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with the church season after Pentecost, the green and growing season of the church year. High
up on that scaffolding, Cleo Mullins, Beth Fulton, and the crew of the Richmond Conservation
Studio, along with Rusty Bernabo were working magic on the altarpiece, restoring it to its
former glory. On All Saints’ Day, we celebrated the completion of this project, made possible
by your financial generosity. I believe that our St Peter’s ancestors would be elated to see the
care we have taken to restore this part of the church, and I also believe that future generations
will continue to be inspired not only by the words on our walls, but by the beauty of those
words, the way they glow as the sunlight passes over them throughout the day.
More important than the words on the wall are the ways we live out the words as a community
of faith. The restoration of the kitchen this past year, planned by Eunice Key, Cookie Davis,
Betty Kunstmann and Cindy Fields, made possible with the help of a UTO grant as well as your
generosity, has given us new opportunities for outreach. This summer we had two lunches for
those who come to the food distribution, and in December we made soup for people to enjoy
when they came to the food distribution. The distribution gives us the ongoing opportunity to
fulfill another of our baptismal vows, “to seek and to serve Christ in all persons, loving your
neighbors as yourselves.” We have also carried out those vows through the jail ministry at
Peumansend Creek Regional Jail. In 2016 we reached halfway across the world to provide help
to a family in Nepal who lost everything in the earthquake there. We loved our neighbors as
ourselves through our gifts to the UTO, through our support of the Episcopal Church Men who
with Helmut Linne von Berg, Johnny Davis and Bill Wick spent a lot of time, energy and money
to help to three families at Thanksgiving and three more families at Christmas time. Many in
the congregation packed shoe boxes for children around the world. We have served Christ
each time we’ve shared food with those who come to the food distribution.
I continue to be amazed by your generosity to the discretionary fund. This money makes a real
difference to people who are in need. When people thank me for helping, I tell them that it
isn’t me, it’s the generous parishioners at St Peter’s who make the help possible. Many, many
people are thankful for the help that your generosity has provided.
Striving for justice and peace among all people and respecting the dignity of every human being
begins at home, and we at St Peter’s, despite our differing worldviews and politics, are a people
at peace with one another. This peace, God’s peace, is a gift from God that allows us to go out
and be people of peace and hope in the world, fulfilling our baptismal vow to proclaim by word
and example the Good News of God in Christ.
Please take the time to read Roger Key’s Senior Warden Report for 2016. In it you will find
more details about the many things that happened at St Peter’s in 2016. Johnny Davis, Junior
Warden, has provided specifics about the work on the buildings. Ben Hicks wrote the report
about Village Harvest, which includes statistics for the project. Clarence Kunstmann has