b'a visit withthe associate rectorPaul Evans arrived at Grace & Holy Trinity fresh from the seminary in the summer of 2022, and moved himself, his laptop, assorted papers and photographs, a lamp, and numerous boxes of books into the freshly painted office overlooking Monroe Park. Paul was a welcome presence because he had been here in 2015-2019 as our part-time youth minister while working primarily in communications at St. Christophers. We were his sending parish to the seminary in Alexandria, Virginia. Becoming the full-time Associate Rector for this parish embodied his commitment to a clear call to ministry that had begun in him many years before.Paul was raised in a Roman Catholic family, and baptized at St. Johns Catholic Church in Highland Springs. He credits his upbringing for his understanding of the family dimension and the sacredness, the sacramental nature of church attendance. Starting at St. Christophers School in the second grade turned him in the direction of the Episcopal Church.Since I was a little kid, he says, I was always fascinated with what it takes to make a community tickwhat the traditions and customs are that define a community. Like Nick, narrator in The Great Gatsby, Paul was in the community anchored by St. Christophers and St. Catherines schools and St. Stephens Church, but not really of it. But at the school, he was befriended by David Anderson, the schools chaplain, who saw in him a child looking for just such an anchor.The bond of that mentorship was never broken, and would reappear in formational ways much later on. After college, Paul ran into his old friend in the gym, and Anderson said to him, Know anybody whos looking for a job? So he spent two years at St. Stephens Episcopal Church working as building and grounds manager, and He waslearning what it meant to be fully present in the church community. I came to understand that my role there calling mewasnt peripheral, he says, and to feel connected with it by serving in a meaningful way. I felt that something home afterwas going on, and realized that I wanted to become an my timeEpiscopalian.He got down on his knees in front of then-Bishop Peter wandering inLee, and his friend David Anderson presented him for the wilderness reception into the Episcopal Church. As he looked back years later over what was stirring in his heart and mind, he realized that he knew even then that the path to ordination was where he was headed. And like so many men and women whose call is becoming more urgent, he spent the next few years resisting it.There was the summer he spent as deckhand and crew aboard a 44-foot schooner sailing from northern Norway 8 | ANNUAL REPORT 2022'