AT THIS LINK.
FIND THE LATEST CALENDAR OF SERVICES HERE
MAKE A PRAYER REQUEST
SHARE A MEAL WITH US AFTER LITURGY THIS SUNDAY
ONE: OCTOBER WORK DAY: THIS SUNDAY
This is the Sunday! Come to Liturgy and bring your work clothes. We will be putting new stone on our walkways and putting together a big new play structure for our school. AND – there is still work to do in the barn if we have a super big turnout. Be part of the winning team! Join the ALL PARISH (how could that possibly be defined without YOU?) work day! This is a GREAT way to build community, and this is the thing perhaps most lacking in our society. We’ve got it! Let’s not hide it! Invite friends – all are welcome to pitch in and help! After liturgy we’ll have a cup of coffee and a quick snack, then we’ll work for 1.5-2.0 hours and have a big meal to celebrate our success!
TWO: YOUTH GROUPS – TIME TO GET SERIOUS!
We had a great meeting of our Young Adult group on Sunday. Probably 25-30 people gathered to discuss the now almost famous “I’m #3” flyer and what that means for us as Orthodox people trying to live in the world. We also discussed the recently completed Diocesan Assembly and the part the young people might plan in that gathering next time. Overall – great gathering! For the 9-12 Year Old and Teen groups the total number of attendees was zero (0)! How often parents come to our priests in older age and bemoan the fact that their children are not in the Church and that their grandchildren are just secular humanists with no relationship to God. Yet, how many of these mourning grandparents made it a priority to involve their children in activities outside the Divine Services? Honestly, the answer is very few. “Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also” is a direct quote of the Lord’s words from the Gospel. If we make it clear to our children that God and His Church are #1 in our lives then they are extremely likely to persist in their faith (unless we teach them a non-Orthodox relationship with God). But if we SAY God is #1, but make it clear by our actions that He is much lower on our priority list then we teach our children two things: we are hypocrites, and God is at best an afterthought – that the world and its values are more important than God and His values. You get to make the choice NOW for your grandchildren. The next meeting of all Youth Groups is November 1. We hope to see you there!
THREE: STEWARDSHIP EDUCATION COMMUNICATION
At the Parish Council meeting on March 11, 2017 a Stewardship Education Team was appointed by the Parish Council consisting of Fr. Gregory, Jack (Alexey) Mitchell as Starosta (now Brendan Hayden), and Leta (Ksenia) Nikulshina. The charge of this team is to provide our parish family with educational information about stewardship. In this regard, we intend to send out an email and post on our parish web site a quarterly communication in preparation for a quarterly parish finance report out.
Please find the quarterly communication at the link below. Please feel free to contact any of us, or any of the Parish Council members, with questions at any time. Or, if you prefer, use the second link below to ask a question or make a comment anonymously.
WE HAD A MEETING ON SUNDAY, OCTOBER 11, 2026 DURING THE PARISH MEAL TO DISCUSS THIS COMMUNICATION
We thank you sincerely for your generous support of our parish! And we look forward to hearing from you at your convenience regarding this information.
We didn’t include a letter with this communication – just the data. So we provide this small narrative here to help decode a bit of the reality of the data:
ONE – In order to cover a $1.5MM loan we need about $13,000 per month.
TWO – Our Treasurer notes that we have about $10,000 per month to dedicate to this payment.
THREE – in order to garner $3,000 per month we would need ten of our giving units (family or single home) to give $30 more per month, or about $1/day. Or we need ten NEW giving units (people who have not established a recurring donation) to give $1/day. Please think about how YOU could help.
FOUR – Not everyone is fulfilling the pledges they made for the building project. Surely everyone WANTS to fulfill their pledge, but if you circumstances have changed, please talk to our Treasurer, Mikhail Fisenkov. This will help us to better understand the reality of our financial situation and manage accordingly. For those whose financial circumstances have not change, but you have not fulfilled your pledge, this is a reminder.
Ask a Question about this Communication
With Love in our Lord Jesus Christ,
Fr. Gregory, Brendan, Leta
TREASURER CORNER ~ DONATE
FOUR: ORTHODOX CHRISTIANS FOR LIFE AT STV!
Our young people have established an Orthodox Christians for Life (OCL) chapter at STV! How often we talk about the need for the next generation to begin to step into leadership positions in our parish – and here is a great example of that! Three times per year the Holy Church commemorates conception,m thus teaching us that from the Orthodox point of view life begins at conception:
April 7: The Annunciation (Conception of Christ)
October 6: Conception of St. John the Baptist
December 22: Conception of the Theotokos
The Sunday following each of these feasts our OCL chapter will hold an event like a diaper drive, or a lecture, or something of the sort to remind us that the Church teaches us – not just in the abstract, but through the Divine Services – that life begins at conception. If the Church teaches us this as something important enough to be commemorated three times per year in the Divine Services, then this is a call to action. And our young people will lead that action! Be sure to support their efforts, and be sure to ask one of our priests if you have questions about the Church’s teaching in this regard. To be clear, this is about life in the womb, but this is also about “assisted suicide”, which the western world is embracing radically. Already more than 100,000 Canadians have been killed in this way. We are for life both at the beginning and end of life, and we have to be ready to be against the world in this regard. We thank our young people for being willing to lead us in this important struggle!
TIME SENSITIVE: OCL has an ESSAY CONTEST
FIVE: LOTS HAPPENING AT STV – NOT ONLY DIVINE SERVICES
Please note the following – and please join us!
OCTOBER 29: MEN’S GROUP DINNER
OCTOBER 31: HALLOWEEN ALTERNATIVE (VESPERS 5 P.M., MATINS 7 P.M.)
NOVEMBER 1: ALL YOUTH GROUPS MEET
NOVEMBER 5: YOUNG FAMILY DINNER GROUP
NOVEMBER 7: PANNYKHIDA FOR ARCHBISHOP PETER AND KONSTANTIN POPLAVSKY 5:00 P.M.
NOVEMBER 8: MEMORIAL MEAL FOR ARCHBISHOP PETER AND KONSTANTIN POPLAVSKY
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