The mouth of the righteous is a fountain of life, but the mouth of the wicked conceals violence. Hatred stirs up strife, but love covers all offenses. | | Pictured above: Lindah, one of the young women living at Eripoto's safe house, recently earned her degree in clinical medicine from City College of Health and Allied Science. Eripoto founder Esuvat Lucumay shares, "This is why we do what we do at Eripoto, because when a girl is supported, her future changes forever." | | Friends of Mwangaza Merges with LPGM | | Pictured above: Friends of Mwangaza, a U.S.-based nonprofit organization that financially supports LPGM partner Mwangaza in Tanzania, merged with LPGM, effective January 1. | | |
Lutheran Partners in Global Ministry (LPGM) and Friends of Mwangaza (FOM) are excited to announce their merger, effective January 1, 2026.
This strategic partnership brings together two organizations with a shared commitment to creating safe, empowering learning environments for students and teachers in Tanzania through their shared support of Mwangaza Education for Partnership (Mwangaza). Mwangaza is an independent Tanzanian NGO dedicated to teacher training, community outreach, and peace-building initiatives.
For years, LPGM and FOM have collaborated informally through overlapping supporters and board members. Due to their related missions, supporters, and geographic focus, unifying these two organizations was a natural fit.
Now that they have officially merged, the combined organization will operate under LPGM’s name, while continuing to honor FOM’s identity and history.
Learn more
Watch a brief interview with Mwangaza founder, Dr. Shoonie Hartwig
| | Thank you for Meeting Students' Needs in 2025! | | Operation Metro Surge Rocks Minneapolis | | Pictured above: Community members gather at the memorial for Alex Pretti, one of the legal observers fatally shot by ICE this past month. Alex was killed at East 26th St. and Nicollet Avenue in Minneapolis. | | |
"Operation Metro Surge," a largescale immigration enforcement operation by ICE (U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement), has heavily impacted Minneapolis, Minn. - home to LPGM headquarters - for the past two months. Controversial enforcement tactics, including two fatal shootings of legal observers, Renee Nicole Good and Alex Jeffrey Pretti, have put the local community on edge.
Many immigrant families have been avoiding public spaces (like work, school, and grocery stores), and a number of immigrant-owned businesses have been closing temporarily or locking their doors.
Minneapolis has drawn national and global attention as thousands of community members have cared for their immigrant neighbors and have participated in public demonstrations throughout December and January.
In this personal reflection, the Rev. Dan Ruth shares his thoughts on what it means to him to be a Lutheran in these times.
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A Day of Truth & Freedom
A Personal Reflection by the Rev. Dan Ruth, LPGM Executive Director
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Living in Minneapolis, I’ve been seeing ICE raids happening in my neighborhood. Tinted-glass vehicles appear, masked agents emerge, and families live in terror that a trip to the grocery store or a drive to work might end in separation.
For those of us who are U.S. citizens, who don't fear the knock on the door, the question is different but no less urgent: What does faithful witness look like in this moment?
Read on
| |  | Dan and 100 other clergy and faith leaders gather for prayer and peaceful protest at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport on Friday, Jan. 23. Photo by Kerem Yücel, MPR News | | Boarding Homes Celebrate Pongal, an Ancient Harvest Festival | | |
Students at our partner's boarding homes in India celebrated Pongal, a harvest festival, this past month.
Pongal began in 200 BCE and has had many different names throughout history, but its main themes are gratitude, joy, and togetherness.
During Pongal, people thank the Sun God, rivers, and cattle for their blessings and bountiful harvest. Farming is integral to life in India, so Pongal is widely celebrated throughout the country.
Celebrants thanks cattle by painting their horns. They create intricate motifs on the ground with colored sand, which are called rangoli. Children often eat sugarcane.
A central component of the celebrations is pongal, a decadent dish comprised of rice, jaggery, ghee, cashews, and cardamom. When the milk and rice flow over the pot, people shout, "Pongalo Pongal." This joyous Tamil chant means "may it boil over." It's a cultural expression of gratitude and hope for good fortune, and the rice boiling over the pot is a symbol of prosperity, abundance, and a bountiful harvest.
| | Emergency Response to Unrest | | |
In late October, we shared that concerns over election violence in Tanzania had prompted three days of country-wide protests, resulting in hundreds of reported deaths.
We can now share that we responded to pressing in-country needs by providing an emergency grant to our two Tanzanian partners.
