Endowment committee approves support for Christine Vincent

The St. Paul Endowment Committee recently approved tuition support for Christine Vincent, a seminary student who is a St. Paul member and former youth ministry intern. Below is a portion of the letter she wrote to the committee.

I am a seminarian at Lutheran Theological Southern Seminary, LTSS, in Columbia, S.C. I live in an on-campus apartment, and prior to COVID-19, worked in the campus library. This year has looked much different than my previous one, with all classes being held online via Zoom. We certainly miss being in the classroom but are learning to adapt.

I just started my second year working as the youth ministry associate at St. Andrew’s Lutheran Church in Columbia. I run a middle school and high school youth group, help teach confirmation, lead a monthly high school girls’ Bible study, teach weekly Sunday school, among other things. The positivity rate in Columbia continues to hover around 15 percent, so we have not resumed in-person worship.

LTSS is the only ELCA seminary which requires the study of both Greek and Hebrew. I studied Hebrew my entire first year and began learning Greek this past summer. I have very much enjoyed learning to read biblical texts in their original languages.

My Clinical Pastoral Education, CPE, program for this past summer was cancelled, due to COVID-19. I am currently discerning whether it would be wise to do CPE this summer and then immediately do an internship the following fall. I am leaning toward doing a fourth-year internship, rather than a third-year internship. I am so grateful for St. Paul’s continued support. I continue to brag about my home congregation, most people at LTSS are pretty blown away by the size of St. Paul and the variety of programming y’all are able to offer.

Thanks for all you do.