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Community Outreach
Food Bank
St. Anthony's Parish, opens its doors every Tuesday to the Edmonton Food Bank. Individually prepared hampers are delivered to the Parish in the afternoon for pick up by the recipients in the evening. Donated items are also collected and distributed by the Parish. Parish members volunteer on a rotating basis to maintain this program. With much dedication, John Kornicki has coordinated our Food Bank Depot for many years.
Christmas Outreach Dinner
Our 2009 Christmas Outreach Dinner was held on Saturday, December 13th. Many volunteers from the parish worked hard to plan and host this annual event. Our guests were treated to a delicious holiday meal while being entertained by our members of our Celebration Choir! The children present participated in seasonal crafts organized by our Youth Group members, and were gifted with special festive treats and presents. In conjunction with the dinner, St. Anthony's also organized a Winter Clothing Drive, with the assistance of a local school, Michael A. Kostek Elementary School. New and gently used warm, winter clothing was sorted, cleaned and made available to our guests. Our local Member of the Legislative Assembly, David Xiao, along with his wife Alice and Executive Assistant Joan, were also present at our event. They were able to greet and talk with members of his McClung constinuency and really pitched in to help as the evening wound down! We thank them for attending and for their efforts! At the end of the evening, approximately 100 guests had been fed, entertained and given the opportunity to select some warm clothing to take home with them. Everyone participating truly felt humbled by the opportunity to do God's work and make a difference, even if for one night, in the lives of our guests.
Summer Outreach BBQ
Our food bank clients were treated to a summer BBQ on August 12th. They were invited to bring their whole family and enjoy a BBQ meal that was hosted by the parish. Parish members volunteered to prepare and serve the meal. This summer, the BBQ was once again twinned with a school supply project, so that children were also able to pick up some school supplies for the upcoming school year.
Missions
Our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, commissioned us to go "and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit". (Matthew 28:19)
With scriptures such as these in mind, St. Anthony's has become an active sponsor for many Orthodox Christian Mission Centre (OCMC) projects. St. Anthony's currently sponsors the wages of two Orthodox priests in Africa which enables them to continue their work with the rising numbers of Orthodox Christians who reside in their areas. Facilitated by Rhonda Hamans, St. Anthony's was able to solicit enough donations to provide a soup kitchen in Romania with new appliances helping them to serve almost twice as many people each day. The parish has goals to continue supporting missions and outreach programs in our community and throughout the world! Several St. Anthony's members have served as missionaries with OCMC teams in countries like Guatamala, Korea, Romania, Paraguay, Brazil and Tanzania. During the summer of 2007, two more missions were supported in Kenya and Cameroon.
Kenya
Zen Kozey, now a four time missionary, was selected to join a team in Kenya. He was very excited to see how Orthodoxy is spreading across the African country.
The purpose of my mission trip to Kenya was to help build the first Orthodox church in the Turkana region of Northern Kenya. The Turkana tribe is made up of many family clans living three to five miles apart throughout a desert area. The majority of these people are nomadic, following their herds of goats, camels, donkeys and some cattle. These animals are their source of income and food. Also, these animals are used for dowries. The more beautiful the daughter the more animals the father would get in return.
Why the Turkana tribe? This mission trip was brought about by the recent graduation of a Turkana seminarian from the Niarobi Seminary. He wants to return to Lodwar to minister to the recently baptised Orthodox congregation. Paul Lonyunduk was ordained as a Deacon while we were at Lodwar. In September, Deacon Paul was ordained Father Vladimir Paul. Fr. Vladimir also services two other Orthodox communities which are a three to six hour walk from his home. He walks to his parishes as he has no other means of getting around. These communities have no church building. Whenever he can, Fr.Vladimir walks to these parishes and holds a Liturgy under the shade of a tree. (and we worry that our churches have not enough icons, need expansion, need beautifying and need air conditioning!)
