Alumnus Father John Edward (M.A. ’15) was recently featured in this article, which appeared in newsitem.com, a local media outlet in Shamokin, PA. Father John, pastor of St. Michael’s Orthodox Church, Mount Carmel, PA, and his wife, Suja, have three children. [photo and story by Julie Hagenbuch; used with permission from newsitem.com]

MOUNT CARMEL — A passion for church history can lead a Christian to wade knee-deep in the River Jordan, stand beneath Juan Diego’s cloak at the Basilica de Guadalupe in Mexico City or take communion at the Vatican in Rome. For Father John Edward, a lifelong commitment to Christian history led him right here, to St. Michael’s Orthodox Church in Mount Carmel.

Born in Malaysia to Indian parents, Edward was exposed to an array of religious traditions and expressions from an early age. The most common faith in his home country, Islam, is practiced peacefully alongside Buddhism, Hinduism and Christianity, as well as ancestral Chinese religions.

“Malaysia was a very, very friendly country,” he said during an interview at his home last week.

With such a broad view of the forms faith can take, Edward traveled to India when he came of age to study theological education, completing his studies in 1990. He then moved back to his home country, where he served as an Anglican minister for a decade. It was during these first years of his vocation that he married his wife, Suja, and the two started a family.

Back to ‘cradle of Christianity’

But Edward’s thirst for knowledge and faith exploration continued to grow and change. In 2001, he was accepted into a post-graduate program at Princeton Seminary focusing on the history of the early church, for which he moved to the United States to become a Master of Theology, then serving the Episcopal Church throughout New Jersey and New York for 10 years.

“My interest has always been church history,” said Edward, “That led me to actually want to go back to the early church — the church that Jesus formed, the church that the apostles were a part of.”

But protestant faiths like Anglicanism that emerged from the reformation came around much later, beginning in the 1500s.

“I just wanted to go back to the roots — the cradle of Christianity,” said Edward.

It took him a few years “to discern, to look, to search” — a time during which he explored a variety of church traditions and Christian denominations. At the end of his search, he found an answer.

“Ultimately my search led me to the Orthodox Church because (it) has come down for the past 2000 years without changing anything,” he said. “The faith has been intact. As one of our saints, Saint Nikolai of Japan, says, ‘We don’t add anything and we don’t remove anything.’”

Big city to small town

And so Edward began the next step in his faith formation: he attended seminary at St. Vladimir’s Orthodox Seminary in Yonkers, New York, and was ordained in June 2015 to the priesthood. The archbishop of Eastern Pennsylvania suggested he would be a good fit at St. Michael’s in Mount Carmel, and within a week the Edward family — now numbering five — packed up and moved to Pennsylvania.

“Initially moving from such a big city to a small town needed some adjustment,” he said, “but we have adjusted well. We kind of like the peace and quiet, the calmness of this place. We don’t have to worry about traffic jams or getting to places on time. It’s really nice.”

And the Edward family, which includes Samuel, 20, Sneha, 19, and Sophia, 15, has been welcomed “with open arms” by a congregation that spent two years without a full-time priest.

“They are just wonderful people,” said Edward. “Very loving, very caring people. Their faith is deeply rooted. Most of my congregation — the elderly ones — their fathers were involved in building this church, so they have so much love for (it.)”

Edward says he is grateful to be serving a congregation that, though small in number, is diverse in age; it includes young families, children and teenagers, as well as senior citizens who have been lifelong members.

‘Here to serve you’

And the congregation is grateful to be giving back to the community again, according to church member Sandy Tosca. At a parish picnic last month, St. Michael’s invited representatives from the Lower Anthracite United Way backpack program, God’s Chuckwagon and Manna for the Many, all of which were presented with a donation from the congregation.

“It is a miracle we went from barely getting by as a parish to finally being able to help our community,” said Tosca.

St. Michael’s has services on Sunday mornings, Vespers services on Saturday evenings and feast day celebrations throughout the year. But what Edward most wants people to know is that the church is open and welcoming to the the entire community.

