Kathleen Moore reports for the Diocese of Indianapolis:
A billboard on westbound I-74 connected Deb Samples to a loving church community at the time she needed it most. Featuring photos of diverse individuals and families along with the simple message “love your neighbor,” the sign directs viewers to the website churchthatserves.org. Those who follow the link will find the Good Samaritan Episcopal Church website, and a message: “All people are welcome means all at Good Sam’s!”
“It’s easy to pooh-pooh lawn signs or print or a billboard, but together that’s how my husband and I walked in the door at Good Sam’s,” says Samples. “In the fall of 2016, I started to see road signs in front of Harris Academy in Brownsburg for their church service. And then in our local paper, they took out a half-page ad, and what struck me was that there were people who were non-European in it, and a same-sex couple — people that might look a little different from many Brownsburg families. That was the kind of the diversity we were looking for, so that was the second thing. And then the third thing was we were driving on I-74 towards Brownsburg where the billboard is, and there it was again. So, it was kind of one of those rules of three things, when God is trying to get your attention. So I said, ‘I guess we’re going to have to go there!’”
Samples was especially in need of a church home during that period in her life. “Our 34-year-old daughter Megan was dying of cancer,” she says. “We had known for just a few months that she had the cancer, but we knew by then that she was not going to be with us long. And she died later in May of that year. And so, I tell people when you’re trying to think of a church, there probably is maybe no worse and no better time to find that church family.”
Matthew Townsend is a Halifax-based freelance journalist and volunteer advocate for survivors of sexual misconduct in Anglican settings. He served as editor of the Anglican Journal from 2019 to 2021 and communications missioner for the Anglican Diocese of Quebec from 2019 to 2022. He and his wife recently entered catechism class in the Orthodox Church in America.
