NALC Missionary to visit St. John's–Vilmar

St. John's Lutheran Church-Vilmar will host Pastor James Puotyual and his wife, Nyandit, of Des Moines, on Sunday, Nov. 4.
     Pastor James will be present during the Sunday School hour, which begins at 8:45 a.m., to talk with the children and anyone else who would like to join. He also will speak and participate in the 10 a.m. worship service. A potluck dinner will follow the service to give members and visitors of the congregation an opportunity to meet and speak with Pastor James.
     Pastor James was commissioned as the newest Global Worker (Missionary) of the North American Lutheran Church (NALC) at the NALC's annual Convocation in August of this year. He and his wife, Nyandit, will leave in January 2019, to serve as missionaries to South Sudanese refugees living in Gambella, Ethiopia. This ministry is a partnership between the NALC, the Ethiopian Evangelical Church-Menake Yesus (EECMY, a full-communion partner of the NALC), and the Lutheran Church of South Sudan.
     Natives of Sudan, who have lived in the United States for the last 24 years, Pastor James and Nyandit are in many ways, returning "home" to minister to their own people. He was ordained as a pastor in the NALC in 2015, and since that time has served as a minister to African immigrants in the St. Cloud, Minnesota area. More recently, Pastor James served an internship through Zion Lutheran Church in Des Moines, where he worked with ministries to Sudanese immigrants to the Des Moines area.
 
Read more in the October 25 edition of the STAR or TRIBUNE.