News & Stories

March 9, 2021 Impact story

One Year In


Donald V. Romanik, President, Episcopal Church Foundation: Hello. My name is Donald Romanik and I am President of the Episcopal Church Foundation. It's been about a year since we've been living with this pandemic of COVID-19. When we locked down about a year ago this time, little did we know that 12 months later we'd still be struggling. Clearly, there's a light at the end of the tunnel. We have three new vaccines that people are starting to get, and eventually we will go back to some sense of normality.

As I look back, clearly it was challenging and frightening, but there also some good things that we have to remember. Personally, I got in touch with a lot of people I haven't spoken to in years, started appreciating the simple pleasures of life, like a meal with my spouse across the table. And in our local faith communities, we learned to pivot and do things in new and different ways, from online services to phone calls, to contacts with people; we really need to celebrate the successes over this past year.

Clearly, we have more challenges. Many of us will not be able to celebrate Palm Sunday, Holy Week, and even Easter in the usual way, but we are incredibly resilient people, as Christians, as Episcopalians, as people of faith. So I encourage all of us to continue to be vigilant, continue to follow the directives of our state and local authorities, continue to be faithful, faithful witnesses to the good news of the Gospel. We will get through this together.

I want to assure you that ECF continues to be here for you. We have also pivoted to more online supports and services, to our resource hub on COVID-19 and racial reconciliation. And we'll be there as we regather and regroup and re-discern what God is calling us to do with this time and place. I wish you all of God's blessings during this Lenten season and thank you for your continued faithfulness.

Impact story Other