Faith kept seminary grad going

By Sam Hodges

DALLAS—In pursuing a United Methodist seminary education, the Rev. Ella Luna faced so many trials—some of them matters of life and death—that friends began to compare her to a certain Old Testament character.

They meant well, but that too became a trial.

“People would mention Job to me and I would just want to wring their necks,” she said.

Ms. Luna never faltered in taking what she calls “the long way around” to realizing a childhood dream. On May 12, at age 43, she received her master of divinity degree from Perkins School of Theology....