The
Rev. Roderick Welles
A
native Wilmingtonian, Rev. Rod Welles
has spent the majority of his life in the
ministry as a chaplain, teacher and headmaster
in church sponsored schools. After graduating
from Yale with a B.A. in 1959, he served in
the Marine Corps as an instructor for
the Training and Test Regiment in Quantico,
Virginia.
After graduating from the
Episcopal Theological School in Cambridge,
Massachusetts, he served as curate at Christ
Church, Exeter, New Hampshire and later, Chaplain,
Teacher and Department Head at St. Paul's School
in Concord, New Hampshire. During a sabbatical
year, while working at the Smithsonian Institution'
s Environmental Research Center, Rod met his
wife Sue who was also working at the center
on a project for NASA.
During his time as Head of the Upper
School at Portledge School in Locust Valley,
Long Island, Rod developed an interdisciplinary
high school program which was
designed to teach learning as a holistic experience.
He then served as Headmaster for the Sewanee
Academy of the University of the South in Sewanee,
Tennessee and for The Arlington Schools in
Atlanta, Georgia.
Rod was then called back to Wilmington to
serve as Headmaster Search Consultant for Independent
School Management in Wilmington, Delaware at
which time he also began 15 years as a Priest
in Residence at Immanuel Church Highlands.
The last seven and a half years of Rod's active
ministry were with Friendship House, Inc.,
a ministry to homeless men and women in downtown
Wilmington, where he was Program Coordinator
for the Men's Day Center. Simultaneously, he
served as the Primary Pastor for St. Nicholas
Episcopal Church in Newark, Delaware. He now
serves at Associate Priest at The Episcopal
Church of Saints Andrew and Matthew.
In addition to his work in the church, Rod
served for five summers as an instructor
for Outward Bound, an outdoor training
program for young people. He served for six
years on the Board of Independence School in
Newark and now serves on the board of St. Anne's
School in Middletown, Delaware.
Favorite Quote:
Above all, trust the slow work of God. We are, quite naturally, impatient to reach the end without delay. We should like to skip the intermediate stages. We are impatient of being on the way to something unknown, something new. And yet, it is the law that progress is made by passing through some stage of instability, and that may last a very long time ... Only God can say what this new spirit forming within you will be. Give our Lord the benefit of believing that His hand is leading you, and accept the anxiety of feeling yourself in suspense and incomplete.
--Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
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