Holy Week at St. Peter’s – Join us
Happy Faces at. St. Peter’s, taking their prayer to the Cross
The Rev. Tom Hughes will be with us on Sunday the 13th and also Maundy Thursday and Good Friday at 7pm each night as we make our way through holy week to the celebration of Christ’s Resurrection.
The Rev. Pete Gustin will lead our worship on Easter Sunday! Join us for the journey!
Thanks to W. T. Hicks for the loads of gravel and equipment to make the new circle driveway at the parish house! He and Johnny have been a team for years on the farm, and still like to work together! They saved us a lot of money!!
Food bank continues with arrival on Tuesday, the 25th and distribution the next day.
Thanks to all who volunteer their time and energy!
Thanks to Larry Saylor for a wonderful bible study this past Wednesday. The picture handouts of the last days of Jesus were most meaningful and enjoyed by the largest class ever. There will be no meeting on april 16th but Bible study in the parish house will continue on Wed., April 23, 2025
Join us when you can.
Tom has generously recorded memories that I might share with you—He is an amazing man! Enjoy! cd
The Rev. Thomas Roddy Hughes, Jr.
“I was born in Chattanooga, Tennessee, when FDR was president and
Churchill was prime minister, during some of World War II’s worst days.
“It was a very different world, yet remarkably similar since the struggle for
good was the headline each day. I remember asking my father if they had newspapers when there was no war – in Korea by that time.
“The most profound influence in my life was my mother, for it was she who took me to Sunday School and taught me to say my prayers. Mostly, children were seen and not heard, and father was the source of discipline. But mother opened up to me the wonders of nature and how God was to be found there. She and I spent many a blessed day digging in the earth and planting things. I still love having dirt under my fingernails and the joy of a sunrise speaks to me still of being outside with her in God’s world.
“By the time I started elementary school, our house had burned to the ground twice.
“My parents were both resilient and I don’t remember their ever complaining about these tragedies.
“What a life lesson that has been.
“Having graduated from Chattanooga High School, I went on to the University of Tennessee because that was what was expected of me. Nonetheless, l was “launched”. I became involved in the civil rights movement and politics to my parents’ dismay and after my secondyear went off to Washington as a Senate staffer. It never occurred to me that I might be drafted, but I soon joined the Naval Reserve as Vietnam heated up.
“That got me through college and the first year of law school, but then I had to go on active duty. “After two years on an aircraft carrier my view of life began to shift and rather than return to law school, the Holy Spirit moved me to seek the priesthood.
“After Sewanee, l was ordained in 1975 and that has been my life for the last fifty years. In that time the Lord has led me to churches in Tennessee, Georgia, the Virgin Islands, Maryland and Virginia. My longest tenure was atShrewsbury Parish in Chestertown, Maryland. Since retirement in 2009, “l have been blessed to serve as Sunday fill-in with several congregations, including five years at Saint Mary’s, Colonial Beach as interim.
“My wife, Jan, died at Christmas, 2017. I have four great adult children, seven grandchildren (although that number has gone up to eleven since God has joined Alice’s family with mine).
“And, oh yes, a great grandson whose mother is a Marine!
“Alice and I were brought together at a Christmas sing-along party by mutual friends, her husband having died shortly after Jan. We were
married soon thereafter, a gift of pure grace, and it seems now that we have always been partners.
“My expectation is that l will go on serving our Lord in His church until
“I am called home in twenty years or so.”