MERIDIAN, ID — My name is Gerald Fitch, I am 67 years old, and I am the reason you can read the church sign when you pull into the parking lot after 6 p.m.

I want to be clear: I am not writing this for recognition. I am writing this because the bulb above the main entrance of Covenant Fellowship Church burned out for the eleventh time in January, I replaced it on a Tuesday while balancing on a six-foot aluminum ladder in 34-degree weather, and the following Sunday three separate people complimented the new banner inside the foyer that the women’s ministry had hung two feet from the door I had just illuminated.

The banner said “You Are Seen.”

“I’ve replaced that bulb eleven times. Eleven. I keep the receipts in a manila envelope labeled ‘Bulb Ministry’ in my filing cabinet at home. My wife thinks it’s a utility folder.”

“Gerald has been handling that for years,” confirmed associate pastor Ryan Colwell, 44, when reached for comment. “Wait — Gerald does that? I thought the light just worked.”

That is the nature of this ministry. When I do it correctly, nothing is different. The light is on. It was on before. It will be on later. The absence of darkness is invisible in precisely the way darkness is not.

I have spent eighteen years ensuring that people arriving in the dark can find the door. I have no complaint. I simply note, for the record, that light does not replace itself.

At press time, Gerald had arrived at the church on a Saturday to find the bulb burned out again and was already halfway up the ladder before he had fully processed his feelings about it.