Pastor Dorothy L. Sand - Member of Holy Trinity

During the pandemic Dorothy reconnected with Holy Trinity and since then has attended worship and other online events, including the Wednesday morning study.

I grew up in what is now called the Lakeview area of Chicago on Racine Avenue around the corner from Holy Trinity Lutheran Church.

In the 1950s and 1960s, this church formed me, nurtured me, and was my sanctuary from a chaotic home life. My earliest memory is Sunday School at age six or seven. We had a teacher who was a college student, I had never met a college student. I admired him and in turn, he gave me the confidence that I might someday also go to college.

Eleven years later I did go to college, thanks to the benevolence funds from what was then the LCA (Lutheran Church in America). I attended Carthage College in Kenosha, WI. I chose Carthage mostly because while I was attending Lakeview High School, our Lutheran League had attended college football games there.

I was confirmed at Holy Trinity along with my very best friends. We were a tight-knit group of teens, who . . . well, we figured out how to get into the church after school. We located the coal shoot which led into the basement*, and just hung out.

We were always in church on Sunday mornings for Sunday school and worship. There were often events or activities on Sunday afternoons and junior choir practice after school on Wednesdays. Every Saturday morning found us together for Confirmation class, followed by Lutheran League in the evening. Mr. Vorhees often led us, he had us read and discuss both The Cost of Discipleship and Letters and Papers from Prison, both by Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Both had a profound impression on me.

In between those events in our lives, we used the coal shoot. We had our own Luther League room in the basement where we had wallpapered the four walls with the front covers of Sunday bulletins, each with some colorful photo.

I give thanks to Holy Trinity Lutheran Church for developing my faith in God, my trust, and most importantly, my hope. For whatever reason, hope in God, hope in life, hope in a future—this hope, learned and rehearsed, Sundays through Saturdays, under the guidance of HTLC, led me then and continues to lead me. When I wondered if God could call me to the Ministry of Word and Sacrament, it was again this HOPE and sheer amazement, that led me to Trinity Lutheran Seminary at age 33, and then to serve this wondrous God, and the Body of Christ, the church, as an Ordained Minister in first the LCA, then the ELCA.

Without this church, this Holy Trinity Lutheran Church in Chicago, I would not be the person I am today. Again, I give thanks.