Skip to Main Content

A Victorious Homecoming

June 24, 2019 - 2 minute read


Dr. Jack Shultz, Sam Fluegge, and President Krueger

Sam Fluegge spent 10 childhood years in Togo, West Africa, with his family, who were Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod missionaries. But when they moved to the U.S., Sam left memories of Togo behind.

“In high school, I tried to adapt to Southern California culture and pushed a lot of my childhood memories away, or just forgot about them,” Sam says.

As a Concordia University Irvine student, interest in the country of his youth was rekindled, and Sam and his father, Rev. Glenn Fluegge, a Concordia University Irvine theology professor who heads up Concordia’s Cross-cultural Ministry Center, began talking about taking a team of students on a missions study trip to West Africa. For Sam, the return reconnected him to his past, potentially redefined his future — and earned him $1,000 as the winner of the Great Commission Showcase.

Returning allowed me to revisit an integral part of myself that I had forgotten....This is such a huge part of who I am.

“Returning allowed me to revisit an integral part of myself that I had forgotten,” he says. “I was like, oh, wow, this is such a huge part of who I am.”

Sam had spent his childhood exploring the outdoors, barefoot, and playing soccer with children from the nearby neighborhoods. His favorite Togolese foods were corn patte — a corn paste dipped in sauce — and pounded yams with peanut sauce.

On the three-week travel/study course led by Professor Fluegge, the team spent time with local pastors, explored everyday life and danced with people as a form of communication.

“Dance is how people in Togo express themselves,” Sam says. “At churches, dance is a huge part of the service. It’s all about rhythm and movement. They dance up to the offering plate, and dance during worship. We said, ‘Why don’t we participate?’ and that was huge. They started teaching us how to dance. That was a bridge we used to cross the cultural gap, at least with the churches, because of the language barrier.”

The team also spent time in neighboring Burkina Faso with LCMS pastors there.

“Listening to their stories, we were on the edges of our seats,” Sam says. “To be a pastor in West Africa is a huge commitment.”

The trip sparked Sam’s interest in cross-cultural missions. He was profoundly shaped by conversations with Dr. Schultz, his faculty advisor, especially about the value of building relationships with people as part of sharing the Gospel. Before the trip, his ambition was to be a school teacher in the U.S. Now, he sees his horizons broadening.

I discovered I have an interest in missiology and what is the good and proper way to engage in mission work.

“I discovered I have an interest in missiology and what is the good and proper way to engage in mission work,” Sam says. “It’s a lot bigger of a thing. My old goal was kind of small.”

Competing in the Great Commission Showcase provided “a good way to process the experience and explicate it,” he says.

All three Great Commission Showcase winners this year wrote about their experiences on the Togo trip, and all three used their matching award money to support churches in West Africa.

“I was very proud that this trip sparked learning and knowledge,” says Sam. “It was cool to see how we had all learned in different ways. The goal of the trip was to provide students with this missional cross-cultural experience they could learn from. I guess the results speak for themselves.”

Especially in his own life.

Back to top