It has been my great privilege over the past fifteen years as your rector to work closely with ten wardens: Kathleen O'Connor, Dick Delorme, Nancy Pope, Jeanne Schutte, David Simmons, Robin Carlo, Chris Berglund, Laura Caswell, Craig Stanovich, and Beverly Giarusso. Our practice at St. Francis has been that our wardens really function as co-wardens, one being "junior" only in terms of seniority. They serve a two-year term as junior warden and then two years as senior warden, subject of course to election at Annual Meeting. One of them, Jeanne Schutte, is now among the saints triumphant; may she rest in peace.

Recently, Hathy and I invited the remaining nine to the rectory for dinner. What a joy to have them at our table! We reminisced and told old "war stories." I was roasted a bit, but not too much. And then someone asked me a question: what did I feel was my greatest accomplishment over the past fifteen years? I was truly stumped. I had no answer and had not really thought of it before. So I passed the wine and we moved on.

But the question has stayed with me. Here is my attempt at an answer, but it needs to be qualified. The answer came to me when I was reading Tom and Dianne Wilson's blog from El Salvador. I feel so proud that missionaries from St. Francis are there, accompanying God's people and bearing witness to the love of God in Jesus Christ. The thing is, it is absolutely not my accomplishment. But I did play a supporting role.

About seven years or so ago, the vestry decided it was time for a Capital Campaign: we needed to fix some things like roofs, improve our worship space, and upgrade the memorial garden. We made a plan. We prayed. We voted as a vestry. And then we asked for the parish's support in raising $350,000. Some people thought this was a lot of money. Others told us it could be done; at the time it was just a little bit more than what our annual operating budget was. But there was one more thing. The vestry, to a person, felt we needed to give a tithe away. We needed to be mindful of the fact that even as we took care of the home front that there were so many of God's children with far less. So we went looking for an organization to whom we might give away $35,000. It came down to Episcopal Relief and Development or

All these years later, our relationship with the people of El Salvador almost seems like it has always been. But it has not always been; it's only been about six years. Yet it has become a big part of who we are as a parish: every week, along with prayers for our Bishop Doug, we also pray for Bishop Martin. Here is the thing: it could easily have been otherwise. While in hindsight it seems providential, we could have more easily chosen to send mosquito netting to Africa with ERD. In that shared discernment, however, (recommended by a special task force and then approved by the vestry) we have been changed for good. Because of that decision, our lives are influenced by the witness of people like Oscar Romero and far less famous but still courageous witnesses to the love of God in Jesus.

And now our own Tom and Dianne Wilson are there as diocesan missionaries. They were not even at St. Francis when this decision was made and they didn't go on the first trip. But they were right there for the second one and every one after that. And now they live in El Maizel. Truly amazing! But it's not just Tom and Dianne. It's all of those who have travelled to El Salvador, young and old alike. Among them was my son, Graham, who went on the first trip as a high school student and then wrote his college essay about that experience. Now a senior in college, his hope is to return to Central America with the Peace Corps after graduation.

And that is what I am proudest of. I am proud that (as Archbishop Romero once put it)  
 "we plant seeds that will one day grow..."    This is what we are about: seed planting and seed watering. It is what ministry is. Sometimes by God's grace we get to see how some of those seeds begin to grow, like mustard seeds, into signs of God's Kingdom. Because this can take a long time I am certain there are many seeds that have been planted through this ministry and countless others that will take more time to come to fruition. This is why we take the long view.