Media Release
November 1, 2002

Personal Reflections With Monsignor Joseph Senger

The Germans from Russia Cultural Preservation Foundation is pleased to announce a new videotape available, "Personal Reflections With Monsignor Joseph Senger.

The Senger family lived in South Russia for more than one hundred years, after immigrating from Riedselz, Alsace-Lorraine Germany (present day France). They left Russia at the turn of the 19th century to homestead in north central North Dakota. It was a life of hardship and simple pleasures but also one of joy, strongly grounded in faith.

In this program, Monsignor Senger shares the memories and stories of his childhood. You'll hear about his mother and father, life in Russia, and in rural North Dakota. You'll experience what it was like growing up as a German from Russia boy on a farm in Orrin, ND. He relates his calling to God and talks about a vocation that has taken him from the farmlands of North Dakota to positions in Germany and at the Vatican. He also talks about returning to his roots and the joy of being a parish priest in Bottineau, Milnor-Stirum, Knox-Fillmore, Grand Forks, and Velva-Karlsruhe, North Dakota. Monsignor Senger shares his fondness of wrought-iron crosses.

He also shares his story of the emotional and unforgettable visit in 2001 to Ukraine and the village of Strassburg in the Kutschurgan District, near Odessa, Ukraine, where he was able to say a Mass at the village of Selz, in the Basillica of the Assumption of Mary, once considered to be the most ornate and beautiful church in the Black Sea area.

Major funding for this videotape was provided by the Germans from Russia Cultural Preservation Foundation (www.grculture.org) and the Germans from Russia Heritage Collection, NDSU Libraries, Fargo (library.ndsu.edu/grhc).

To purchase the videotape, send $25 for each tape plus postage and handling of $4 payable to NDSU Library. Mail to: Germans from Russia Heritage Collection, Monsignor Joseph Senger Videotape, NDSU Libraries, PO Box 5599, Fargo, ND 58105-5599. The website to order the videotape is: library.ndsu.edu/grhc/order/tapes/sengertape.html.