Dear UUCA Community,

What a joy it has been to be your interim minister this year. While I still haven’t met many of you in person I have enjoyed getting to know you during Sunday coffee hour, Support Group for Being Human Gatherings, and all the meetings of committees and teams that happen throughout the week. I find UUCA folks to be warm, generous, creative, and optimistic. You have an exciting vision for the future of the church and how you can transform greater Akron. It is wonderful to see you move toward that vision with confidence and clarity.

For everyone in our church family it has been a difficult year. The impossibility of parenting during the pandemic, trying to stay healthy, missing each other’s company- the stress and loneliness have been more than we could have imagined at this time last year. Still, you have continued to treat each other well and continued to care for our community through your many service programs. Despite the pandemic, meals were prepared, groceries distributed, cards were sent and calls were made. You kept caring. When you felt like just hiding under the bed you kept caring. How strong you all are. How resilient.

Many, perhaps most, of you lost loved ones over the past year. I’m so sorry that we couldn’t grieve beside you. When we are together again we will shed tears, share memories, and plant seeds of new life in the Memorial Garden. We will remember every person lost, and their memory will be a blessing. Soon you will not weep alone.

The board and I hope that soon it will be safe for us to have small gatherings inside and outside at the church. The Fellowship Hall floor is already arranged to have people six feet apart, and the high-tech new filtration system in that room will filter out nearly every germ. Thank you to Dan and the board for making a safe space for us to be together. Hopefully, depending on virus variants and local infection numbers, we will be together again for worship services in the fall- hopefully!

Until then, thank you for caring so well for each other, for so graciously welcoming me, and for being your resilient, hopeful, generous selves.

Warmly,

Rev. Kate