpets. My dad, I’m sure, will want to take me on a tour of the restaurant and show me how much he’s done to the place since I’ve been gone. My mother will probably persuade me to watch her favorite Christmas movies with her. Overall, my time spent at home will probably be taken over mostly by wedding plans. Serving as my sister’s maid of honor, we are going to try to knock out as many details about her May wedding as possible while I am home.

After we’ve spent a few days in Edinburgh celebrating Christmas together, I’m sure we’ll pile into one car and head south fifty miles to a town called Waynesboro where my mother’s parents live. Many of you know that my grandmother is fighting lung cancer, so I will be anxious to see her as well while in Virginia.

At the end of my visit with my family, I hope to come back to all of you here in Victoria, Texas on January 3rd, refreshed from a week’s vacation, and ready to jump back into ministry here at Trinity Lutheran Church. I hope all of you have an equally amazing Christmas holiday, and I look forward to hearing all about it once I return!

God’s Peace, Intern Kristen Van Stee