People of St. Luke's: Francisco Herrera
I'm originally from Kansas City, Missouri and lived - so far - the largest chunk of my life there. Though I did a lot of theatre when younger, ultimately it was music that caught my attention - leading to studies in Viola Performance at the Conservatory of Music at the University of Missouri - Kansas City. I also studied orchestra conducting, and even formed my own high school youth orchestra - The Symphony in Progress - as well as a modern performance group at my Conservatory. After music, the next love was languages. I learned German while in college - and traveled the summer music circuit in Germany a bit - and it was even while traveling and doing music in Germany that God found me (feel free to ask me the story, I LOVE telling it). But it would still be a bit until I knew what to do with my faith.
Then in 1999 I moved to Geneva, Switzerland to study orchestra conducting with a private teacher. To help with my visa I also became a student at the Conservatoire Superieur de Geneve and thus began the next major chapter of my life. My music studies were intense, as was the overwhelmingly cosmopolitan city. While there I also discovered that I have something of a knack for languages (I currently speak four, and am now working on my fifth) which led to a great deal of employment as a language teacher, tutor, and interpreter. Over all I had a pretty full life. I played, toured, traveled, and was so thoroughly impacted by everything that - to this day - I still consider Geneva to be my true home. But as rich as my life was, and as much as my musicianship deepened, it was ultimately my faith that grew the most, and my committment to Christ. How? Enter the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Geneva, or ELCG for short.
It was October 2001, just a few weeks after September 11, and after about a month of not going to church I decided I needed to hear a sermon - but not one in French. It was the only English speaking church that I knew about, but I was reluctant to visit because I feared it would be packed with US citizens that didn't want to bother learning French. Nothing could have been further from the truth. They spoke English, yes, but that was because with 250 members from 47 different countries speaking 39 different languages English was the only language they could speak in common. Within two weeks the church quickly became the center of my life in just about every way imaginable - and not just for the sake of having a good pastor and dizzyingly eclectic worship (imagine singing songs in Wolof [one of the tribal languages of Senegal], German, Spanish, and Arabic) but also the deep love of the community. For the first time in my entire life I had found a community that knew what to do with me, how to mentor me, how to handle my moods and caprices and help me to unravel who I was and who God was calling me to be. And their legacy is with me to this day. After all, it's largely because of their patience, love, and guidance that I'm now in seminary.
So now here I am.
As for what I'm doing now, apart from being at Chicago Theological Seminary (this is my last semester!!!), I make my living teaching languages to people, am the chief coordinator of a chamber music group that tours and gives free benefit concerts for non-profit organizations (www.accende.org), am deeply engaged in interfaith relations, and spend as much time as possible in the very loving arms of my most lovely fiancé, Sanja.