Dear Parishioners,

This coming month will mark many changes to our pastoral staff. As you all know, I will be reassigned to a parish in the Portland metro area. We don’t know what decision will be made for Fr. Stephen Kenyon. He may remain at St. Anne into the next year, but he may also be reassigned to another parish. As of this writing, I do not know who will be my successor. Please keep us priests in your prayers. I hope to be able to let you know about these things by the first part of June. But, as things have been going, even that date may change.

June will also mark the end of Sandra Lopez’s time in our pastoral staff team. She joined our staff originally in the position of a Bilingual Administrative Assistant for our pastoral ministries in 2017. Since then, she has proven herself able to fulfill the position of Pastoral Assistant and now ends her time as the Coordinator of Evangelization & Catechesis. While she exits the staff as an employee, she will remain active in the parish, ministering as her time and other work allows. We wish her all the best in her new adventure in the medical field.

Since January, we have been seeking out candidates to fill our need for a bookkeeper when Carol Scherf moved from that position to the position of Parish Manager, replacing Stephen Voehl who moved on to other work months earlier. This past week, we are happy to announce that Veronica Lee has begun working part time in this important part of our administrative support staff. She comes to us with much experience in administrative positions elsewhere. Her presence has been a wonderful addition to our office. Welcome aboard, Veronica!

In the past several months, we have been seeking out a minister for our youth. We recognize that a key part of youth ministry involves parents. Also, offering a part-time position ended with no applicants. So, the Administrative Council agreed to make possible a full-time position. After conducting a renewed search and subsequent interviews, we have hired Brian Suda as our new Coordinator of Youth & Family Ministry. He will start June 13th. Many of you already know him and have seen him participate in our music group for the 5 PM Saturday night Mass. He comes with a wealth of experience, and we are glad to have him on our team.

Finally, with the coming departure of Sandra Lopez, we conducted a search and interviews to find her successor. We concluded that process some three weeks ago and can now share that Emily Suda will be joining our ministry team on July 1st as our new Coordinator of Evangelization and Catechesis. She will remain active in the 5 PM Saturday night music group playing the keyboard. Her hire also completes a dream for her and Brian, yes her husband, to work together at St. Anne on our pastoral ministry team.

My only sadness is that I will not have the opportunity to work with all three of these new team members, as I will have landed in my new assignment when Emily officially begins her work. These three hires mark a new era in our staff. You can expect to read more about them in a future edition of our bulletin once they come on board. Again, we wish Sandra all the blessings in her new work and we welcome Veronica, Brian, and Emily.

Blessings,

Fr. William Holtzinger
Pastor