milovany Posted April 23, 2018 Share Posted April 23, 2018 Christ is risen! I took some time off for Lent and Pascha, but miss everyone! I see that the social groups are not up and running well yet (and are also now known as "clubs," I think?) but I wanted to have a place to check in with everyone who was active in the EO social group. This Pascha was the third in our remodeled house-turned-church building and for the first time ever, we had two chalices for Holy Communion. Our mission parish is still somewhat small, I think we had about 80 with us on Pascha, including 10 visitors. The next afternoon, Agape Vespers and the feast (including folk dancing) was as always so much fun. What languages does your parish include for Agape vespers? In addition to English, we had Greek, Spanish, Latin, ASL (me!), Thai, and German. I seem to always crash and burn after Pascha. This weekend (two weeks later) was my first time back at church. We'd gone to the Oregon coast for the Thursday-Saturday of Bright Week, and I wasn't feeling well that Sunday morning so didn't attend. It always seems so strange to attend so little after attending so much during Holy Week and Pascha. Do you do this, too? Hope it's okay to create a thread here to touch base with everyone. Hopefully the groups/clubs will be up and running soon. And if I'm totally off on this and they're functional now, please point me in the right direction! :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
milovany Posted April 23, 2018 Author Share Posted April 23, 2018 12 hours ago, Patty Joanna said: I know why you had Thai ... Mrs. N reads the Our Father in Thai every Sunday, too. Their family (T's dad's family) remain so faithful to our parish even though they moved closer to T's church a year or two ago. We love them a lot. If I practiced, I could do the French in the future, but it would take a lot of practice and the ASL stresses me out enough (but it's fun, too). It's silent in the church when I'm signing, so a bit jarring for people that way. Someone who didn't know I was doing sign language, and who was standing in the back to the side and couldn't see up front, wondered what was going on -- could the person not find their page? Haha. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PrincessMommy Posted April 23, 2018 Share Posted April 23, 2018 Christ is Risen! Truly, He is Risen! We had a lovely Pascha. Holy Saturday we had three people become Orthodox - 2 through baptism and one through Chrismation. I think the last time we had that many people at once was when I was Chrismated with two of my kids and another gentleman. We tend to tricking them in throughout the year rather than saving them up for one day :). We don't do Agape Vespers at our parish (it's at the Cathedral downtown) so we have moved that tradition to the Gospel Reading for Pascha. I think we had about 10 languages (German, Hebrew, French, Russian, Romanian, Swahili, Georgian, Portuguese) I can't remember them all. My dh also read part in Koine Greek. It seems like every year we have a few different people. It always ends with Father reading the whole thing in English and a friend interpreting with ASL. It always makes me cry a little, it's so beautiful. Last year's Pascha had a black cloud due to some difficult circumstances for me privately dealing with a difficult person at church. It was an internal battle just to go the services, and I missed several of them. This year Holy Week and Pascha were like a gift. First time ever we were almost the last people to leave and got home just before 5am. I can't believe I had that much energy, but the kids wanted to visit with Father and I was enjoying a chat with Matushka. I woke up at 10am with family beginning to arrive at noon for Pascha Pot luck and my first thought was "Why did I think that was a good idea??" We had about 16 people over for pot luck. Mostly it was family, which was just as well. The weather was cold and cloudy. My original plan was that we would enjoy the outside... but nope. It took me 2 days to recover but it is so worth it. Even though Bright Week is such a joyful time there's always a little sadness. I miss my church friends after spending so much time together that week leading up to Pascha. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
milovany Posted April 23, 2018 Author Share Posted April 23, 2018 2 hours ago, PrincessMommy said: tricking them in .... Haha, I love what I'm assuming is a typo for trickling. :D Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PrincessMommy Posted April 24, 2018 Share Posted April 24, 2018 2 hours ago, milovany said: Haha, I love what I'm assuming is a typo for trickling. :D oh dear!! Yes that is a typo.. LOL. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alexigail Posted April 24, 2018 Share Posted April 24, 2018 Christ is Risen! Our Pascha was wonderful. Last year we began attending a new church and this was our first Pascha there. I come from the Russian tradition and this church has a lot of first and second generation Lebanese people. It's a century old church founded by St. Raphael. The services are so heartfelt! We had English, French, German, Scott-Gaelic, Romainian, Russian (done VERY poorly by me), Arabic, Greek, Latin, and I think something from the Netherlands. It was amazing. I also had a really wonderful opportunity on Holy Tuesday to sing the Hymn of Kassiani with my dad doing eson. He has been teaching me hymns since I was little so this was really special to both of us. He's still talking about it. On Pascha, we had two inches of snow, which was a first for me as well! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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