New York Mills hosted annual ALCA church convention

By Tucker Henderson

Reporter

Late June and the month of July were host to two large events put on by local churches and spiritual leaders with participation reaching many Christians in the area.

Apostolic Lutheran Church Convention

The Apostolic Lutheran Church of America (ALCA) held its annual business meeting and church convention in New York Mills. The convention was last held in the city in 2015 when the Spruce Grove congregation of Wolf Lake held it here. Before that, the NY Mills had last hosted the convention in 2003.

During the last few days of June and into July, the population of NY Mills doubled as Apostolic Lutherans from around the world congregated at the NY Mills school. Over 1,300 people registered in person at the school for the week of worship services, fellowship, and unity.

A total of 26 sermons were preached in five days, as well as countless hymns, prayers, scripture readings, as well as a call to communion that lasted nearly an hour. A new addition to the convention this year was a special music segment by the NY Mills congregation’s Sunday school members who sang songs to coincide with the convention’s theme “Jesus, be our Light.”

A convention with over 1,000 people certainly takes a crowd of volunteers and committee member Elma Keskitalo gave a conservative estimate at about 85 volunteers, though as she counted them she realized that number didn’t include quite everyone. A best guess at over 100 volunteers helped to make the event possible.

“It takes a lot of people,” said Keskitalo. “It’s a team effort. We had about 30 volunteers from Spruce Grove. There were a lot of people that did work that made it all come together. It did take a lot of volunteers, we’re grateful for them.”

Over 6,100 meals were served during the week-long meetings and services. Keskitalo said that the meal service was excellent and the line always moved very quickly, thanks to Barb Schultz who catered the event at the school cafeteria.

“I thought the school was very accommodating,” said Keskitalo. “Superintendent Novak was just tremendous. He put in a lot of extra hours. I’m just thrilled with the school and how things worked out.”

A highlight to the event was the Scandinavian group that arrived for the week. A total of 38 Christians from Norway, Sweden, and primarily Finland attended services as well as contributed their time and talents to the convention.

With special music in the Swedish language as well as two sermons spoken in Swedish and translated into English, the group proved to be an asset to the weekend. All of them were accommodated by local parish members and didn’t have to worry about finding a place to stay.

“They were a delight to have,” Keskitalo said. “We had 10 girls stay here and they were very pleasant.”

Bible Reading Marathon

The fourth annual Bible Reading Marathon also comprised a week of July as community members read the Bible from cover to cover. The marathon is part of the Bible Reading Ministries International, founded and run by Jess and Bonnie Roediger.

Roedigers were present at the NY Mills Marathon and lent their wisdom and their voices for the week-long scripture readings.

“Their leadership is greatly appreciated and we hope to continue doing the Marathon for years to come based on the foundation built by the Roedigers,” said Sandi Bentley, local coordinator. “We could not do it without our local team. Many thanks to them, what a joy it was to work with them.”

The local committee consists of Louise Amberg-Jokela, Mike Malone, Allan and Nancy Neuberger and Sandi Bentley. They are key in planning, preparing, setting up, and coordinating readings throughout the week.

“It was a very good week,” said Bentley. “People so faithful to come once they’ve committed to read, they’re there. The smile that’s on their faces as they leave, it’s really sweet.”

Readers ranged in age from nine to 90 according the Bentley. She said that there were 19 new readers this year out of a total of 55 readers, which is up from last year. There were 12 youth readers from age nine to 15. She said that there was about a third of the readers that were new this year.

“Every year we have new people, they’re not the same people by any means,” Bentley said. “One man came early on our first full day with his young son. Jon had seen our Bible Reading Marathon signage and came to see if we needed help reading. He said, ‘I couldn’t believe the Bible was being read in town. I came to see if you needed help.’

“Jon proceeded to read once or twice each day until Friday when he had to go to work for the weekend,” she continued. “This man grew up loving God, but slipped away for a good while. A few months ago he was drawn back to reading his Bible. We could see the joy of the Lord upon him every time he came to read. In addition, we introduced him to a local pastor, since he didn’t currently have a home church. We know that he has already visited this local church a couple of times. This was a powerful ‘divine connection.’”

Some of the younger readers came from as local as down the street, often coming to see what was going on in quiet NY Mills.

“There were some kids that had a lemonade stand 100 feet away from us,” said Bentley. “They were pretty regular at checking up to see if any of us wanted lemonade. We invited them to read and it ended up that four boys and a girl came and read that afternoon. The drawing of the Holy Spirit was on them that day for sure.”

Bentley said that the week went smoothly and the number of readers has increased again this year, including the number of youth readers from years past.

“We want to thank them for participating with unity of purpose,” said Bentley. “The smiles, the joy in participating, it was an uplift throughout the entire Marathon. I was overflowing myself just with feeling the love of God on it all that week.”