“St. Michael’s is here to serve you,” he said, offering his church up as one small piece of a Christian faith that continues to weave its way through history.

St. Vladimir's Seminary alumnus, His Grace Bishop Alexander (Golitzin), was enthroned as the second ruling Bishop of Dallas and the South during the weekend of June 10-11, 2016, at Saint Seraphim Cathedral in Dallas, TX. The full story is available on Oca.org.

Read more:

Bishop Alexander's Commencement Address to the SVOTS Class of 2012
Bishop Alexander Delivers Second Annual Meyendorff Lecture

With the blessing of His Eminence Archbishop Nicolae, the Romanian Orthodox Archdiocese in the Americas partnered with the Center for Orthodox Christian Studies at Fordham University and the Sophia Institute to host the ninth edition of the Annual Symposium of Orthodox Spirituality. The Symposium was held on April 16, 2016 on the campus of Fordham School of Law in New York City, and featured the theme, “Youth Religious Education: Wisdom from Christian Tradition for the Contemporary Society.”

Two St. Vladimir's Seminary alumni—Dr. Ann Bezzerides ('00), adjunct assistant professor of Religious Studies at Hellenic College in Brookline, MA, and the Very Reverend Dr. Joseph Purpura ('79), chair of the Department of Youth and Parish Ministries for the Antiochian Archdiocese—were guest speakers, as was the Very Reverend Dr. Chad Hatfield, SVOTS Chancellor/CEO.

Panel discussions were opened by His Eminence Archbishop Nicolae, who emphasized the importance of the Symposium's topic. He noted that youth religious education must be a permanent concern of the Orthodox Church, because our youth represent not only the present, but also the future of the Church. His Eminence also gave thanks to all those who were involved in organizing the meeting.

Father Theodor Damian moderated the panel of notable guest speakers, which in addition to the St. Vladimir's contingent, included: the Very Reverend Dr. John Anthony McGuckin, professor of Byzantine Christian Studies at Columbia University in New York City; Dr. Aristotle Papanikolaou, professor of Theology at Fordham University; Dr. Harold Horell, assistant professor of Religion at Fordham University; Dr. Fevronia Soumakis, a fellow at the Sophia Institute, Columbia University; Dr. Lucian Turcescu, professor of Historical Theology at Concordia University in Montreal, Quebec; and Dr. Anton Vrame, adjunct associate professor of Religious Education at Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology. At the end of the scheduled program, attendees gathered for Vespers. 

Recently I ran across an article mulling over the reasons young adults leave the Church. It’s no secret that as a group we Orthodox haven’t done a very good job of keeping our children connected to our Faith. Indeed, attrition estimates among college aged adults range as high as 60%. The article offered a few sensible explanations as to why young people walk out the door of the Church when they walk through the gates of the university, but as I was reading another question, almost the opposite question, formed itself in my mind: why should they stay? What justification can we offer for asking someone to forego sleeping in on Sunday, giving up meat and dairy for about 6 months of the year, abstaining from the premarital sex their friends are enjoying, and all the other “no’s” that seem to crop up when you’re talking about being a Christian? Our young friends aren’t likely to find the answer, “to stay out of hell” or, “to go to heaven” very persuasive for the simple reason that heaven and hell seem very abstract, very far away, and the pleasures of life seem intensely close, tangible. If we are honest many of us would admit that those answers don’t motivate us either. So why should we ask them to stay? Perhaps we should ask ourselves the same question. Why do we bother with the trouble of being Orthodox Christians, accepting the effort and sacrifice that it requires, rather than just enjoying whatever makes us happy?

