Case Study Five: Looking for God’s Good in Life’s Circumstances Valerie Walker Valerie Walker lives in Houston, Texas, where she teaches MBA students at her alma mater, Rice University, and has been engineer for the energy industry for over 15 years, after graduating from Texas A&M University with a BS in Mechanical Engineering. Valerie is pursuing a MA in Biblical Studies at Asbury and enjoys running with her chocolate lab, live music, painting, and spending time with her family. Context: Suburban, Texas Affiliation: United Methodist Size: 13,000 members Church Context The church that was observed during the pandemic was the “Methodome” United Methodist Church located in the suburbs of a major city in Texas. It has approximately 13,000 members and has around 1,500 people that worship at its traditional service on any given Sunday. This suburb was heavily impacted by Covid-19. The Texas governor announced the closure of schools, bars, restaurants and gyms on March 20,2020.1 The particular suburb where the “Methodome” United Methodist Church is located was hit especially hard by the disease and the county issued stay at home orders March 27, 2020. The orders were lifted on April 17, 2020. Since then, the county has had cycles of spikes in the number of Covid-19 cases throughout the summer and reached the highest number of cases to date in late summer of 2020. https://gov.texas.gov/news/post/governor-abbott-issues-executive-orders-tomitigate-spread-of-covid-19-in-texas 1
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