These emergency funds were sent with the understanding that our partners would use them as they saw fit during these unprecedented times.
With your support, LPGM provides access to quality education for people at the margins. Sometimes access to quality education looks like school supplies, teacher salaries, safe housing, or scholarships.
In times of crisis, it can look like access to food, water, clothing, and mental health care. Basic needs must be met before anything else. Hungry students can't learn. Traumatized students can't focus. Unsafe students can't thrive in school.
Our commitment to listening, responding, and bearing witness to local needs and priorities means trusting that our partners know what they need to survive.
Thank you for your prayers for - and support of - our partners in Tanzania.
| | A Letter from Eripoto, a Place of Refuge & Hope | | |
Esuvat Lucumay, founder of Eripoto for Girls & Women, shared a message of gratitude at the end of 2025. Here is an excerpt:
As we come to the close of the year, we would like to sincerely thank you for your continued partnership, prayers, and encouragement. Your presence alongside us gives us strength and hope as we serve vulnerable girls and young women.
This year has been filled with moments of joy, growth, and meaningful impact.
At the same time, it has also brought unexpected challenges.
The recent demonstrations and unrest in our country affected many people deeply, including our team and the girls, particularly in terms of mental and emotional well-being. Even so, we thank God for His protection and for sustaining us through these difficult moments.
By God's grace, we have continued to be a place of refuge and hope.
We are also grateful to share that construction at the Safe House is progressing well. Seeing this progress gives us great encouragement as we look toward the future.
As we reflect on the year, we remain thankful to God for the opportunity to serve and for partners like you who walk with us in love and compassion.
| | Pictured above: Participants in the WALC program take a break from learning to enjoy their beautiful surroundings. | | CCFC Hosts Successful WALC Session | | |
Community Cloud Forest Conservation (CCFC), our partner is Guatemala, just wrapped up its Women in Agroecology Leadership for Conservation (WALC) sessions. The November session ran from Nov. 23 - Dec. 6, and the January session ran from Jan. 5 - 16.
WALC is a holistic leadership training program designed for Maya girls and single young women ages 12-28. They come from remote mountain villages where life is hard and where most girls drop out of school after sixth grade.
After completing the WALC program, participants are eligible to receive a scholarship, made possible through gifts from friends like you. To earn one, they must 1) stay in school, and 2) plant an agroforestry parcel with trees to renew the cloud forest. Their parcels are filled with heirloom and traditional crops. They can feed their family with the produce, improving their family's health and economic situation.
One recent participant, Ericka, says, "The scholarship will help me to continue my studies and help buy supplies."
Click the link below to read an overview of November's successful WALC session by Krista Beucler, a volunteer assisting with WALC's November 2025 and January 2026 sessions.
Read Krista's blog
| | 2025 Gift Summaries Are Out | | | | |
Gift summaries for 2025 were emailed on January 27, 2026, from
thank-you@donorperfect-mail.com.
To receive a printed copy in the mail, please contact us at 612-823-5058 or office@lutheranpartners.org. Thank you for your support in 2025!
| | You're Invited: LPGM Office Open Houses | | Seeking 2026 LPGM Board of Directors Nominations | | |
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The LPGM Nominating Committee is now seeking nominations to serve on the LPGM board of directors.
Nominations will be open until March 1, 2026. The full board will vote at the Annual Meeting in April, and three-year terms for the newly elected board members will start immediately after the vote.
Learn more
| | Longtime LPGM Champion, Dr. Jane Baker Koons, Passes Away | | |
With heavy hearts, we announce the passing of Dr. Jane Baker Koons on December 15, 2025. She was 76 years old.
Jane and her husband Doug met while attending St. Olaf College. After retiring from their respective careers of distinction, they felt called to use their skills and talents for the greater good. Jane and Doug were inspired to support low-resource global churches by teaching, encouraging, and loving their members.
They left for India in 2007 as long-term Mission Education Volunteers. They founded the Library Program, which established 95 libraries and served 40,000+ students, their families, and their villages.
From 2009 to 2019, Jane served as an educational consultant to LPGM partner schools in India, launching the English+ Program which continues to thrive today. She trained teachers, inspired students, and improved the lives and livelihoods of residents of the Lebanon Home for Destitute Women.
Read more
| | Upcoming Travel Opportunities | | | | |
Intergenerational Travel to Guatemala - June 13-23, 2026
Experience and learn from Guatemalan culture and people, participate in ongoing education programs, and explore your own faith.
