Featured Volunteer: Kate Luna

After spending some months on the Welcoming Team, I had the joy of greeting at the front door on Sundays, helping with orientations, and getting to know members of the team. Then along came the Coronavirus and no more in-person services. I sat on Zoom watching the first Virtual Service and realized, “I am a Welcomer, I can bring that same love and spirit to this Service and respond to people reaching out for connection on Zoom chat.” And so it began…. I thought it would be a month or so, and here we are more than four months in. We pretty quickly morphed into Virtual Service Team which includes the behind the scenes support for Edward getting the services up and running on Sundays.

It is kind of comical that I serve in a technical capacity. My son gets a giggle out of that. Not my comfort zone, but I was committed to serve and saw the need. For three months, I was there every Sunday, every service supporting people in Chat and Q&A. I looked forward to them all. Thanks to our now expanded team, I get to have some breaks. As much as I enjoy those, I miss my beloved fellow crew members.

The connections with the team have been so profoundly nourishing and just plain fun to serve together. Being available to respond to attendees with questions and the need for support has been such a rich enhancement in this time of no face to face. Our Virtual Welcoming Team has meetings every week. We have deepened our friendships helped each other in struggles and laughed a lot at at the challenges of SIP. We are doing trainings for interested Welcoming Team members to cross over into Virtual mode and it feels rich to create opportunities for others. My life is full of learning, connection, and deep satisfaction.