In his work, On The Apostolic Preaching, St. Irenaeus of Lyon, reflecting on the fall of man, describes Adam and Eve as little children, biological and spiritual babies, in Paradise. As Irenaeus sees it, Adam and Eve were created immature but with the dynamic capacity to grow and become more and more like God, sharing increasingly in the brilliance of His holiness. St. Symeon the New Theologian says that the human spirit was created to be filled with God and that grace was meant to overflow into our very bodies, filling our whole being with the power and glory of God. But Adam and Eve were young and this capacity was not yet developed when they were tricked by the serpent and cast out of the garden. As a result their growth was stunted. Adam and Eve grew up biologically but their spirit withered outside of Paradise and they never became what mature humans are, the meeting point of the created world and the uncreated God, all full of glory. This was the fate of every person before Christ but through His death and resurrection Christ overturned our sad, unfulfilled lot and made it possible once again for us to come alive and share in the boundlessness of the Father’s eternal life. By washing away our sins in baptism, sealing us with the Holy Spirit in chrismation, and filling us with Himself in communion, Christ draws us up again into the life we are made to experience. This provides what I think is the most powerful answer to the question, “why bother with the trouble of being Orthodox?” We bother with fasting, confession, long services, and all the rest because we want to know what it’s like to be fully human. We want to experience the communion with our Creator that fills us with life. We want to enjoy the awake-ness, the intensity of being, that belongs to a creature wholly itself, shot through with the glory of God.

Young people, perhaps all people, need a purpose in life that is worthy of their effort, worthy of their sacrifice and this is it. If you want to know what it’s like to be fully awake and alive in this life, be a Christian. If you want to experience the fullness of the glory of God that humans are made to experience, put God first in your life and pursue him hard. Don’t settle for a merely biological life that will not last. Reach out for a share of God’s divine life that will not end. Through the disciplines of the Church, we can be, if we are willing, transfigured by the grace of the Holy Spirit into fully human persons capable of experiencing God’s brightness and sharing it with a darkened world. When we reach for that grace, we become more and more alive, more our true selves, more capable of bringing healing to the world around us. Fasting, confession, communion, and all the rest are the road to awe; they make us fully alive and restore us to our calling as stewards of all creation. That is a goal worthy of our sacrifice, and it is what makes all of the trouble worth it.

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Fr. John Cox is a 2011 graduate of St. Vladimir’s Seminary. Following graduation Fr. John and his family were assigned to Dormition of the Theotokos Orthodox Church (OCA, Diocese of the South) in Norfolk, Virginia.

"Sensationalism, headlines, and an obsession with the end of times, with the apocalypse—these are the topics that captivate the heart of man today," says Priest Andre Paez (M.Div. 2013) of St. John the Evangelist Mission in Tempe, Arizona. "We live in a time of fear, in which people suffer from stress, depression, and anxiety, due to the fear of an unknown future, volatile economic markets, political turmoil, global wars, terrorism, and more. We are faced and surrounded with a seemingly ever increasing darkness. Yet, in the midst of this darkness and shadow of death, there is hope, as Jesus Christ has been victoriously shining forth since the day of His glorious resurrection."

It is precisely this hope that Fr. Andre and the faithful of Saint John's, one of the Orthodox Church in America's five fledgling missions currently receiving Planting Grants through the OCA's Department of Evangelization, are attempting to share.

Saint John’s was planted in February 2005 to bring Orthodox Christianity to Tempe, home to one of the largest state universities in the United States.  Celebrating its 10th anniversary this year, the community today has grown to embrace some 80 faithful and a steady stream of enquirers from a variety of backgrounds, religious and ethnic. About half of the faithful are converts to the faith. The parish strives to maintain a multi-generational, “kid-friendly,” and welcoming atmosphere that fosters fellowship, while it promotes discipleship by encouraging the faithful to recognize—and use—their spiritual gifts for “the building up of the Body of Christ," says Fr. Andre.

“Above all, we strive to manifest the love of God in ourselves, first to our family members, then to our friends, co-workers, and neighbors, to transform lives by being a holy place where people can experience the forgiveness and love of God through the services and sacraments, educational classes, and community outreach ministries,” Fr. Andre adds.  “Saint John uses the Greek term apokalypsis in his book of Revelation not to refer to the destruction of the world, but rather to the manifestation of Christ Himself.  The apokalypsis truly is now, as our Lord reveals in John 16:33 when He says, 'These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.’”

