MANKATO — Alyssa Hahn, Allie Deters and Anna Sohre have a strong connection, not only to each other but to their religious beliefs. They gained much of the strength for both relationships at Highland Chapel.
The various paths they have taken to get there illustrates the wide net cast on the Minnesota State University campus for those seeking to continue or establish a spiritual connection. In a very real way, their involvement is an internship to life.
Regardless of where they feel most comfortable, students oftentimes blossom through their connections to campus ministries in ways that lead to a stronger faith, new or strengthened friendships and, in many cases, new leadership abilities.
PASTORS TO LEAD
At 24, Rachel Hambrook is only a couple of years older than the students she ministers to at St. Thomas More Catholic Newman Center on the east side of the Minnesota State University campus. She chuckles about sometimes being asked what classes she’s taking, she said. But she brings a maturity to student questions and concerns.
She grew up just 10 minutes from the Canadian border in northern Minnesota and said she greatly enjoyed her study of theology at Benedictine College in Atchinson, Kansas. She graduated in May 2024 and started at the Newman Center this June.
“You kind of get a wide spread within the theology major,” she said. “So, I studied everything from Scripture to moral theology, and then took specialty classes to fill other things. And then, of course, church history was included in it.”
She feels prepared by the classes she took, able to refer to notes to help students who come to Newman Center working through specific situations. And she said she has been pleased by the students she has met.
“The students have surprised me, just the way that they choose to invest into their faith and their relationships here. I just feel like I have been able to step in alongside them this year and been able to continue to support them,” Hambrook said. She appreciates the boldness with which they act.
Newman Center has a comfortable vibe. A student in the hallway welcomes a guest who seems to be lost, while students study in the library. Activities planned by Hambrook and her student board reinforce the messages delivered during Thursday night services and that are discussed during small group Bible studies.
Across campus at Highland Chapel, Darren Scruggs, 57, is able to see how the college experience can be different when you feed your spiritual life and align yourself with folks who believe.
As a music student at MSU in the late 1980s, he was living at home in Easton and didn’t feel connected with anyone on campus, he said. That didn’t make the college experience one with which he was fully engaged.
“I was pretty lost, I think. And then I dropped out of school after three years being in the music program, and I never knew about this place (Highland),” he said. “Never really knew anything about campus ministry.”
After 13 years in the workforce at Cub Foods on Madison Avenue, he said he connected with the Rev. Gene Glade at Hosanna Lutheran Church who not only became his mentor — “taught me how to be human,” he calls it — but helped lead him to where he is today. Part of his story was the church’s acquisition of the building from which he serves.
When the Hosanna site was planted and it fell under his direction, he turned to the pastor who had been serving there to learn what being a student pastor meant.
“It’s not rocket science,” he said he was told. “It’s just relationships. … So for 12 years I’ve been here. I’ve gotten to understand that what Pastor Monte Meyer said was true.”
OUT OF THE DARKNESS
Sohre is an art therapy student and an extrovert who understands the importance of listening when working with students who, like herself, are wondering if Hosanna Highland would be the place for them. Sohre literally emerged from the darkness and found a light of acceptance and growth at the center located diagonally from residence halls and across Maywood Avenue and Ellis Street from MSU buildings.
She may sometimes help complete sentences for younger students in the conversation, but she knows from experience the best way to find out who you are is to work through those things on your own.
“I’ve been her a hot minute,” she said when starting the description of herself. “I’m from Madison Lake. I grew up in the Mankato area and my family started coming to Hosanna main (on East Main Street) probably 2016, 2017. We really liked it, loved it.”
But somehow she didn’t feel like she fit in at her church and with other kids, she said. She started college at Bethany Lutheran College before life threw her a curve ball.
“I hit my head very hard, and I got a bad concussion and I broke my neck. And then I, like, had to pretty much drop out of life for a couple of years. I lived in a dark room — cold, dark room — for a good two years and didn’t like fully recover for probably five years,” she said.
During that time, she didn’t talk to people, but she did have a serious conversation with God.
“I believed in God, but I was so angry at him, just very angry at God, why he would give me so many good things and then take me out of life and make me live in a dark room, because I was in so much pain and isolated. Very lonely. It’s hard.”
Wearing a cap that protected her eyes from the light and human isolation, she found herself at Highland, hanging back and not interacting at first. Today you see little of that young woman who hoped not to be noticed, was mad at God and uncertain where to turn. Instead, you see someone who greets strangers with hugs.
