Dear Friends,

In early December, I witnessed one of the most moving moments I can recall in the past year of service to LSS.  On a cold Sunday evening, in the shadows of the great chapel of Gettysburg Seminary, about a 100 folks gathered. They had come from Chambersburg, Gettysburg and York and places in between to remember loved ones who had been served through Lutheran Home Care & Hospice. Through a wonderful partnership with the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Gettysburg and Adams Electric Cooperative a magnificent tree on the seminary campus was being lit for the season – the lights each symbolizing a beloved family member who had died.  

When the brief service ended we all turned to the tree and awaited the lighting. In an instant, the pitch black of the field was transformed as the stately spruce was brilliantly illuminated with thousands of lights. We had planned the evening well, and I thought we had anticipated everything. But, I had not anticipated the depth and intensity of that moment. I hadn’t anticipated the audible gasp from those gathered when the tree was lit. I hadn’t anticipated the profound silence as we all stood and looked and remembered. I hadn’t anticipated the hands reaching out to each other in the midst of quiet tears on a cold, dark night filled with grief and hope. 

Lives lived. Lives changed. Lives connected. Whether it’s a moment in one of our senior living communities, behind the door of a counseling session, in a conversation with a case manager or in a gathering of hospice families, the LSS mission is making lives fuller and richer, every day.

It's all because of you. Your gifts, as mirrored in the pages of this report, create moments like that memorable night in Gettysburg. Your gifts are changing lives for members of our LSS family every day.

For all this, it is my great privilege, on behalf of the more than 15,000 men, women and children whose lives you have so deeply touched, to say THANK YOU, and GOD BLESS YOU. 
 

Yours in partnership, 

Pastor Glenn D. Miller
Vice President - Philanthropy