“And God has appointed in the church first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then miracles, then gifts of healing, helping, administrating, and various kinds of tongues” (1 Corinthians 12:28). In the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod we are not only blessed with hundreds of thousands of laywomen who do so much to keep our churches going, but we also have talented ladies who have chosen to become professional church workers. At our LCMS seminaries these women examine the Holy Scriptures, peruse the Lutheran Confessions, learn Greek and Hebrew, and of course also study the social sciences necessary to minister to a wide range of people. The Church and indeed the world would be a much poorer place without our deaconesses. This past Sunday about a dozen missionaries and church workers from the LCMS and our local sister church (SELK) met in Berlin to take our ministry to Persian immigrants in Germany to the next level. Our host was the “godfather” of Persian ministry in Germany, Rev. Dr. Gottfried Martens. The goal of The Persian Project, as we have called it, is daunting yet simple: to *Make Persia Christian*, God willing. As such, we will continue to reach out to Iran and Afghanistan through the Internet and via their expatriate citizens whom we baptize and catechize here in Germany, and who in turn share Jesus with their friends and families back home. Among other things, we discussed how we can translate even more Lutheran materials into Farsi and unify the wording of our Farsi-language Divine Services. This brings me to our multi-talented deaconess and fellow LCMS missionary Kim Bueltmann (pictured). Not only does Kim speak Farsi and German, but she is also a talented musician and the backbone of the Persian ministry at Leipzig’s St. Luke Lutheran Church (SELK). Under Kim’s leadership, we worked out unified verbiage for the baptismal rite in Farsi which we will use across Germany and beyond. Praise God for marvelous deaconesses like Kim who is indeed blessed with so many of the gifts St. Paul cites in 1 Corinthians 12.
The Tiews in Germany 