Greetings from Among All the Boxes

Beth LaRocca-Pitts

Hello all! It’s Monday morning and as I type I’m sitting among all the boxes in our den over in Athens where the moving van will come to load us up in about four hours. It’s been a 90 day whirlwind since the Bishop asked me in his mild mannered way if I would be in prayer for a few days about a possible move to St. Mark! Now that conversation seems like it took place 90 years ago instead of 90 days ago, but it still feels as if the world is spinning just a little too fast. Mark and I are hoping to close this afternoon on the house at 2138 Palifox Drive that we plan to move into tomorrow morning and we are also waiting to hear how Mark’s interview at Eggleston Hospital came out. Still, regardless of these two rather large issues still being suspended in midair, our move to St. Mark definitely has God’s fingerprints all over it.

Never in my 27 years of ministry have I had people come up to me at Annual Conference and congratulate me on my appointment the way they did this year. Virtually everyone who greeted me congratulated me for having been lucky enough to be sent to you. This came from clergy and laity alike. More than a few clergy told me how jealous they were that I was chosen instead of them. This didn’t happen when I went to Harvard to study, or to Duke Divinity School to teach. I even had one clergyperson tell me that my appointment to St. Mark was the most important appointment made this conference session. I don’t know if he said that because you are the first church of over 2000 members to call a woman pastor, or because, as I suspect, finding the right person for St. Mark helped them fit all the other pieces of the appointive jigsaw puzzle in place. However it happened , we are thrilled to be coming to you and look forward to many wonderful years of ministry in Midtown.

But enough about me. Phil asked me to tell you something about our family. While I was born in Athens to Joe and Blair LaRocca (my father being a medicinal chemistry professor at UGA, originally from Colorado, and my mother the daughter of a Methodist pastor from South Carolina), I’m the only native Georgian in the family! Mark was born to George and Carroll Pitts in Terre Haute Indiana. George worked for Pfizer for 40 years and Carroll was an RN. All our parents except Carroll are deceased now, and Carroll has advanced Alzheimer’s and lives in a facility in Indianapolis that specializes in Alzheimer’s care. Mark has three brothers and a sister. David, a computer specialist from Thornton Colorado, Doug, a cardiologist in Indianapolis, Kim a nurse administrator from the DC area, and Eric, a retired member of the Air National Guard. My siblings are Carl, who is a retired carpenter who lives in Zingara Georgia, Mary Blair, who is developmentally disabled and lives at Gracewood School and Hospital in Augusta, and Charlotte, a soon to be retired psychiatrist who lives in Glastonbury Connecticut.

Mark and I met while we were both students at Harvard. I was doing my PhD in the Near Eastern Language and Civilizations department and Mark was doing his MDiv at the Divinity School. Mark finished his MDiv and began his PhD in the same department in which I studied just as we were beginning our life together. We married in 1991 and just two years later we moved to Athens so I could finish my dissertation while working as a the Mandy Flemming of Athens First United Methodist Church. After three years at Athens First (and the completion of my doctorate), we moved to Durham NC where I taught Old Testament at Duke Divinity School, Mark finished his doctorate, and Joe and Ellie were born. We can certainly relate to any and all folks who have to deal with the fertility specialists in order to have their children because it took us five years, three unsuccessful IVF attempts and lots of drugs to produce Joe and Ellie! I was forty when they were born and Mark was forty three! Our six years at Durham certainly were eventful years, I can tell you!

While in Durham, Mark worked as a hospital chaplain while finishing his dissertation in Old Testament. During those years, however, he found his calling to be not so much in the area of teaching, but in the field of chaplaincy. He worked on many units at Duke Medical center, but he also worked for a Duke Endowment agency that sent chaplaincy support to the new Infectious Disease clinics that Duke was establishing in various outlying counties around Durham using Ryan White funding. By the time we were ready to leave Durham, it was Mark’s calling to be a fulltime chaplain that led us back to Athens where he works at Athens Regional Medical Center as one of the staff chaplains. Mark was ordained a full connection member of the Annual Conference in 2005 and is now a board certified chaplain endorsed by the denomination.

Ellie and Joe are soon to be sixth graders at Inman Middle School and you will find out when you first meet them that aside from having shared the same cramped living quarters for about nine months, they are very little alike. Ellie (short for Eleanor Camak), is the eldest, having had a 29 minute head start on her brother. Few people could pick them out of a lineup as siblings much less twins but they are still pretty close, as siblings go. Ellie loves animals (which includes our two dogs Mac and Grace, our two cats Shiva and Muffin, and the pets of virtually all her friends). Ellie played little league softball here in Athens but I suspect she may end up being a runner like her dad was in high school. Joe (short for Joseph Andrew) is a social animal! He is very outgoing and loves to chat up people of all ages. If I don’t watch him carefully he could turn into a politician! His major obsession right now is Xbox live, which I suspect appeals to him mostly because he and his school friends can yack over the headsets all day while shooting at each other. As hobbies go, Mark enjoys yoga, working out at the gym, and riding his Piaggio Fly 150 scooter. I love cooking, reading detective fiction and watching way too much TV. 

We can’t wait to get to know all of you. Mark and I have missed living in the big city. Mark has lived in Jerusalem, and I have lived in Chicago, and we met and married while in Boston. We miss the diversity of a large city and we can’t wait to explore Atlanta with all of you as our tour guides. We look forward to getting to know you and to beginning our lives in your community. Thank you all for the warm welcomes we have received from everyone who has written, or called or greeted us so far. We will see you Sunday!

Mac and Grace

Muffin

Shiva