Announcements

Residential and commuter students, you are warmly invited to join us for a Men’s Cookout in the Bockman Hall basement kitchen as we prepare a special dinner-style meal for our Residential Life Holiday Feast on December 15. Cooking begins at 1:00 p.m. and dinner will be served at 5:00 p.m. This gathering is not only a time of cooking and community but also a moment of cultural learning for some and a significant shift in experience for many. We invite you to come with openness as we share traditions, learn from one another, and build deeper connections. Come and be in community together as we prepare good food from the oven, pray, share testimonies, and celebrate this season. You are welcome to bring a gift for someone of your choosing as we spread joy and fellowship. We are also delighted to share that Shamani Shikwambi, our Interim Dean of Students, will be joining us partly during the cooking and all through the dinner time. All residential and commuter students who are able are encouraged to attend.

The Business Office will be closed from Monday, December 22, 2025, through Friday, January 2, 2026 for the Christmas and New Year’s holiday break. During this time, we will not be processing any financial transactions, including payments, invoices, voucher requests, or reimbursement requests.
To ensure your items are processed before the closure, please note the following deadlines:

• All invoices, voucher requests, and reimbursement requests must be submitted to the Business Office by noon on Tuesday, December 16.
• Any requests submitted after this deadline will not be processed until the week of January 5.
• Online student account payments made after noon on Friday, December 19 will not be posted to accounts until Monday, January 5.

We encourage everyone to plan ahead and submit materials early. Thank you for your cooperation as we work to ensure a smooth transition before and after the break.

Portico is transitioning from Further to Health Equity for management of tax-advantaged accounts. There will be a blackout period beginning December 23 for members with HSA accounts, in order to get accounts moved over. Members will also see this messaging when they sign on to their Further account. Here are some high-level details about the transition:

• Health Equity debit cards will be received in the mail early to mid-December. Some of us received ours in the mail last Saturday.
• HSA account blackout period begins 12/23/2025, and the last day to use the Further debit card to access HSA dollars is 12/22/2025. Any claims incurred from 12/23/2025 – 12/31/2025 can be submitted to Health Equity, and reimbursement will be initiated once the account is fully transitioned on January 1, 2026. The Health Equity debit card will need to be used effectively on January 1, 2026, to access HSA dollars.
• There is no blackout period for FSA accounts, and the last day to use the Further debit card to access FSA dollars is 12/31/2025. The Health Equity debit card will need to be used effectively on January 1, 2026, to access FSA dollars in 2026. NOTE: For members with FSA accounts, all claims and/or expenses incurred in 2025 must be submitted for reimbursement to Further. If you choose to use your debit card to pay for claims and/or expenses from your FSA account, all claims and/or expenses incurred in 2025 must be paid with the Further debit card. Members with FSA accounts will not submit reimbursement requests to Health Equity or use their Health Equity debit cards until they are requesting reimbursement or submitting payment for expenses incurred in 2026.
• Direct deposit will need to be re-established. For security purposes, we can not transition bank account information from Further to Health Equity. Health Equity uses Plaid as the security authentication method when adding a bank account to the Health Equity portal. (This is a nice heads-up for some folks, so they don’t think they are getting scammed.)
• The other thing we can’t stress enough, but strongly suggest to members, open and read all communications from Health Equity received in the mail. You don’t want to accidentally throw away your new debit card or miss out on some tips and tricks for navigating the transition.

In this devotion, Cody Sanders, Associate professor of Congregational and Community Care Leadership, prays that God would be our help and our hope as we move through the shadows of this season toward the light that is beginning to dawn. Read today’s God Pause.

We gather at 11:00 a.m. CT in the OCC Meditation Chapel and on Zoom (link in email) for contemplative practice of your choice—mindful sketching, centering prayer, or however you choose to engage silence. Facilitated by Dean of the Chapel Steve Thomason, we read the text and then practice in silence for 15 minutes. Afterward, you are welcome to sit in fellowship or go about your day. Share your prayer requests.

Bring your own lunch to OCC 10 on Tuesday, December 9 from 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.—or join us on Zoom (link in email)—to learn about what the archives working group has done so far. The group will share some of their findings and next steps and invite conversation on how the archives can best serve this community into the future. Contact Caleb Rollins with any questions at crollins002@luthersem.edu.