Greetings one and all and welcome to the Pastor Mike Drop podcast. My name is Mike

Householder. I am a pastor here at Lutheran Church of Hope. And I am joined, as always,

by Emily Lang Paul. My co-host, hi, Emily.

Hi, how are you? I am doing great. This is a really important topic we're talking about today,

coronavirus and faith and how those things intersect and where one might, where our faith might

help us deal with this issue. And so to help us along the pathway, I can't think of anyone better, here at Hope to join us

in this conversation, then my longtime friend, colleague, sister in Christ, the reverend,

Dr. Caroline Benke-Becker.

Welcome, Caroline.

Thanks, Mike.

I'm really glad that you're here.

Caroline, you're an

MD, a physician. You are also an ordained pastor, and going way back, just so people understand the

connection here. You're a pastor here at Hope, but you're also continuing to practice as a physician.

But that all happened. So you're a doctor who becomes a pastor. That all happened as

God writes the story, once upon a time, summer of 1993, if I recall. I'm going door to door,

trying to start this church. I've got a stack of brochures trying to talk anyone into coming to

this new church and ringing doorbells, and I just happened

to knock on yours. Yep, and I was one of the suckers who said, yeah, we'll give it a try.

I'm so glad you did. So you and your husband, Tom, and two of your three daughters,

third one not born yet, showed up, and that was it.

That was it. Yeah. We came when they were 20 at worship,

...