Greetings friends! My name is Allison Nieto and I’m happily serving my 3rd year on the vestry. My husband, Rudy, and I have 2 kids ages 17 and 7. Our 3 dogs complete our family and provide us with endless love and entertainment!

When asked what brought us to HSEC the simplest answer is geography. Five years ago when we were preparing to move from Atlanta to Houston we contracted on a house 2 blocks from the church and counted our blessings that an Episcopal church was so close to our new home. Rudy and I both grew up Episcopalian, met in the church while we were at LSU, and have always found comfort in the consistency of worship no matter where we are living. We were committed to Holy Spirit before even meeting a single person. Little did we know that we would end up in a different house but our commitment to Holy Spirit didn’t waiver especially after meeting so many friendly faces. Just two weeks after moving in Harvey hit. One of the only silver linings that came from those horrible weeks and months is that we solidified our relationships and formed new friendships over the common bond of helping our neighbors and fellow parishioners recover.

One of the wonderful things about our culture is that we have designated days of the year to, if we are paying attention, show our gratefulness. Thanksgiving Day is the obvious leader in this category. We could also call out Mother’s Day, Father’s Day and Veteran’s Day as times to express our appreciation for our parents and for those serving in our armed forces.

This weekend we celebrate Memorial Day, where we should show our appreciation and respect for the men and women of our military that have given their lives to preserve our freedom and help our country. Thank you and God bless every one of you!

While Josh is on sabbatical, your vestry members will be supplying Spirit Shot messages, so please allow me to be one of the first to welcome The Rev. Erin Jean Warde to Holy Spirit. She’ll be subbing for Josh through his sabbatical. I hope that you’ll help to give her a Holy Spirit welcome as only this parish can.

I hope our Holy Spirit teachers are feeling the love today! It is teacher appreciation week and Holy Spirit volunteers and school board members provided a wonderful breakfast for them this morning. At school Sunday this past weekend, I shared that becoming the rector of a church with a school entailed a whole new year-end routine.

With Easter Sunday celebrated and School Sunday coming this weekend, it has been a bit startling to realize how soon my sabbatical will be beginning. There is a chance I’ve also been in a little bit of denial because I am going to miss seeing you all. My final Sunday will be May 15th and I will return on Sunday August 21st (this is the standard required time in the Diocese of Texas). The intent of a sabbatical can be well understood by looking at our related religious term, Sabbath. This is a period of intentional rest, renewal, and reimagining. We have experienced a great deal at Holy Spirit in my 9 years, much of which was wonderfully routine like weekly worship, Sunday school, baptisms, weddings, concerts, feasts, trips, and more. We have also shared some significant experiences like our listening campaign, capital campaign, building project, the formation of new priests, and on the more difficult side, Hurricane Harvey and Covid. Friends, this is a good moment to make space to reenter the fall with new vision and energy.

On May 1st, we will finally get to celebrate all that God is doing at our school for Holy Spirit School Sunday. Teachers and families will be welcomed. We will have breakfast as we do every first Sunday, but this month we will gather in the gym to accommodate the size of our attendance. The students will bless us with presentations of things they have been working on like songs from their production of “Lemonade” (my daughter has been practicing!). I also just met with one of our baptismal candidates for this Sunday and she shared that she will be one of the cheerleaders who will cheer for us on May 1st. It will be a wonderful morning.

As you may have noticed in church on Sunday, I got a little emotional when I realized that we are entering into a Holy Week that has all the markers of normalcy. The church was full for Palm Sunday. Many of you have signed up for the overnight vigil on Maundy Thursday. Most of the bulletins are printed (with the only exception being Easter, which is unique this year as my first time experiencing a Bishop’s visit on the holiest of days). Thirteen Hundred Easter eggs have been stuffed with candy and are ready to be hunted! We are about ready…

Our newcomers class recently discussed the centrality of worship to the way our church experiences and explores the Good News of what God has done for us in Jesus Christ. We literally live out our faith in a yearly journey we call the liturgical year. Every step reveals and deepens our connection to the never-ending promise of grace and hope and as we approach Easter, we approach the most important and pivotal moment of this shared journey.