On Saturday, February 20, 2016, seminary alumnus Deacon Joseph (Tristan) Gall was ordained to the Holy Priesthood by the hand of His Eminence the Most Reverend Nikon (Liolin), archbishop of Boston, New England, and the Albanian Archdiocese. The ordination took place during a hierarchical Divine Liturgy at St. Nicholas Orthodox Church, Pittsfield, MA, where Father Joseph is now assigned to serve as priest of the parish.

Father Joseph (Master of Divinity, ’15) hails from Erie, Pennsylvania, and grew up in Ss. Peter and Paul Orthodox Church in Crossingville. He earned a Bachelor of Arts, a teaching credential, and a Masters in Education, all from Edinboro University. Before attending seminary, he worked as a first-grade teacher. His wife, Mary, is a doctoral student of Ancient Christianity at Yale University.

Concelebrating at the Divine Liturgy were several St. Vladimir’s Seminary alumni who serve as rectors in parishes within the New England Diocese, including: Archpriests John Kreta, David Koles, Michael Westerberg, Steven Belonick, Vladimir Aleandro, and Dennis Rhodes, and Priest Michael Korolev. In attendance from St. Vladimir’s Seminary were Priest David Mezynski, associate dean for Student Affairs, and Hierodeacon Father Herman (Majkrzak), lecturer in Liturgical Music.

Also in attendance to offer prayers and encouragement were Archpriest Athanasius Farag, father of Matushka Mary and a St. Vladimir’s Seminary alumnus, and Priest Bishoy Lamie Mikhail, brother-in-law of Matushka Mary. Both Fathers Athanasius and Bishoy are priests within the Coptic Orthodox Church, and serve at St. Antonious and St. Mina Church, East Rutherford, New Jersey.

Of special significance was the participation in the service by another seminary alumnus, Archpriest Dennis Hendershot, who was Father Joseph’s parish priest in PA, as he was growing up. At a special reception following the Divine Liturgy, Father Joseph acknowledged that his desire to become a priest had been sparked and influenced by his observation of Father Dennis, as a model to emulate. Further, Father Joseph emphasized his overwhelming gratitude for the encouragement and love of family and friends, and his new parish family, as he begins his new ministry.

View more photos by Lisa Marie Goudey
Read about Father Joseph’s seminary experience as a “Young Preacher” here.

On Sunday, January 10, 2016, Beryl Knudsen (M.Div. 2014) was commissioned by the Orthodox Church in America as a hospital chaplain, by Fr. John Eissman at Ss. Peter and Paul Orthodox Church in Bethel, CT. The service is part of the endorsement process for lay chaplains in the Orthodox Church. Chaplain Beryl is assigned to Danbury Hospital, where she trained as a chaplain and where she has held a 24-hour-a-week staff position since October 2014. As part of a team of chaplains who respond to emergencies, Beryl visits the non-Catholic patients requesting spiritual care, and provides pastoral care for both the families of patients and for hospital staff.

As a member of the Palliative Care Team, Beryl assesses and ministers to patients with life limiting illnesses; some are in the early stages of their diseases, and some are approaching their final hours. Once a week she runs a group on the psychiatric inpatient unit on topics such as prayer, peace, forgiveness and healing.

I started attending St. Vladimir's in my mid-fifties when my youngest child was ten years old. As we explored my goals, the counselor I was seeing told me I was too old to start a new career, but God had other ideas! A few years later my love of learning brought me to St. Vladimir’s and, while a student at SVOTS, the Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE) field assignment led me to a career as a chaplain. 

My job is very demanding on all levels; at the same time it is remarkably rewarding. There is tremendous diversity within my day (often within an hour!). One minute I might be offering comfort to an elderly person who is frightened and all alone, the next might find me talking with a nurse or aide who wants prayer for a sick relative. Many patients I visit need help coping with a new diagnosis or end-of-life decisions. Some visits are longer, such as those with patients who are looking back over their lives and want to share their struggles, victories, and accomplishments, as well as the joys or disappointments in their relationships. These visits take time.

Of course there are some patients who also want to talk about their faith or loss of faith, their anger at God, their questions about life after death, the miracles they experienced that confirmed them in their faith or about their desire to do God’s will. I also have patients who cannot speak but are able to radiate their love of Christ. Those visits are like precious jewels.

