I am sharing an old post today for a few reasons. One is that I am tired. We just completed two days of hosting people who chose to be a part of this year’s Christmas Country Church Tour. About 1000 people made a tour through our museum to view our Christmas exhibit. Secondly, I discovered that today would be the 180th birthday of a man who was born in Altenburg, but later became the pastor of Christ Lutheran Church in Jacob, Illinois. Actually, over the years, Christ, Jacob has had several pastors who were born near here. Rev. Philipp Samuel (Ph. S.) Estel was born on December 16, 1843. His story was told on this blog on this day back in 2016.
One of the families to visit our museum during the Christmas Country Church Tour was that of the brand new pastor who recently was called right out of the Seminary to become the latest pastor of Christ Lutheran Church in Jacob. His name is Rev. Gunnar Campbell. As far as I know, he has no family connections to Perry County, but I happen to know that he and his family have already visited our museum on several occasions. We are happy to have him in our neighborhood. I did not take a picture of him and his family when he visited the museum yesterday, but I found a family photo of them on the church’s website.
I actually think there’s a certain resemblance between Rev. Campbell and Rev. Ph.S. Estel. What do you think?
