As One Door Closes, Another Opens: Hellenic College Graduation

Receiving my diploma on May 21, 2016 for a BA with a Major in Religious Studies with Minor in Human Development from His Eminence Archbishop Demetrios, Geron (head) of the Greek Orthodox Church of America and the President of Hellenic College Holy Cross Father Christopher Metropulos

I have graduated from Hellenic College this past weekend and I cannot wait to start at Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology this coming fall. I am so blessed and thankful to Hellenic College and all it has given me in my four years there. From friendships to professors, a found vocation grown from a love for missions and most importantly a strengthening of faith. 

Thank you to all who have helped in that formation. My family. I love you so much. Present and past students, the clergy, administration and professors... especially to Father Matthew Baker who (memory eternal+++) showed me how to fight and persevere in this sometimes persecuting vocation of pursuing theological studies. If I was to name everyone and why they have made me who I am right now, it would be a thesis in and of itself. 

Lastly, to the future students of Hellenic College, I can't wait to see what you do and more importantly who you are!! ;)  

This past weekend, I also got engaged to the love of my life and fellow Project Mexico roof goof, Steve Sarigianis. Words, they are so powerful and yet I am struggling in this moment to find the right ones... GLORY TO GOD! I cannot express how blessed and overjoyed I am to call this man my fiance. To have my family embrace him, and have his family embrace me. I find that when words have failed me, tears of joy have replaced them. Blessings many rich blessings!

See you for round two at Holy Cross!! 

It's Time for Africa

Please Lord, grant me patience, joy and love to fight for something noble and right!

Missions, it is the root of Orthodoxy. Missions is love. Unconditional love. It allows you to see people as human beings, as images of Christ. When I looked at myself in the mirror today, I could finally see me. Through the spiritual warfare and the growth that comes from it, I am able to finally see Christ in me. The way he made me and why my life has unraveled in such a way. Granted there are still a plethora of struggles and many veils I have yet to lift, areas of my spiritual life I have never "tapped into" but the one thing about myself I know to be true is that God has placed me in the field of missions. Into the line of fire. My heart is full of a fire like passion and joy. Other times it is filled with massive amounts of pain as if, like the Virgin Mary (or Panagia in Greek), a sword has also peirced my heart when I see how disturbed, broken and fragmented the world and the peoples in it have become. I heal though through the prayers of the heart: Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy upon me a sinner. 

The mind tries to escape when it gets hard in order to get out of suffering. We try to find Kansas by clicking our heals together saying that there is no place like home. But I have no ruby slippers, no Wizard of Oz and no Todo. It is just me, God and my team. I think about the suffering, which compared to what the indigenous peoples of Turkana, Kenya go through is nothing. I think about how soon this trip will be all but a distant memory calling me back. Calling ever so persistently beckoning me back here to the bush, back to Lodwar, back to the land of Kenya. 

Ancient Faith Radio Interview

http://www.blogzz.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/goforth/theophani_from_hellenic_college

Sierra Leone: Civil War, Ebola Crisis and a Rock Star who turned to Jesus

 Why Missions? 

Just a sound bite from tonight's talk with Father Themi Adamopoulo at Hellenic College Holy Cross Greek Theological School  in Brookline, MA. 

What an amazing, "cool" and inspiring man that just emanates Christ's love to all!! He plans on opening an orphanage for children that have lost family to the Ebola crisis. To all who can, add him and his mission to your prayer list as well as donate! Go on Paradise4Kids now. $20 a month can feed 4 children in Africa, let's face it we can all cut down on 4 purchases from Starbucks and with that money feed our brothers and sisters!! 

To learn more about Father Themi and his mission Paradise4Kids click on the link below:

http://paradise4kids.org/

Project Mexico: My Video Journal Journey

Project Mexico: Spring Break 2015

Project Mexico logo on cement wall at St. Innocent Orphanage in Tijuana, Mexico

Making history seems to be a theme of my mission trips. I don't know how or why God has blessed me with such opportunities! First, the consecration of the cathedral in Tirana and now the first Project Mexico home building project of the 2015 Homebuilding season. My beloved school (Hellenic College Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology) will be participating in the first ever Spring Break Project Mexico mission in Tijuana--that also is a pretty epic feat. I cannot contain my excitement. Since I left the school a weight was lifted from my shoulders and a little spring of joy has been seeping from my heart and into the depths of my soul. I sit here in the girls room at St. Innocent Orphanage and I still can't seem to fathom how I got here with such amazing people. I also feel that part of my heart is with my dear friends Fiona Sterling, Alex Limberatos, and Niko Birbilis as they revisit the land of my first mission: Albania. It was a hard choice going to Mexico over Albania but God wanted me here. I can feel it. Saint Innocent Orphanage is beautiful. The land is so simple, so peaceful. No internet or American distractions, just me, the team and the smell of animal farm filling my lungs... I think back to the feelings I had on Feb 27 before leaving the dorms for PM (Project Mexico)...Nausea. Excitement. Nervousness. Then of course I passed out hard core on the plane...

"...I am the resurrection and the life..." John 11:25-26

Our team is made up of the 13 most amazing people I know. The girls are all great. Us girls include Samira Bitar, Zoe Cremeens, Alexis Ambroise and Jen Cowles. Zoe has gone to PM before and it is nice to see her go again. The rest of us have never been. I am really excited to be making and sharing these memories with. Nostalgia of not having Fiona on this trip is hard but my love for Albania and our memories are with her as she returns back there. I cannot believe that two of my dearest and best friends are here. Athanasios (Tommy) Margaritis and Steve Sarigianis. Literally the best guys a girl could ask for in her life. Brothers in Christ and my closest friends in all aspects! I am thrilled to finally share an experience like this with them. Gregory Gounardes, the funniest and coolest guy from Brooklyn, is also here. Director and assistant director of the HCHC Campus Activities Board is off shore! haha! Oh and precious souls the recently married Mr. and Mrs. Seraphim & Olenka Ramos are here! What a blessing is my team! The other male members of this glorious trip are Nicodemus Serpico, Theodosios Palis, and Jason Oneida. What a crew!! Plus the also recently married Mr. and Mrs. Sophie and Zack Swanson are here! They both graduated last year from  Hellenic College, dedicating themselves to the Project Mexico mission. Glory to God! I am so happy the way the team worked out. 