Often I find that patients and families have losses they need to talk about. Grief tends to surface during a hospital stay. All that I learned from Dr. Al Rossi ‘s classes, seminars, and counseling, has been extremely helpful. Most of my work consists of listening and being present for the person as a witness of Christ’s love. Regularly I hear in my ear Dr. Rossi saying “Listening is love, delivered.” This month I will train as a Grief Recovery Specialist, which will give me additional listening tools.

While taking homiletics classes with Fr. Sergius Halvorsen, I was very frustrated because he and my classmates could not hear my voice when I delivered my practice sermons. I am not a quiet person but I am small, and my voice doesn’t project very well. Father Sergius, knowing I was training as a chaplain, noted to the class that I had an excellent bedside voice, appropriate for my calling. In retrospect, I see he hit the nail on the head. I am a quiet presence at the patient’s bedside, and that’s as it should be. I still give an occasional sermon, though—with a microphone!

MORE about CPE at St. Vladimir's
Seminary strengthens CPE program
Faculty member awarded full CPE certification

Christianity is peculiar, there’s no doubt about that. We serve the crucified and risen Christ, who revealed Himself as God in the way that He died. Instead of self-fulfillment Christ offers us self-sacrifice; instead of power he offers us a cross. As Holy Week expertly teaches: we must go through the cross to get to the resurrection; there is no empty tomb without Golgotha. We learn that with God our expectations often go unmet, yet if we have patience, his plan transcends our expectations. The Jewish religious leaders of Christ’s day, and many of his own followers, did not grasp this concept. They wanted military triumph over the Romans and instead were offered a kingdom not of this world. They were so bent on victory in this life that they unwittingly rejected victory over sin and death.

I was thinking of these things as the Church celebrated the Sunday of St. Thomas, because a mere week after we share in the great Paschal triumph we are immediately confronted with the question of doubt. Courtesy of St. Thomas, our own doubts about Christ’s resurrection are brought to the forefront. But something different and altogether new sprang to my mind as I listened to the juxtaposition of the Epistle and Gospel readings. I found an entirely new way of thinking about the nature of doubt and the role it plays in our lives.

In the Epistle we are presented with the early days of the apostolic ministry and we are able to see the disciples, especially Peter, anew. They are boldly proclaiming Christ with little care of the consequences. It is even said that the sick were carried out on pallets that “as Peter came by at least his shadow might fall on some of them.” It was only a little over a week ago, during the Gospel readings of Holy Thursday, that we saw Peter, weak of will and overcome with cowardice, deny Christ three times. Yet here he is, so infused with the grace of the Holy Spirit that people crave a brief encounter with him. The Sadducees are so overcome with jealousy at this development that they throw the apostles in prison, yet again rejecting the work of God within their midst. Even this doesn’t dissuade the apostles from their work. They are set free from prison by an angel of the Lord, only to be charged: “Go and stand in the temple and speak to the people all the words of this Life.”

How powerfully this speaks to our own fears and doubts. It’s as if we instinctively want to turn victory into defeat. It’s one thing to believe in the reality of the crucified and risen Lord and quite another to act on that belief. And yet here we have a powerful testament to God’s ability to transform our doubts and us with them. We are often like Peter in the Gospels, unable to see God’s hand in the chaos and tragedy around us, so ready to give in to fear and doubt. We are more like the Jewish leaders than we give ourselves credit for, too…ready to abandon Christ when God’s plan doesn’t conform to our expectations. We forget that God is more than the God of triumph; he is also the God of transformation. To truly reflect Christ, we must take up our cross. We must also see our doubts about God’s ability to work in the trials and tragedies of our lives for the imposters they are. When St. Peter stood between Christ and the cross, Christ admonished him saying, “Get behind me, Satan.”  Similarly, we must not let our doubts get between us and the cross. For God’s grace to transform us, we must fight through our doubts, knowing that the cross always comes before the empty tomb. It isn’t the doubts that count, it’s our reaction to them. God is always waiting to transform us the way he transformed St. Peter.

