It is with great pleasure that I can announce that we have chosen as our new Parish Administrator Eileen Marks.  I am looking forward to working with Eileen, and I believe that she will be a great blessing to our parish, and I know that all of you will help Eileen as she learns her new job, and that you will welcome her into our Good Shepherd family. 

Eileen has an impressive educational and work background, but to me, her clear passion for living out her deep faith through her volunteer work may be even more impressive.  Eileen is an Episcopalian and an active member of the Parish of the Epiphany in Winchester.  She has been extraordinarily generous in sharing her time and talent at Epiphany, serving for five years as co-chair of the Finance Committee, and assisting in budget preparation.  She has served on the vestry and is very active in both the Outreach and Youth Ministry programs.  Eileen shares my commitment to and love of our diocesan camp and conference center; she was co-chair of her parish's fundraising campaign for The Camp, helping to raise $150,000.

Eileen is a member of the Board of Directors of El Hogar Ministries, where she is currently serving as Treasurer and is a member of the Executive Committee.  El Hogar Ministries provides three residential and educational campuses in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, providing housing and schooling for 250 orphaned, abandoned, or extremely poor (even by Honduran standards) children and young people.  The ministry is affiliated with the Episcopal Church (and the Episcopal Diocese of Honduras is a part Province I, the same region as our own diocese).  Eileen has also been instrumental in outreach and social and economic justice work in our own area.  She was co-leader of a team of volunteers that helped to rebuild and reopen the library of a "turnaround" school of over 600 pupils in Boston's South End.  The Blackstone Library had lost accreditation and was closed; kids at the school had no access to a school library.  The Blackstone Team catalogued over 9000 books, recruited and trained volunteers, and helped to introduce and run the library program.

Eileen Marks received her BBA in Business and BA in Government from The University of Texas at Austin, and holds an MBA from Harvard Business School.  She worked for over a decade for Harvard Business School Publishing.  She worked both in the hands on aspects of publishing, and also in developing and marketing, managing the publication of three management newsletters.  

Eileen has been married for over two decades to her husband, Rick Marks.  Eileen and Rick have two sons, Henry, who is a junior at Lexington Christian Academy, and Philip, who is an eighth grader at McCall Middle School in Winchester. 

I know that Eileen will be a warm and welcoming presence at our church, and I am so delighted that she will be sharing her considerable talents with us.  I know that her education and work experience are impressive, but a catalog of her achievements isn't adequate to describe Eileen's deep faith and her commitment to live out that faith through prayer and through service to others. 

Congratulations to our new parish leaders, who were elected at Annual Meeting on January 27.  Our Senior Warden, Ben Sands, has agreed to continue to serve as warden until the end of June of this year.  Thank you, Ben, for your continued leadership and care for our parish.  Our new vestry members are: Jane Farrar, Dave Louanis, and Bob Newton.  We are very grateful that Jane, Dave, and Bob are willing to share their time and talent with Church of the Good Shepherd.  In addition to new officers and vestry, we elected Linda Hank and Ray Luddy as our Diocesan Convention Delegates, and Bob Stasonis as alternate.

Thank you also to the vestry members who are completing their terms.  All three served with great dedication.  Outgoing vestry members are: Paul Dustin, Dana Ines, and Leah Kyle (who will continue to serve as our Treasurer, though she will no longer also be a vestry member).

Please join us for our annual Shrove Tuesday Pancake Supper on Tuesday, February 12.  We'll begin serving pancakes at 6 p.m.  Donations to cover the cost of the food are welcome, and everyone is welcome to bring a dish to share.  Sign ups to help prepare or bring food, and for set up and clean up are on the bulletin board outside the sanctuary.  It is also helpful if you let us know you're coming (and the number of people you're bringing) so we can know how many places to set and food to prepare.

It is customary on the night before Lent begins to clean out the sweets and meat (and, in past times, when Lenten fasting was generally more austere than we tend to observe now, even butter and flour!).  What better way to clean out the pantry than pancakes, other sweet treats, and lots of bacon and sausage!  We will also burn any palms left over from Palm Sunday to be used as our ashes for Ash Wednesday.  So come hungry and bring any leftover palms you've been saving.

Our adult Christian formation during Lent will be a book discussion group on the book The Rich and the Rest of Us: A Poverty Manifesto" by Tavis Smiley and Cornel West.  The book focuses on poverty in the United States and proposes concrete ways to address it.  It also challenges the ways we think about poverty in our country.  We will be using a study guide prepared by a team of priests from our diocese, including Thomas Brown, the rector at Epiphany Winchester, a parish in our deanery.  The class will begin on Monday, February 18, and will continue for four consecutive Monday evenings.  We will meet from 7-8 p.m.  To sign up for the class, call the parish office, see Rev. Scottie, or sign up on the sheet outside the sanctuary.

This book was suggested by Bishop Thomas Shaw for congregations around the diocese to read together during Lent.  In part, the idea of diocesan-wide discussions on poverty--and on poverty as a kind of violence--came from the murder of Jorge Fuentes, a young man from St. Stephen's Parish in the South End, who was shot to death as he walked the family dog.  Bishop Shaw, who knew Jorge from the time he was a young boy, has commissioned a task force to identify concrete ways of addressing poverty and violence; the book group was suggested for congregations to do together as the task force forms action plans.

Copies of the book are available for purchase in the office, for ten dollars.  Several parishioners have reported that the book can be checked out in the library as well.  We hope you can join us.

 Ash Wednesday and the Beginning of Lent

Lent begins on Wednesday, February 13.  Lent is a forty day season of s piritual refreshment and contemplation.  It is also a time of penitence and reconciliation as we prepare for the joys of Easter.  On Ash Wednesday, we will begin Lent in community with a service of Holy Eucharist and Imposition of Ashes.  Services are at noon and at 7 p.m. in the sanctuary.  Please plan to begin your Lenten season here at Good Shepherd.