A Meeting With One of My Readers

On May 19, I went to meet Luanne Kallungi Skrenes at the 150th commencement ceremony of Luther Seminary. She and I have been Facebook friends for some years, starting after she read my book, Africans and Americans: Embracing Cultural Differences.

As a facilitator of programs that link congregations of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Tanzania, she recommends my book to congregation members.

I am humbled by how Luanne values my work as a cultural consultant. This year, she urged her Tanzanian colleagues to attend my Dar es Salaam workshop on Culture and Globalization.

We were delighted to meet face to face, finally. I was happy to meet her husband, Bishop Thomas A Skrenes. Talking with them was heartwarming. When I told them that I am working on a sequel to my book, Luanne asked what the title was. "Chickens in the Bus" I said, and we all laughed. But that is, indeed, the title.

Meeting my readers is, always, a blessing, and among my thousands of readers have been members of the ELCA. I thank them for any thoughts and opinions they share with me about my writing.