$1,850/person + airfare
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Multi-Congregation Youth Trip - July 11-21, 2026
Learn about environmental issues, explore how you can be an agent of change, and meet teens from other congregations who share your values.
$1,450/person + airfare
| | Excitement Mounts for February's Trip to India | | |
A group of LPGM travelers have been excitedly preparing from their trip to India for the past few months. The travelers will be visiting our partners in India next month from February 10-24 on an interfaith dialogue trip led by Dan Ruth, LPGM's executive director.
To prepare for their big trip, travelers attended three pre-trip meetings held in October, December, and January. These meetings served social, logistical, and educational purposes.
Travelers got to know their trip leader and each other, asked questions, learned about history and religion in India, and worked through the nuts and bolts of the trip like visa applications, flight itineraries, and packing lists.
While the October and January meetings were virtual, the December meeting was held in-person at LPGM's office, and travelers got a preview of the delicious food to come by dining on South Indian cuisine from Dosa South Indian Grill.
Pre‑trip meetings are a vital component of transformational travel with LPGM, ensuring that travelers are thoroughly prepared before embarking on a global journey.
Learn more about traveling with LPGM to India in 2027
| | Pictured above: L-R. RuthAnn, Judy, Karen, Becky, Mary and her husband David, Elaine & her husband George, Barb, Joyce, Barb, Marie, and Lori. | | Touching Musical Tribute Turns into Support for LPGM | | |
In October 2023, a group of Luther College alumnae from the Class of 1965 gathered in Arizona to celebrate their 80th birthdays. It was a weekend of laughter, reminiscing, and some tears, too, as one of their friends had passed away.
One member of the group, Marie Peterson Marin of Woodruff, WI, was inspired to take out a piece of music by Handel that she’d thrown into her suitcase at the last moment, and she sat down at the piano to play the piece as a musical tribute to their friend.
The women were touched, and the tears flowed. Later, many of the women asked Marie for a recording of the piece and offered to pay. “I did not feel comfortable accepting dollars from my friends,” shares Marie. “But the solution came to me one night when I could not sleep. I could ask them to give donations to LPGM!”
Indeed, gifts started showing up at LPGM “in honor of Marie’s music” from names we’d never seen before. Soon after, we connected the dots which led us back to Marie and her emotive performance.
Two years later in October 2025, some of these same friends gathered for their 60th Reunion at Luther College. Plans are being made to meet again next year. Marie remarks, "Our continuing friendship is remarkable, like many other Luther graduates."
She concludes, “[My friends] have been very generous in their gifts, and now they know the story and purpose of LPGM, too! Soli Deo Gloria! [Glory to God alone.]”
| | LPGM Board Member Brings Lessons from Tanzania back to Minnesota | | |
Working with community partners has provided an immeasurable number of opportunities that have impacted my teaching and learning here at the University of Minnesota. While that service is often working with students, teachers, and administrators situated in local elementary schools, I am also fortunate to collaborate with community partners whose work involves people from all over the world.
Since 2020, I have been a board member of a local organization called Lutheran Partners in Global Ministry (LPGM). Its core mission strives to “provide access to quality education for people at the margins—especially women and girls.” In my role as chair of LPGM’s program committee, I help advise the organization and its global partners with their goals related to educational programs.
Keep reading
| | Pictured above: LPGM's U.S.-Based staff rep their Minneapolis neighborhoods during a staff theme day on January 28. L to R: Dan Ruth, Bethany Krepela, Shannon Mahedy, John Anthony, and Laura Feile. | | | |
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Upcoming Events
January 23 - February 2 - LPGM at the ELCA Network's Extravaganza, St. Louis, Mo.
February 10 - 24 - Transformational Travel Trip to India
March 15 - Open House, 9:30 a.m. - 12 noon, 4100 Lyndale Ave S., Minneapolis
March 16 - Open House. 5:00 p.m. - 7:00 p.m., 4100 Lyndale Ave. S., Minneapolis
April 18 - Board of Directors Retreat, Bethlehem Lutheran Church, Minneapolis
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Our Mission: LPGM provides access to quality education for people at the margins – especially women and girls. We work together with global partners to listen, respond and bear witness to local needs and priorities.
Lutheran Partners in Global Ministry is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. Our Employer Identification Number (EIN) is 41-1818525. Your donation is tax-deductible to the fullest extent allowed by law.
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