The town of Wittenberg was much different than I was expecting. The town was very small and there was not much else to the town except the church, and Martin Luther’s house. When we got off the train, we walked about a half a mile down a road that did not have any buildings. Only a couple cars passed us on our walk. We then turned a corner down a road with no cars and hardly any people. There were very beautiful buildings that lined the street, but not much else besides that. It was interesting to me that there were so few people in the town. When we think of Martin Luther, we think of a very important person who did very important things. What we don’t realize is that that was not his intention when he first posted the 95 theses. Luther came from a fairly small town in Germany and did not know that he was starting such a big movement. When we got to the church, there still were not that many people. Besides the 30 of us, there were about 20 other people in the congregation. Its interesting to think about how much church life has changed since Luther’s time. During Luther’s day, almost everyone went to church on Sunday morning, and Sunday was the day that everybody would talk to everybody. If someone posted something to the door of the same church now, not much would happen.
After church, we visited Luther’s house. His house was much bigger than I was expecting. It was three stories tall with a couple of rooms on each level. Luther was a very smart person and he lived quite well. I don’t think we can even imagine what it would be like if we were to be kicked out of our town and had a bounty on our head like Luther did when he was ex-communicated. I think what I can take away from my experience, is that there are many ways that I can take my faith more seriously and make a difference in my community if there is a need.