Work at the church site was heavy manual labor and very exhausting. We were not prepared or accustomed to such strenuous labor but being tired and exhausted didn’t stop the effort from continuing. The project was supervised by a contractor who is now an Orthodox priest.
Upon our arrival at the work site we were greeted with song, dance, hugs and warm friendly smiles. Our first task was to pour the concrete floor, as the foundation was already done. When I say pour, I don’t mean with a cement truck dumping the contents and then smoothing the concrete. NO, this was done by hand! We hauled wheelbarrows of sand, gravel and cement onto a big pile. This was thoroughly mixed using spades. Small amounts were then drawn away and water was added and everything was mixed again. This concrete was then moved by wheelbarrow and wok - like metal bowls to the required areas. The walls were made of stone blocks between fifty and one hundred pounds each. The stones were placed by hired masons. Our job was to fill the spaces between the stones with mortar. It was exciting to see the slow but sure progress as the walls took shape.
Our days consisted of morning prayers done as a group, breakfast, prayers with all the workers at the site and we worked until 5 PM. The evening consisted of getting back to the residence, cold sodas, a shower, a brief rest, dinner, group witnessing of the day, group prayers and sleep.
Each day children lined up at the construction site for a meal provided by the team. The meal was a portion of maize that was boiled and then watered down so that it was drinkable. On other days we would buy several loaves of bread and give each child three slices. For many this was the only meal of the day.
Malaria is common in the Lodwar region. The mosquitoes that spread the malaria virus are a night and early morning pest. They are small and their sting is not felt. Several young children that frequented the work site did get malaria. By the Grace of God, one of our team members noticed a sick child. Upon examination, the child had a very high temperature and nausea. Our team members rushed the child to the clinic for a malaria shot. The next day we looked and found this child and again took him to the clinic for the second shot. These shots were paid for by the team members. Several days later another child was found and rushed to the clinic. If these small children are not identified as malaria cases and immediately given the malaria shot they will die within a few days because their bodies are so small and the malaria virus travels so quickly to the liver and destroys it. While we were there we witnessed two funerals of little children.
Fr. Vladimir, the Deacon and a parish elder visited St. Mark’s Parish which was about two hours away. Imagine walking through the desert with only several bottles of water. At St. Mark’s there is no church. Liturgy is held in the shade of a tree. Here Fr. Vladimir preached and prayed with the gathered members. The next trip the three took was to St. Peter’s Parish which was another four hours away by jeep. Last year 150 people were baptized here, but they didn’t receive communion. Fr. Vladimir gave them their first communion. He also preformed a wedding of a seminarian. Fr. Vladimir visited the sick at a hospital. Again, St. Peter’s is a Tree Church — Liturgy in the shade of a tree.
Shortly after we arrived in Lodwar I felt totally exhausted from the high temperature of the area and from not eating . After four days of exhaustion I was ready to return home. One evening while we were witnessing our day at work I almost asked our priest leader to send me home. Something told me not to mention anything. The next day I felt much better and joined the team at work and I lasted to the end of the month. On the last day of work after showering I lay down to rest. I did fall asleep. I was suddenly awakened by a loud breathe of air upon me. These two events, I believe, were the Holy Spirit encouraging me to stay and not go home and then thanking me for staying until the end.
Upon arrival at St. John the Baptist Church, children were present everyday and every step of our building process. They were there as we prepared to leave. As we drove away the children and the incomplete stone church in the background were the last images registered in our minds. It is their faces that remain with us. It is their faces we will see on Judgement Day when to our surprise, Jesus Christ will show us how we have or have not fed and clothed HIM.
Cameroon
Marian Remenda has returned from her mission in Cameroon. She has been experiencing technical difficulties with her photographs but she will be posting her experiences soon!
South Africa
Alan Sanger was once again selected as an OCMC missionary and went to South Africa in June! Alan has completed a summary of his trip which will be available here very soon!
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