I must note the feeling of uttermost joy in my soul. I have never felt this feeling so strong, not since I was a child. Love in my heart just fills the air and a near blissful feeling fills me. Even in Albania this came but in waves during different experiences. Once we hit the airport and got to the tickets, the feeling rushed in. This is how I know missions is truly my calling. Missions is where my soul yearns to be – stationed with someone wholeheartedly in the third world country that only God knows at this point in my life where it will be. I feel, especially now, as I sit here in "the bunk" at the ranch so still, so silent, so at peace. As if I was living the monastic life except with all these people I love so very much. What is so special to me, is the knowledge that God is ever present in my life. I mean we finished the first week of lent here in Mexico. Here where the Lord placed us. So beautiful. 

I met some of the ranch boys today too and we played ninja... I guess it is a missionary past time game. I wonder where else I will go where they how to play ninja. Ninja and soccer. Present at both Albania and Mexico, who knew Ninja was so popular?! I am so grateful that this time while playing soccer I didn't get hit in the face. 

Tommy (left), Samira (middle) and I (right) admiring the beautiful sky at the work site in Tijuana, Mexico after a long hard day of cement mixing and  laying the foundation of the home

Vigil of Shen Joan Vladimir of Elbason

(In the skevophyoax with Piskopi Nikolla unwrapping the relics of Shen Joan of cotton
 from the previous year and preparing to rewrap them with cotton for the new year)

June 3, 2014

This is the best experience of my trip so far. This vigil was far more intense than I ever imagined. Going from 9:30 PM to 4:30 AM my soul was so filled. I don't know how I did it but I did thanks to the grace of God and it was beautiful and peaceful and in my soul I cannot explain to you the peace and serenity that I felt. I find that when one tries to explain their spiritual experience it tends to undermine the experience because you cannot fully grasp the full experience or feelings that accrued. It ends up becoming just something that you felt, a mash up of adjectives that is supposed to fully explain that higher-level spirituality that you want everyone to feel because it was Christ and it felt so good. But what you felt is never, ever fully captured by the other person it is only mere words to them. Keeping that in mind, I try not to explain too many details of how I felt rather things I saw and what we did.

(Piskopi Nikolla wrapping the relics of Shen Joan
with new cotton in the skevophyoax)

I grew a great respect for Bishop Nikolla Hyka this night. Everything that he did when we were in the skevophyoax (room with the relics) not only could you feel the presence of the relics and be in all of what you are actually witnessing because it doesn't happen everyday, but you could see the joy glittering in his eyes and the glow of the Holy Spirit filled his soul and the space around him. He went out of his way for us that we would feel the same joy and love the Shen Joan. There was a connection between the Holy Spirit and I that I will not be able to explain any further than it caught me completely off guard and opened my heart fully and unguarded to Bishop Nikolla. I think that was the moment when I fell in love with not only the saints of Albania but all of Albania more than I ever thought I could. That was the moment when I realized this man is more than what we perceived him to be. This man was filled with something that I wanted to know because it made me love. My respect for Bishop Nikolla grew that night in a way that I cannot explain, almost in the same way that the Grinch's heart grew three sizes that day according to Dr. Seuss, except different because Bishop Nikolla was not an old grouch and neither was I.

(Piskopi Nikolla [front left] re wrapping the relics of Shen Joan with
Aht Luka [back middle] in the skevophyoax)

As I sat with Ana Baba with my head on my shoulder she told me it was the first time that they have ever had a service like this. Chanting and praying side by side in English and Albanian. As I listen to the hymns, the volume of the Spirit in the chanting grows into the only thing in the room filling the sky and fill the church. To be quite frank I haven't felt so at peace and spiritually calm since I was praying in the the dorm chapel last year at Hellenic College Holy Cross with a person whom I love very dearly. The feeling that you get when the Holy Spirit fills you and becomes clear in everything around you is something something that you cannot just explain in your words. I only pray that one day I will reach a state where I can experience it everyday.

This experience, as of now, is the most amazing experience I've had this entire trip. Now I know why God wanted me to be here. I made new friends with two different Saints. I never thought that any of this would be possible. To reach such a state that you give yourself up to Christ. That is a state you should be in every day. Willing to sacrifice and give away everything to the one who is called Christ. The love that I found for a new found saints like Shen Vlash and also Shen Joan I pray one day will present itself in my husband one day, where ever and whoever he may be.

(Piskopi Nikolla wrapping the relics of Shen Joan with new cotton)

This vigil of St. Joan Vladimir as beautiful as it was, is very hard to share and describe because this once in a lifetime experience became personal. Just like with the person you love even with Christ you have a personal relationship them. With the Saints the same thing. Even if I could explain it to you, how I felt and have you feel that feeling, it's part of me in my heart. I feel very grateful very thankful that Aht Luka put me on the list for Albania, today more than ever. Although I wish we had told the Home of Hope we were going to be out until 4 AM so we weren't locked out....these couches in the seminary lounge are very comfortable but there is nothing like getting under the covers with a pillow after a long vigil.