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Fr. John Ballard (SVOTS ’10) is the assistant priest at St. Paul’s Greek Orthodox Church in North Royalton, Ohio. He currently lives in Cleveland with his wife, Rebecca, who is a neonatology fellow at Rainbow Babies and Children’s Hospital. They have one child named Max and are expecting their second child at the end of May.

Father Aaron Warwick's reflections about Dr. Nicolae G. Roddy, Alumnus, ’89, M.A., were originally published in the 2014 Annual Report, "The Far Reach of St. Vladimir's Seminary." Dr. Roddy is the Associate Professor of the Hebrew Bible in the Department of Theology at Creighton University in Omaha, Nebraska.  

A “living Bible”…that’s how I think of Dr. Nicolae Roddy. Initially, he was my professor at Creighton University, but he now has become my mentor and friend as well. 

As a naïve teenager, I left home for college in 1999 with a general idea of how my life would unfold. Much to my surprise, it turned out quite differently, and one important person who helped me navigate the detours was Dr. Roddy.  

During my first semester at Creighton, Dr. Roddy taught a required course entitled “Christianity in Context.” He was the first Orthodox Christian I’d ever met, and his “orthodox” perspective and approach intrigued me. I first attended an Orthodox Christian parish with him, and with his help, established an OCF (Orthodox Christian Fellowship) chapter at Creighton.

I took another course offered by Dr. Roddy, this time on the Old Testament, which really challenged my thinking. I, with other students, struggled re-reading through texts that seemed so different now than from when we had heard them in Sunday School. I appreciated Dr. Roddy’s willingness to stick around after class to help us students. His care for students and love of the Bible helped him to dialogue with us and transmit his wisdom to us—as very few professors were able to do. Most importantly, he was able to integrate his deep knowledge of biblical texts into 21st-century living. 

Our relationship grew over 15 years, and in 2012, Dr. Roddy came to speak at my parish about the Bible and archaeology. Spurred on by that retreat, some parishioners and I accompanied him on an archaeological dig this past summer to Bethsaida. What I noted most was that although Dr. Roddy is an esteemed scholar and archaeologist, he continues to learn and to assimilate his education into his daily life.

In Dr. Roddy I see someone who humbles himself before God, realizes and embraces his unworthiness, and yet, thankful for God’s mercy, strives to show the world the likeness of God to which we all are called. He has imparted to me not just knowledge of biblical texts, but has provided me with an example of a living witness of biblical tradition, a “living Bible” in action.  

Listen to an interview with Dr. Roddy, as he talks about the Hebrew Bible, and his archeological excavations in Galilee, on Ancient Faith Radio’s “Search the Scriptures.” 

By the Reverend Aaron Warwick, Alumnus, ’09; Rector of St. Mary Orthodox Christian Church, Wichita, KS 

Katrina Bitar (SVOTS '09) is the North America Program Director for YES, or Youth Equipped to Serve. A ministry of FOCUS North America, YES provides opportunities for junior high and high school students to participate in formative weekends of service in urban environments across the U.S. and Canada.

A lifetime member of the Antiochian Archdiocese, Katrina began working with youth during her college years and eventually was tapped to head the YES program after graduating from St. Vladimir's Seminary in 2009. A look at her busy calendar for the first half of 2016 reveals that she will be involved with outreach efforts in Los Angeles, Boston, Austin, Montreal, Newark, Kansas City, Grand Rapids, Portland, and Philadelphia. (Note: This interview was first published in Antiochian.org.)

What is your background, and how did you first get involved with YES?

I was born in Burbank, California, but spent most of my life in Little Falls, NJ. I discovered my youth ministry gifts while serving at the Antiochian Village as a counselor during my college years. In 2001, I took a job as a youth director for a parish in Phoenix, AZ that began my full-time youth ministry work. It was through my work as a parish youth director that I was introduced to the YES Program. I brought some of my young people on the first YES trip in January of 2004, and the rest is history. I began traveling with my teens to cities all over the country to participate in the program, and eventually began leading trips on a part time basis. After I graduated from St. Vladimir's Seminary in 2009, I was asked to direct the program.

