Kris Christensen

“I’m wondering if we have any holy water.” No, I thought, but I can make some. “Sure,” I said.

A year ago we surveyed low-income guests gathered at the free weekly dinner we offer at West Central Episcopal Mission. The question was “What resources do you find hard to get in West Central?”

Ryan wants me to pray for him because he is going to the hospital to have a bionic spine installed. Ryan lives at Mallon Place — a home for the mentally ill a few blocks from West Central Episcopal Mission. He has schizophrenia. He neither knows nor cares how to properly address a priest. He only cares that I pray for him.

A few Fridays ago, at 4:30 in the afternoon, about 10 of us — board members and volunteers — gathered at West Central Episcopal Mission to perform a cleansing and blessing of our several properties, buildings and land that had been home to Holy Trinity Episcopal Church for over 100 years. It was not a good day to be late.

The Rev. Kris Christensen is an Episcopal priest and the executive director of West Central Episcopal Mission, a ministry of the Episcopal Diocese of Spokane.