,You meet the most amazing people around St. Paul’s Commons, Echo Park, including the beloved longtime manager of the Episcopal Community Federal Credit Union, Urla Gomes, finally retiring (or just redeploying!), and her friend and colleague, our devoted board chair Dan Valdez … the Rev. Canon Susan Russell and the Rev. Arthur Toro, for a conversation about Arthur’s retirement ministry in Kenya … Canon Serena Evans Beeks, who is continuing to keep close tabs on events in her beloved Haiti … the Rev. Samuel Pillsbury, deacon, law professor, jail and prison minister, and expert on rehabilitative justice, who is moving to Colorado Springs but remaining an integral part of The Bishop’s Commission on Gospel Justice and Community Care … Steve Lovejoy, our new head of school at St. John’s Episcopal School in Rancho Santa Margarita … longtime colleague the Rev. Michael Cunningham and Amy, married two years ago on June 19 … Sarah Shipman of Episcopal Migration Ministries, for a conversation with IRIS Interfaith Refugee & Immigration Service, Los Angeles’s Troy Elder, Canon Andy Tomat, Samantha Wylie, and me about IRIS present and future … and the Rev. Shane Scott-Hamblen, rector of Saint Michael and All Angels Episcopal Parish Church, Corona del Mar, CA these six months and brimming with ideas about mission and ministry (besides being the only priest in the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles ordained by Joseph Ratzinger).
