But amid the clinking of silverware and the soothing sound of jazz, the losses of the past year could be felt at each table where someone was missing.

Good Shepherd shut down in March, even before the virus had been found in West Virginia. Residents went without visits with loved ones, outings to the movies, even fresh air.

“I felt really lost,” said Joseph Wilhelm, 89, a retired priest who said he had found it difficult to concentrate on prayer.

Twice, the nursing home tried loosening restrictions, only to shut down again.

Sally Joseph, 85, grew tearful as she told of being separated from her children and grandchildren. At Christmas, she looked out the window and waved at her grandson, who visited in the parking lot. “This is the hardest thing,” she said. “But then when I get weepy and feeling sorry for myself, I think, ‘Everybody in the world is having the same problem as I am.’”

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“I’m too excited to eat,” said Betty Lou Leech, 97, sitting at her favorite table again after receiving the coronavirus vaccine.

Good Shepherd Nursing Home, where vaccinations have finished, offers a glimpse at what life after the pandemic may look like. https://t.co/PgACK8TwbL

— The New York Times (@nytimes) February 16, 2021

On June 19, 2020, Judge Edgar Dickson issued a ruling interpreting the 2017 S.C. Supreme Court decision with its five separate opinions. Integral to that interpretation was his determination that the Episcopal Church had no trust interest in the Diocesan properties or those of its parishes. TEC and TECSC have appealed that interpretation, and the Supreme Court has once again taken jurisdiction of the case. On November 12, TEC and TECSC filed their initial brief, presenting their legal arguments for vacating Judge Dickson’s determinations. Last Friday (February 12, 2021), legal counsel for The Anglican Diocese of South Carolina filed our respondent’s brief, in support of Judge Dickson’s ruling.

Counsel for TEC and TECSC will now make a final reply to our arguments. The case will then be wholly in the hands of the Supreme Court. God has providentially brought us to this place, for which we should give thanks. Please keep the Supreme Court and its justices in your prayers as they deliberate our case, that God will be glorified in the outcome and His Church be blessed.

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The Latest Edition of the #Anglican Diocese of #SouthCarolina Enewsletter https://t.co/1OGTzdCtzH #anglican #parishministry #religion #lowcountrylife note the update from the SC Supreme Court case #law #history pic.twitter.com/upM3NhlfKo

— Kendall Harmon (@KendallHarmon6) February 16, 2021

When the locusts threatened the food security and livelihood of their neighbors, they stepped up.

“As part of the community, when the plague came to the neighboring counties and when we saw the devastation, we decided to coordinate the church members and mobilize the youths to help the farmers with their harvest,” says Pastor Solomon. “We believed it was better to do preventive work than rehabilitation. We also wanted to pass the message that we stand by them whenever they need support. It was the least we could do.”

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Extraordinary Teens in #Ethiopia Help Farmers Save Crops During Locust Crisis | Compassion International Blog https://t.co/KQ332MmaO2 #children #awarenss #compassion #africa #agriculture

— Kendall Harmon (@KendallHarmon6) February 15, 2021

For decades, scientists unfairly maligned the humble butterfly as an inefficient creature. Now, with the help of a wind tunnel, scientists in Sweden are proving the opposite is true.

In the early 1970s scientists first noticed the insect claps its wings during flight. At first, the discovery seemed to help cement the creature’s reputation as a clumsy flier. But Swedish scientists on Jan. 20 published a paper in the Journal of the Royal Society Interface showing slapping its wings at the top of the upstroke helps the butterfly produce forward thrust by capturing a pocket of air and jetting it backwards. The discovery demonstrates that, far from being inefficient flyers, butterflies are fearfully and wonderfully made.

Biologists Christoffer Johansson and Per Henningsson of Sweden’s Lund University began by catching six silver-washed fritillary butterflies in a meadow near their Stensoffa, Sweden, field station. The pair of scientists hoped to use a wind tunnel to monitor how the butterflies use their flexible wings to create thrust and lift. But in order to study butterfly aerodynamics, the team needed to see the air interacting with the insects’ wings. By releasing visible gas called a tracer into the wind tunnel, the team could observe the butterflies creating vortices or even capturing pockets of air with their wing flaps. “When the wings clap together at the end of upstroke the air between the wings is pressed out, creating a jet, pushing the animal in the opposite direction,” the scientists wrote in their report.

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A fluttery flying technique https://t.co/vZ2SsYprEv

— Arugula Santiago (@ArugulaSantiago) February 5, 2021

As South Carolina’s leaders pledge to end human trafficking and prosecute its perpetrators, a Lowcountry woman is pulling their focus to the survivors of such horrors.

Kat Wehunt, who survived years of sex trafficking as a teenager, knows she’s lucky to have escaped. But she worries that her peers in the Palmetto State don’t have a simple, thorough and accessible system to help them maintain a life free from abuse.

Her solution is The Formation Project, the state’s only survivor-led nonprofit dedicated to ending human trafficking. While law enforcement, legislators and faith leaders work to pull victims from their abusers, Wehunt focuses on the next step: connecting them with resources to make sure they’re able to thrive for the rest of their lives with the physical and emotional support they deserve.

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As SC’s leaders pledge to end human trafficking and prosecute its perpetrators, a Lowcountry woman is pulling their focus to the survivors of such horrors.https://t.co/DTt2OlVYFK

— The Post and Courier (@postandcourier) February 15, 2021

Mighty God, we bless thy Name for the example of thy bishop Charles Todd Quintard, who persevered to reconcile the divisions among the people of his time: Grant, we pray, that thy Church may ever be one, that it may be a refuge for all, for the honor of thy Name; through Jesus Christ, who with thee and the Holy Spirit liveth and reigneth, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Today the Episcopal Church commemorates Charles Todd Quintard, Bishop of Tennessee, 1898 http://t.co/vTHolNCFxF pic.twitter.com/YBF5moGmuG

— The Anglican Church in St Petersburg (@anglicanspb) February 16, 2015

Almighty and eternal God, who in thy Son Jesus Christ hast revealed thy nature as Love: We humbly pray thee to shed thy love abroad in our hearts by thy Holy Spirit; that so by thy grace we may evermore abide in thee, and thou in us, with all joyfulness, and free from fear or mistrust; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord.

This Tuesday had a great sunrise ☀️ pic.twitter.com/HuqmkUeFKp

— Mårten Björkgren (@MartenBjorkgren) February 16, 2021

Therefore we must pay the closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away from it. For if the message declared by angels was valid and every transgression or disobedience received a just retribution, how shall we escape if we neglect such a great salvation? It was declared at first by the Lord, and it was attested to us by those who heard him, while God also bore witness by signs and wonders and various miracles and by gifts of the Holy Spirit distributed according to his own will. For it was not to angels that God subjected the world to come, of which we are speaking. It has been testified somewhere, “What is man that thou art mindful of him, or the son of man, that thou carest for him? Thou didst make him for a little while lower than the angels, thou hast crowned him with glory and honor, putting everything in subjection under his feet.” Now in putting everything in subjection to him, he left nothing outside his control. As it is, we do not yet see everything in subjection to him. But we see Jesus, who for a little while was made lower than the angels, crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for every one. For it was fitting that he, for whom and by whom all things exist, in bringing many sons to glory, should make the pioneer of their salvation perfect through suffering.

–Hebrews 2:1-10

It might be, it could be, it is!!!! Welcome back sunshine! @windjammeriop @IOPCity pic.twitter.com/mjgHKf7nd1

— Rob Fowler (@RobStormTeam2) February 16, 2021