Dear friends,

A fun, diverse group gathered recently to witness a milestone and celebrate the life of Penny Salazar-Phillips, who is retiring this summer after twenty years in leadership at Mile High Ministries.

Penny directed Joshua Station for more than ten years. Then she turned her energies to train young social workers, chaplains, and mental health professionals working in our programs. Imagine the lives that have been touched through Penny’s work!

Penny and I met nearly forty years ago when she was the laidback and highly skilled social worker helping Heidi and me to adopt our first child. We became friends and ministry partners. She joined the MHM Board of Directors, and when I asked her to help me hire a new leader for Joshua Station she said; “I’ll make this easy for you; you should hire me!”

It has been a gift to spend the last twenty years working side-by-side with Penny, shepherding a healing community for families experiencing homelessness. Even in the most difficult moments—and there have been a bunch of those, including the deaths of beloved coworkers and residents—having Penny by my side steadied my nerves in the midst of the storm.

At her party we asked the crowd to shout out words that come to mind when we think of Penny. It was a long list that included: peace, mother, strong, courage, wisdom, healer, rule-breaker, and… disco ball! We paused to savor each word, nodding in agreement.

My word was beauty. Yes, Penny is an exceptional social worker. She is also an artist and a poet. We count on her to bring a touch of beauty to staff meetings, or to follow a theological conversation with an art project to get us out of our heads and into our hearts.

In her art, poetry, and prayers you can feel Penny reaching for something, trying to bring the rest of us along, inviting us to participate in something beautiful. That something is God’s love, which somehow Penny has always known and shared with others. The endless love of God has been the driving force behind her twenty years of leadership at Mile High Ministries and many others before coming to MHM.

Penny is still going strong, by the way: still supervising young social workers and helping lead cohorts of women leaders from different walks of life in our city. We’ll sure miss her day-to-day leadership here at MHM, though.

We give thanks for the life and leadership of Penny Salazar-Phillips—one of our city’s great faith leaders of the last generation!

Gratefully,

Jeff Johnsen

Executive Director

For joyful photos and videos of Penny’s retirement celebration, head to our Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn @milehighmin.