August 17, 2007

Galilee Lutheran Women's Guild

Joan Carter

1934 Harbor Drive Chester, MD 21619

Dear Joan:

Greetings in Christ! My name is Phillip Borntrager, a student at Concordia Theological Seminary in Fort Wayne, Indiana and by this letter I want to express my thanks and appreciation to you and the Women's Guild at Galilee Lutheran Church for adopting me as a student. As a second career student who no longer has an income I really appreciate your consideration and this decision you have made.

I was told that you had an information sheet on my background so I will append to that by updating you on my recent seminary experiences. During the month of May I worked on and completed the Old Testament correspondence course which was a pre-seminary requirement. I then moved to Fort Wayne Indiana and began the summer Greek course at CTS which is also a pre-seminary requirement. This course was a very challenging, intense, fast paced course that forced me to re-learn how to study in an efficient manner. Today was the last day of this pass/fail class. I passed and was fortunate enough to get an "A" on the final exam. My teacher, Dr. Nordling, showed great passion for Greek as well as compassion and interest in his students. Our class had the tutoring services of a brilliant fellow student named Peter Brock who would also do anything to help us learn Greek. I gained many friends as we had close to 40 students in our Greek class. We Greek students also had daily worship services at Kramer Chapel. A typical day would be to have a Matins service before class, a Morning Offices service after class followed by a Vespers service in mid-afternoon. To hear the men's choir and the students singing in the Morning Offices with the great acoustics in the Chapel was just awesome. My next task is to complete my last pre-seminary requirement, the New Testament correspondence course, during my three week break between Greek and the start of fall quarter in September. This fall I will be taking courses in: Gospels I (Matthew), Dogmatics I, Liturgies I, Church History I and a Greek readings class. I will also start field work at a local congregation this fall.

My email address is: phillip.borntrageragmail.com Feel free to give me your email address as another method of correspondence. God will bless those who help His children. May God bless your congregation with all you need to proclaim the love of Christ to everyone!

Sincerely,

Phillip A. Borntrager

CONCORDIA THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY
PHILLIP A. BORNTRAGER
6600 N CLINTON ST, CAMPUS BOX 328
FORT WAYNE IN 46825