MINNEAPOLIS — Emma Blom grew up in the Scandinavian heartland of rural Minnesota, reliably attending her small town’s Lutheran church. She spent each childhood summer in vacation Bible school and played the piano for Sunday worship services. “Borning Cry” was her grandmother’s favorite hymn.

Catholics were a scattered minority on the Minnesota prairie, Jews even rarer. As for Muslims, Ms. Blom had never met one. “I knew the women wore stuff on their head,” she recalled. “I didn’t even know it was called a hijab.”

Then, as a sophomore at Augsburg College here in 2014, Ms. Blom felt her faith wavering. She had been shaken by her grandmother’s death, and drew no solace from her church’s rituals. One of her classes scrutinized the Bible for sexism and misogyny. Was she a Christian anymore? Was she even a believer? She didn’t dare to ask any of her Lutheran friends, for fear of being judged and found wanting.

Still struggling this fall, Ms. Blom turned to perhaps the most unexpected counselor and confessor of all: Augsburg’s Muslim chaplain, Fardosa Hassan. And from Ms. Hassan, 26, a Somali refugee who had never seen snow until arriving in Minnesota as a 9-year-old entering fifth grade, Ms. Blom heard words that sustained her.