Tell us a bit about YES. Whom do you serve, and what is your main emphasis?

The YES Program provides opportunities for junior high, high school, and college students to participate in formative weekends of service that aim to bridge the gap between the rich and the poor and bring youth to an awareness of Christ in themselves and others. Through this experience, we aim to identify and cultivate leadership gifts in trip participants, with the ultimate purpose being to raise up service leaders who will lead others in loving and serving our most needy neighbors in their own communities and on future YES trips.

We spend the majority of our time building community with the people on our trips. We visit homeless ministries, family shelters, after school programs, nursing homes, and spend time with individuals that live on the streets. We also aim to break the mold of what poverty is by sharing fellowship and love with all the people we encounter of all economic levels.

What do you enjoy most about your job?

We hope that the students that experience a YES trip come to a real awareness of who God has created them to be and enter into a life of selfless love for the sake of others. Seeing these young people come to know Christ and their place in the world is inspiring for me and exciting for both them and the communities they are a part of. It is so important for them to see that they are a valuable part of the Lord's workmanship. Their openness to see the Lord in all people is also the fruit of the encounters they have during trips with people that are homeless, children in shelters, and elderly in nursing homes. Our prayer is that they come to know Christ in themselves and serve Him in every person they come in contact with, whether it be their parents or a stranger. Their enthusiasm to love and serve the world is my joy.

If you could communicate one thing to fellow Orthodox Christians about the homeless and poor in our communities, what would it be?

The homeless and working poor communities across the nation are similar in that they are incredibly open to others and have a deep desire for God and connection with people. Most of our ideas of the average person that is homeless are transformed by stretching outside of what is comfortable for us and meeting them where they are. The average age of a homeless person is nine, which speaks volumes. The greatest cause for homelessness in America is simply lack of affordable housing, and most Americans are just two paychecks away from being homeless.

We are all one community of people, impoverished in our own ways. We all experience joy and pain. We always aim focus on the person, not their circumstances. Our concern is for the person, so we aim to build relationships and discover their needs, not assume we know what they are. The Church is called to be for the world, so as members of one Body, we must take the Church to the streets and say to those who are strangers to us, we are one. Building community and recognizing Christ in the other is our approach. It is never us and them, but we.

What feedback do you get from the young people you work with?

Here are a couple testimonies from students that have participated in YES Trips:

"When attending my first YES trip, I was amazed by both the personal and spiritual growth I experienced. As a teenager in a world consumed by materialism and selfish wants, I found it refreshing to spend a weekend de-emphasizing my personal desires and focusing on the needs and wants of those around me. Being able to put other people's desires above my own allowed me to experience a happiness that only could be provided through God's work. My spiritual life was enriched in that throughout the experience I was able to see God's beauty in everything. The people I encountered while serving had such a love for life and God's simple gifts. My heart was opened and changed while serving the community and I have never felt so much love before. YES is a beautiful organization and I believe it is something that everybody should have the honor to experience." - Zan Bojrab

"YES, to me, is about courage. It is about facing the fear of looking someone in the eye and truly wanting to know that person. It is about having the courage to know others and accepting them for everything they embody – their flaws, their struggles, their hopes, and their dreams. It is about having the courage to see yourself for who you are. My experience with YES has taught me that relationships are about more than acceptance of people, but about the courage to honestly and openly see a person with new eyes...no preconceived notions, and, regardless of who they are, to love them for their humanity." - Panayiotis Constantine

Where would you like to see YES go as an organization, in the next five years?

The hope is to have trained leaders all over the country leading trips in different regions. We also hope to create trips for families, college students, and young adults. We are having our first family trip on February 7th. We currently have 33 students that have gone through our annual Leadership Training, and they are assisting with planning and leading trips. God willing, with time and experience, they will soon be leading YES trips and our other college campus initiatives. Our service-learning process and service leadership training is available to all of our Orthodox church communities nationwide.

Learn more about YES