The Reverend Barbra Weza was raised in an evangelical church and discovered the Episcopal Church as an adult through a deacon friend while serving as a volunteer in a feeding program and families living at a homeless shelter.
She has served in Mason and surrounding counties for 17 years providing community and nonprofit organizational development, social services, and homeless advocacy: mobilizing churches and volunteers to provide feeding programs, cold weather shelter, showers, and resource connections in the parish hall of St. David of Wales in Shelton, her home parish. It was during this time discernment and her call to the diaconate was confirmed.
She was ordained in 2018 and has served at St. Christopher’s Community Church on Steamboat Island and Chaplains on the Harbor in Grays Harbor County.
Barbra has served as the Executive Director and Deacon of Chaplains on the Harbor, serving Grays Harbor County since 2022, and was a board member prior to being assigned. The ministries utilize a peer model to serve those on the margins through street outreach, feeding programs, a day shelter, and a supported employment program. She serves on housing, mental health and recovery, and food initiatives boards.
She and her husband, Gary, a retired engineer in the timber industry, have been married for 45 years. They have three adult children, Jason, Erin, and Brian, and a bonus daughter, Ramona, married to Jason.
While raising her family, employment included early childhood education, family advocate for a school district, job development for people with disabilities, activity director for a senior center, hospice care, and homeless advocate.
She enjoys cooking, quilting, reading, gardening, hiking, nature, and solitude at the ocean to recharge and fill her introvert soul. “I look forward to serving as an archdeacon and building more relationships around the Diocese,” she said of the appointment.