Road trip
I remember hearing the gravel and Keisha yelling an expletive.
The car was headed into the gravel median of the roadway, while on the other side was a long line of cars, all potential targets.
We had all fallen asleep -- me at the steering wheel, Keisha in the front passenger's seat, with DeAudra and Kim (other UNC students I hardly knew) in the back. We had all taken turns driving in the wee hours of the morning. Luckily, things didn't end the way they could have.
That was the last memory I had of Kim -- wide-eyed in the rearview mirror -- until I flipped past her picture more than a decade later in the Holy Trinity Episcopal Church directory, where she is listed as Deacon Kim Hudson.
What amazing things I soon learned about Kim, a lawyer by trade. She's also the second black woman to be ordained as a vocational deacon in the Episcopal Diocese of North Carolina.
Deacons, according to the Episcopal Prayer Book, are ordained clergy who are called to remind the church that serving others in the world is essential to the work of the church. Vocational deacons communicate to the church the needs and hopes of people in the community and facilitate ministry to those in need.
At Holy Trinity, Hudson's responsibilities include preaching, teaching and assisting with worship. Her focus is on outreach activities and social justice matters, conflict resolution and spiritual formation -- which have resulted in offerings to the whole community.
Maybe it wasn't the gravel that awoke us that day -- I think Kim (on a temporary assignment with her job this month) was destined to make this kind of difference in other people's lives.