Larry E Thomas

Lily Packed a Facemask Larry E Thomas

At the end of February 2020, Larry and Ann Thomas left their home in Issaquah, Washington, for a three-week vacation visiting family in Colorado and Texas. News of the coronavirus pandemic was slowly spreading. By the middle of March 2020 the world had changed and the global pandemic was in full swing. The Thomases decided to shelter in place in Flower Mound, Texas, for the next six weeks. On March 17, 2020, when Larry returned to his work as the interim pastor at Sammamish Hills Lutheran Church in Sammamish, Washington, it was from a makeshift office in Texas, not his office in Sammamish. Working remotely, Pastor Thomas began organizing weekly virtual prayer gatherings and Bible studies. In order to connect with the congregation, he started writing pastoral letters as a way of reflecting on the intersection of faith, hope, and love while living through the pandemic. Lily Packed a Facemask is a chronicle of one pastor's commitment to engage with a congregation during the 2020 coronavirus pandemic. Grounded in biblical texts, Thomas takes the threads of a variety of writers and contemporary resources and weaves a tapestry of living life faithfully in the midst of a year of constant changes and challenges.