Consider giving to support the Men’s Mission to Alaska! You can now donate online at holytrinity-oca.org/mission/
The Orthodox Christian Mission Center has confirmed that a construction team from Holy Trinity will travel to Marshall, Alaska to improve St. Michael’s Church this summer.
The Team will depart Sunday afternoon, July 22, and return August 4. Although the participant cost has increased slightly to $2,000 per person, this includes all travel, as well as room/board, orientation (which will be done in advance at State College), and an OCMC administrative fee. Each member is responsible for raising his own funds.
The Men’s Fellowship will be holding several fundraisers this spring to help members go. The first will be on Annunciation (Sunday, March 25), with a mission luncheon after Liturgy. On the menu will be Russian-Alaskan pirok, a delicious fish pastry dish.
There will be no charge but a free-will offering will be received. Our goal for this dinner is $2,000. Please make plans to attend, enjoy a wonderful taste-treat, and help our missionaries get to Alaska.
Pray for our missionary team members: Nikita Fedkin, Michael Haupt, Sam Leathers, Ed Miranda, Jonathan Miranda, Michael Pelikan, Michael Stickles, David Swisher, Darren Torbic, and Deacons Alexander and Mark. Fr. John, who served Marshall on his Sabbatical, will serve as the team’s leader. (Konstantin Kucheryavvy and Mark Radomsky, though no longer able to travel with the team, plan to help with fundraising.)
A Prayer of Preparation
If it is to be first you desire, be last. If to rule, be the servant. If to be heard, be silent. You desire to have, then give. If you desire to buy, then save… If honor, love those around you. If you desire they love you, suffer long, be amiable, do not get angry, nor exaggerate, nor boast. Love your neighbors and you, too, will be loved. If you desire to be God’s, do good for life…
If it is the grace of the Holy Spirit you desire, think
with God, live with God, piously. Paul came from Saul.
All that you desire is attained through effort… You are on sand and it is marshland beneath your feet. In a moment you fall and become filthy. In a moment you lose all you have attained…
O Lord of the hosts, be the Commander of my life! Thou alone givest to those undeserving and love where there is no love and heal where faith has been lost, and are merciful to those filled with hate and heal those who ridicule Thy Name. Thy love is inexhaustible,
it rejoices the heart and gives hope. Without Thee,
O Creator, there truly is no meaning and life turns to the darkest of nights. With Thee is fullness, without Thee only an empty nothing. Be, then, our power,
help and strength…
If it is to have that you desire, then fill your hearts
and minds with the Lord. All will be yours. He is the “All and Everything” and beyond all things and in all things, Whom we desire and to Whom we hasten.
It is Him that my soul thirsts for. To Him be glory:
to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit, now and ever and unto the ages of ages. Amen.
— Fr. Simon J. Turkic
(courtesy of frmilovan.wordpress.com)
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