Deaconess St. Anna Ellison Butler Alexander

St. Athanasius. St. Cyprian’s. Good Shepherd in Pennick.

No schedule — just calloused miles and blackwater minutes.

Horse, mule, foot for the sand-road stretches, canoe tucked belly-down in the reeds when she hit the marshes.

Born to the newly freed, with pockets thin as skin, she gave like the river — steady in drought, relentless in the flood — and she built where the ledger said don’t.

Desks bolted to floorboards like vows that won’t move. Chalk dust in the sunlight. Names called into being.

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Ask where the money came from? Plates passed where plates were empty. Pennies into buildings. Nickels into books.

And when the earth broke open, an ocean away, in 1923, they emptied the building fund for strangers they’d never see.

Poor feeding poorer — that’s saints’ math. That’s power in community.

Say feet, we say ground.

Say no, we say build.

Say water, we say ferry the lesson.

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She walked where roads weren’t given, paddled past the posted lines,

stood in the thin places and made a way thick with life.

A hundred years later and the timbers still hold.

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So today I lace my shoes with stubborn mercy.

I will stand where help is thin,

I will walk till the way opens.

I will teach with what I have and give till it moves.