St. Matthew's Blog

As we near the end of our capital campaign, we are getting close to our goal. We’re raising money for a new kitchen and lift, and if we meet our goal, a generous challenge gift has been offered that will enable us to remodel our parish hall as well. We have received 74 pledges totaling $649,668, so we’re a little more than $31,000 away from our goal. Thank you to all who have pledged your time, your talents, and your financial resources.

Almost seventeen years ago, my family was visiting Minnesota on vacation. We received the news that my husband was being assigned to Korea that January 2002. My family would not be able to go. Instead of returning to Georgia, we asked to stay with his mother. She said yes. I made that unexpected move in August of 2001. My children were very young, Stephen (18 months), Elizabeth (4½), Robert (5½) and Victoria (10). I joined St. Matthew’s soon afterwards, knowing I would need much prayer and support during the 16-month separation from my husband.

Like a lot of people my age or older, I have a former life, an incarnation of myself that might seem unrecognizable to my daughter. In my early twenties, I had another life partner, named Tim. He had contracted HIV when he was twelve, through medication used to treat his hemophilia. The medicine was made from human blood, and at that time, the blood supply was not tested or cleaned. After Tim and I met in college in Ohio, we moved to the Ozark mountains of northwest Arkansas, where I attended graduate school. Tim’s official job there was as a technical writer.