Our last Sunday with you will be October 6
A year ago last August, I received a phone call from East Longmeadow asking if I’d be interested in serving as a three-month Bridge Pastor beginning in October, 2023. The Deacons wanted some continuity between early October when their pastor was retiring and Christmas/Epiphany season. I had no idea how this phone call would lead to me serving not just three months but twelve months as your Bridge Pastor.
It is with a heart full of gratitude and grief, love and hope, that I am now leaving you. I will miss all of you dearly. And, as Paul said in his letter to the Philippians, I will thank God every time I remember you.
I will remember the conversations and laughter shared with you during coffee fellowship. I will remember the awe I experienced at East Longmeadow’s Christmas Tree lighting and the tables full of cookies and hot chocolate that followed. I will remember Santa Claus and children lined up to sit on his lap so that proud parents could take their pictures. I will recall my amazement at a crowded Christmas Craft Fair and everyone’s enthusiasm at the spring Plant Sale (and the blue bells and iris I brought home that day will remind me of you every spring when they bloom). And how could I forget Food Truck Saturday when everyone sprang into action to save the food vendor’s pop-up tent when a violent thunderstorm interrupted the event. I will remember the candle-lit Christmas Eve service when every pew filled. I will carry with me so many images of your astounding generosity as you collected winter coats for the needy, or food for Kensington School, or personal items for the YWCA,’s women’s programs. And I will hold forever in my heart all those people whom I walked alongside as they went through difficult times and was a witness their incredible strength, resilience, and deep faith.
Most of all, Jan and I will remember the love we hold for each of you. I have been blessed to have had the opportunity to spend these last 12 months serving alongside all of you.
Transitions are never easy. And goodbyes always feel too soon. Amid this transition for you as a congregation, I am confident that God will do what God does best. I am certain that God will continue to guide you all with grace in the coming months and years. You have excellent leaders and dedicated people who love God and express that love through serving the East Longmeadow Congregational Church. I want to especially thank Cindy Koziol and Deb Salli, who as the staff members with whom I worked closely made my work so much easier and productive. Any success I have had among you is largely the result of their support and hard work. This is a strong, confident congregation with leaders who work well will each other and whom the congregation knows and trusts. Finally, although Jan and I are leaving you, we promise to hold you in our prayers long after our good-byes.
Our last Sunday with you will be October 6. Between now and then, we will have an opportunity to say farewell to each other.
Blessings,
Thomas R. Hawkins