As I look back on this year serving as President of The Mother Church, the activity that stands out most to me is the quiet prayerful work for our movement. Staying alert and focused on supporting our movement’s ability to discern and love the “one needful thing” that Jesus points to when he’s talking to Martha, and that Mrs. Eddy emphasized was divine Science. That thread came to thought in May of 2025 as I was preparing readings for Annual Meeting, and my appreciation of it further deepened throughout the year.
This year included a significant amount of travel with my family through Latin America. Taking on the role of President didn’t substantially change the direction of this family trip or our goals—though we were ready for that had there been a need. What it did was enrich the experience with a sense of anchoring. It wasn’t just a family trip anymore—it was an activity of Church that had to be a blessing for our movement and the world. Taking inspiration from Mimi Sitterly’s report during the 2025 Annual Meeting, we bought extra copies of Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy in Spanish, expecting opportunities to share along the way. And there were plenty.
One of those opportunities was in a remote part of Panama, where I spent days under the hood of our truck with Yuni, a small-town mechanic, bumping our sweaty foreheads against each other as we worked to figure out and solve some trouble with the engine. I was feeling a great deal of pressure about the tenuous position this put my family in. Yuni must have sensed this. He looked at me, smiled, and said, “Don’t worry, we can figure this out.” His words shook my thought awake, and I remembered that I wasn’t actually responsible for solving this. That set in motion a sense of adventure and joy about the work. We fixed the truck and I ended up with a new friend and a deeper love for leaning hard on God. During the work, every time we had a win, Yuni would thank God. Before we parted ways I shared how important this time with him was for me. I gave him a Science and Health and explained how much it had impacted my life. He was very grateful. Yuni and I are still in regular contact.