“It’s more than acceptance,” Sohre said. “It’s like you’re gonna come as you are, and we’re gonna welcome you with open arms. But there’s also people here who are gonna, if you’re ready, they’re going to gently encourage you to live more like Jesus.”
PEOPLE AS PEOPLE
Pastor Jenna Couch said she was on leave from her ministerial call, working at the SPAM Shop in Austin, when the church reached out to see if she was interested in joining The Crossroads Lutheran Campus Lutheran Ministry at MSU. She had always wanted to do campus ministry.
“One of the biggest things that I loved when I was interviewing was the food ministry that they do,” Couch said. “The Campus Cupboard and Lunch for a Buck was already in motion before I got here, and just being a part of that is something I really wanted to do.”
Serving more than 200 students who are struggling with food insecurities each week, they also provide halal meat for Muslim students and are LGBTQ-affirming in their ministries, she said. She estimated that 95% of their clients are night and international students. That was represented in the students working one afternoon at The Campus Kitchen.
Evan Quiram is a sophomore studying automotive engineering. While he said he doesn’t have a lot of close friends through his interactions at Crossroads, he grew up in the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America and his experience then aligns with the Wednesday night dinner and church routine he enjoys now. And sometimes that includes people from outside of his religious experience.
“It’s important to see the different (religions),” he said, “but it’s also important to, you know, see the people as people.”
Crossroads is a place where people can come if they have questions, if they need to vent about something, they’re dealing with or to just talk with someone who will listen, Couch said.
“Back in the spring, when one of the students here was detained by ICE, I got told that and said, ‘What can we do?’ So just knowing that they have a place to come to just kind of chill out and talk” is important, she said.
His time at Crossroads, whether for The Campus Kitchen or worship services, gives Quiram a place to check in and not worry about national issues and to be in the moment, he said.
MAKING A CONNECTION
It was an email for help that brought Hahn to Hosanna. In trying to narrow down her collegiate choices between Mankato, the University of Iowa and the University of Wisconsin-River Falls, Hahn sent a message to Hosanna. It landed in Sohre’s inbox.
“Anna’s response was just exactly what I had prayed for,” said Hahn, a first-year student in history and creative writing. “Anna’s email definitely tipped it over the edge in favor of Mankato. I came to Highland, and it’s my family now.”
Also a freshman representative on the leadership team, she is soon to become a missionary resident, moving to the upstairs apartment and becoming an outreach person for the center. This aligns with Scruggs’ goal of saving these students the 10 years he lost between college and being a pastor.
The same is true for Deters, a senior social work major who grew up Catholic in Becker, Minnesota. She felt forced to follow in her parents’ religious footprints.
“And then my mom passed away when I was 7, so then we stopped going because I think my dad was just angry at the world. … He was like, we’re not doing that,” she said.
When she first came to MSU, she lived in the residence hall across the street from Hosanna. Through a friend who attended, she decided to try it out the services.
“It was like the most moving thing I’ve ever done,” she said. “I actually picked up on something. Like, wow, that really touched me.” She liked the way the sermon was presented, and the music wasn’t the hymns she grew up with, and she could connect with them.
“I don’t know, it’s kind of like a breath of fresh air, like just something that felt refreshing and not like it was forced because I made the decision to just come and give it a try and do it for myself. And it worked out,” Deters said.
Hahn was seeking a solid church experience while in college after attending two national youth gatherings in high school. Being with people who believe the same way you do, she said, was “moving in such a cool way.” So what she found at Hosanna — beginning with the email response from Sohre — told her she was in the right place.
“I knew that I really, really, really wanted church to be a part of my college experience,” she said, “because the world is a dark place, and we all need a little light.”
INTO THE COMMUNITY
What started as an exercise has become a regular part of services at Hosanna, Scruggs said. Students will come forward and place their phones on a table, signifying they are focused and in the moment, allowing no distractions during their time there. And he has seen that continue when students are at restaurants; they will place their phones on the floor and out of sight.
“That’s what we’re hoping for, is that these kids are going to take this and they’re going to embed that into the communities that they get to,” he said. “I think that once they get brought out into the community, it’ll make Mankato a better community. It’ll make whatever community the students are going to go into after this a better community.
“I’m excited for the future,” Scruggs said.