Pastor Alena Lamirato is pastor of St. Luke's Lutheran Church, Buffalo, Wyoming. She graduated from the Lutheran Theological Seminary Gettysburg with a Master's of Divinity and was ordained into Word and Sacrament in 2007. She grew up in Denver and previously served as a pastor in Nebraska.
Pr. Alena has been to the Holy Land twice and has led accompaniment trips to Guyana and Argentina. She has a passion for international travel and has been on every continent except Antarctica.
Believing that we grow closer to God the further we travel from home, Pr. Alena is excited to walk with you through the Holy Land as we get to know not only the places, but also the people. One of the most important aspects of this trip is that we will visit with the living stones - the people of the Land. As we hear the stories of those whom we encounter on our own road to Emmaus, we'll find out we are not so different from one another, we all seek peace and love. With Jesus at our side, our hearts will burn within us as we grow in faith and realize we have nothing to fear.
Jan Miller has traveled to the Holy Land seven times, twice as a co-leader of pilgrimage groups. She has toured with a Sabeel fact-finding delegation, a Compassionate Listening Project delegation, and, most recently, with an Interfaith Peacebuilders' group.
"On my first trip in 2005, I was astonished to see that the situation for Palestinians was not at all what I had read and seen in the US media. One of the Palestinians I met asked me to tell their story, and this became my vocation."
She is dedicated to bringing people to see for themselves and to meet and listen to Israelis and Palestinians, the "living stones" of the Holy Land today.
She is active with the Peace Not Walls initiative of the ELCA (Evangelical Lutheran Church in America) and with Friends of Sabeel-Colorado. She is also a spiritual director, working with women in prison. In 2008 she received her M. Div. from Iliff School of Theology.