The Rev. Dr. Carl W. Filer grew up in Muhlenberg Township and went to college at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, majoring in international relations.  Following a year of study in Ethiopia, he enrolled at the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia.  His first call upon ordination was as a missionary for mission and evangelism in the Northeastern Diocese of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Tanzania.  Pastor Filer and Barbara were married at the Missions to Seamen Chapel in Dar es Salaam during his three-year tour there.  Following his return to America, Pastor Filer went on active duty as a Navy chaplain in Winter Harbor, Maine, where his daughter, Allison, was born.  The family moved to student housing at the Lutheran School of Theology in Chicago for Carl’s graduate study while Barbara worked as a pediatric nurse at Rush-Presbyterian Hospital.  Then followed thirty-one years of parish ministry, first at St. James Lutheran Church in Allentown followed by twenty-seven years at Grace Ev. Lutheran Church in Shillington, Berks County.  Beginning in January of 2018, Pastor Filer spent two-and-one-half years as a mission redeveloper at St. Paul Lutheran Church in Tannersville (Pocono Mission District).  He then served for twenty-six months as transitional pastor at the Lutheran Church of the Holy Trinity in Leesport (just south on Rt. 61).  Beginning last September, Pastor Filer took a leave from call to function as an informal pastor in residence at the Philadelphia campus of the new United Lutheran Seminary (a union of both Gettysburg and Philadelphia seminaries).  He returns home to Sinking Spring on weekends to lead worship at various congregations of the Northeastern Pennsylvania Synod that don’t have a permanent pastor.