Bethany Wilcke

Hello to everyone! Katie mentioned to me that she posted because she's sure there will be some people who wander through class Alpha's blogs either because they're curious or they're bored. I figured since I'm the one from class Alpha you've had "contact" with (I make us sound like aliens...trust me, we're not all aliens ;) ) I would post as well and welcome you all to Concordia and the honors program.

As part of class Alpha, I have finished my first two years of the program and only have my capstone left. However, that doesn't mean you won't see me around. Since I work for Dr. Schuler and the admissions office and am involved in numerous things on campus, you will probably see me around quite often. So, I encourage you to ask me if you have any questions or feel free to chat with me about whatever--come on over to my office (it's in Dr. Schuler's in the basement of the LMC) or catch me around campus somewhere!

A little about me...

I just finished my second year here at Concordia in the Director of Christian Outreach program with music and theatre minors. I'm involved in Christus Chorus, PRISMS, STAGE, I co-lead a Bible study on campus. I also traveled to Ghana, Africa with the Christus Chorus this last May (such an amazing experience!!) and hopefully will be going on the theatre trip to London this winter break.

I'm originally from a tiny town in Iowa called Battle Creek. It has a population of about 700 people and it's a dying town. St. Paul was definitely a change when I moved here, but (with gas prices helping) I haven't gone home that much and even remain in the cities for most, if not all, of the summer. I have one sister, three years older than me. She graduated from Concordia in Seward, NE this last year (she just finished her 5th year internship) and she will be installed as a full-time Director of Christian Education at her internship church, Christ Lutheran in Overland Park, KS next weekend.

If you want to chat at all or if you have any questions, feel free to email me or look me up on Facebook or whatever. :-) Have a great summer!!

At the start of this lecture, I found Herman Wentzel's first statement to be very interesting. He wanted to prepare us for the fact he was going to change us. I found it amusing that this was the first sentence out of his mouth, and not only is change something that Lutherans don't like, a lot of the time it goes against human nature. I loved that he asked the questions many people refuse to ask or ask but don't listen to the answers, such as "why are we here?" His responses were simple, yet pointed.

With the entire issue being faced by the university and the theatre department, I found it interesting that many of the things that Dr. Wentzel touched on could be applied directly to the instance happening now. However, the issue at hand should not have been brought up at the lecture, there was no place for it and Dr. Wentzel was not informed enough to be asked the questions he was. However, if people would have listened to what it was he said, they could take a great deal of good things away to apply to this situation. He touched on many a couple of freedoms that we have, the freedom to enjoy the vocation of living and the freedom to use developed habits of thought. He also applied these freedoms to the process of educating students through theory, classroom applications, and the university as a Christian educator. He had many wonderful points to express, such as forgiveness and fostering participation to name a couple.

In any situation, there are always challenges. Dr. Wentzel also touched on a couple of challenges facing our university in the coming years, such as being a commuter college and technology used for distance learning, etc. These challenges are just a few that we will need to overcome to continue to be a Christian institution to educate Christians. I loved his topic of Christians educating Christians by word, example, and direct confrontation. I enjoyed it when he asked whether Christians educating Christians was the educating of people to become Christian or if it was Christians educating other Christians in what they believe. Many people would not make that distinction or would not clarify that distinction.

I thoroughly enjoyed this lecture. There were wonderful tidbits of information all throughout this lecture of wonderful ways to communicate and express and apply different principles and thoughts to learning, especially learning in a Christian university.

This week Meri and my project came to fruition. We pulled together all the last minute details, the organization, the slideshow and programs, the decorations, etc. and we actually held our benefit concert. It was so cool to finally see the finished product of all of our hard work. It was also very much a relief when it was over. It was definitely something we stressed about and were nervous about. We didn't have quite as many people there as we hoped for, but we raised a lot of money for the amount of people we had there--once we count Thrivant funds, somewhere between $750-1000. We're so excited for this and were so excited for the compliments given afterwards as well. It was nice to see all our hard work appreciated.

This week, Meri and I are tying up loose ends and such this week, planning decorations and programs, getting the slide show done, etc. We've been running around busy because a lot of people have waited until this close to get answers from us and we have a lot to do.

This week Meri and I got the last of our big loose ends tied up and got some solid plans for publicity and fundraising on campus decided on. We also got the necessary paperwork done to fundraise on campus. I started rehearsals with one of the groups singing for the benefit this week as well and rehearsals are going very well. We also worked on our chapters a lot these last two weeks. Meri and I met to solidify a bunch of things as well, such as decoration ideas and publicity programs. We also met with Sodexho to get refreshments for our benefit.

This week, we touched base with Dr. Burkart again. We have the final things we need from him and have a couple meetings to get the last of the official stuff out of the way. After this, it's just publicity, publicity, publicity and decorations and practicing. I'm very excited for this. We've also been notified that our Thrivant request for matching funds has been approved up to $1600, and it's a two for one match, so if we raise $3200, we'll get the additional $1600. We'll get any amount up to that, depending on how much money we raise.

This week, I began to learn to operate on other people's time schedules. We contacted Steve Pickel about getting matching funds for our free will offering for our benefit and found out the paperwork had to be in in less than a week. Luckily, the paperwork is done and turned in. Now we just have to wait until tomorrow afternoon when they decide if they're going to give us the money or not. We requested $1600, which means they can give us anywhere from $800 to $1600 if they choose to give us money. We also did several meetings with other people and getting together final groups and people who will be helping out with the benefit.

This week Meri and I tried to get the last big details of our project nailed down by meeting with Dr. Mennicke. We also tried for a meeting with Dr. Burkart, but he just had surgery on his hands and we haven't been able to get a time to meet with him yet. We are waiting to hear back from a couple of groups, but other than that, our big details are mostly narrowed down. I have a few more emails about financial stuff to go out, but those should be out in the next day or two and then we should be solid on the big things.

This week Meri and I met this week and revamped our time schedule and we went through some new things we didn't think of before. Each of us chose something to do and we discussed what we needed to get done before the end of the month. Also, we both chose different people to email and contact about different aspects of our project.

Over break, I did a lot of reorganizing and planning for what to do after break. We're getting into the time where Meri and I have to do a lot of the work together and can't split it up as much. Later on, we can again devise things, but right now, we both need to making decisions on things and working together. Besides organizing and planning, I've contacted a few people about helping us, touched base with our musicians, and have begun looking at schedules to meet with people about the various aspects of the concert. We also had our caroling project for Project Starfish. We didn't collect any money, but had it all sent directly to the organization so we didn't have to worry about handling the money.