Glad Tithings

As a member of the CSM development committee, Tom Connor's top project over the past year was getting applications and forms filled out to make the ministry eligible for federal employee donations through the 1999 Combined Federal Campaign. His success will enable the ministry to receive a portion of the $40 million that federal employees in the D.C.-area alone gave last year. Connor was familiar with the forms from his service as a loaned federal executive working on the charity campaign last year.

Connor took the Life Management Study course in 1998 because he "needed to get more organized and wanted to start on a path of helping others more." Taking LMS helped firm up his daily quiet time. "I get up earlier and organize my day around my time with the Lord. It has made a big impact on everything I do," he says. The LMS, Connor notes, requires discipline and dedication, but it offers "a major positive impact on those who go through it and on their relationship with the Lord." As a result of his success with the class, he helped lead an LMS session in 1999.

A CSM Advisory Council member, Connor also chairs the local outreach committee at Truro Episcopal Church in Fairfax, Virginia, where he and his wife Sharon are members. As he has grown to know the Lord better, he has found himself wanting to spend more time on ministry and mission. In July, he led a mission trip to Honduras to work with Habitat for Humanity building concrete block houses for families who lost their homes during Hurricane Mitch.

Today Connor heads the congressional and public affairs office for the U.S. Marshals Service--his second career after a 21-year stint in the Navy. He plans a third career some day, which will include more time devoted to ministry and serving others.