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Once again, here we have more photos from our 2005 Texas road trip. While we were in Houston, we journeyed out to a (very) small town … Serbin, TX … population 37. Serbin happens to be where my wife’s maternal grandfather was born. Mr. Groeschel (greh-shul) is Wendish (or Sorbian). In 1854, a group of Wends left eastern Germany and settled in what is now Serbin in order to preserve their language and culture. There, they founded St. Paul Lutheran Church, which was the first Missouri Synod Lutheran church in all of Texas.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t long before the folks at St. Paul were at odds over the language issue, and eventually there was a split, and St. Peter’s Lutheran Church was set up just down the road … close enough that children from each church could throw rocks across the cemetery at each other. (I believe St. Peter’s was founded after St. Paul decided to abandon worship services in Sorbian … but I’m not sure. I’ll have to ask my wife when she is awake. She is the fount of all historical knowledge about the Wends in Serbin.)

The St. Paul building itself is what is commonly called a “painted church” … the interiors of these churches are decorated in a very ornate manner, despite the relatively simple manner of construction. Inside of St. Paul, for instance, many columns are painted to look as if they were made of marble.

Yes, that’s the pulpit up over the altar … on the same level as the balcony. It’s the tallest pulpit in the state of Texas.

I love the stenciled stuff on the ceilings …

There are several cast iron tombstones in the cemetary. Mr. Groeschel told me that they mark the oldest graves there. Unfortunately, all of them are in poor condition, much like this one here.

My grandfather-in-law, Leonard Groeschel, standing next to the font where he was Baptized.

Update: My wife tells me I’m all mixed up (as usual). St. Peter’s Lutheran Church was started because some folks in the area wanted services in German instead of Sorbian, and St. Paul refused to do this.

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