January Services
+ Jan 1: St. Basil the Great and the Circumcision of Christ.
+ Jan 7: Synaxis of St. John the Baptist.
+ Jan 12: St. Sava, First Archbishop of Serbia.
+ Feb. 2: The Presentation of our Lord in the Temple.

Blessing the Continental Divide
This year, His Grace Bishop Benjamin will preside at the Blessing of the Waters at Monarch Pass on Tuesday, Jan. 8th.  Following the service, we will proceed to Amica’s brick oven pizzeria and brewery in Salida for food and fellowship.  Father has four seats in his car.  We’ll leave from the church around 8:30 am and return in the early evening.

Theophany House Blessings
Don’t forget to make arrangements with Father to have your home blessed this Theophany season.  This is an important tradition for Orthodox Christians and a way of rededicating our homes and families to the service of Christ.

Greeters Ministry
With the encouragement of the Parish Council, Father is currently seeking volunteers to serve as greeters in our parish.  This is a very important ministry and one that, although it is now sometimes performed informally, it would be good to have officially established.  Greeters will be asked to: welcome visitors, distribute liturgy books to visitors and other service books to the faithful when applicable (such as during Holy Week), ensure that the elderly and infirm have a place to sit, serve as ushers when we have weddings and funerals, and help people with candle purchases when necessary (such as when someone would like to light a glass jar candle but cannot climb up the solea).  If you feel called to perform these services, please speak with Father.  As a bonus perk you will get your very own nametag.  The need for this ministry should be abundantly clear to all.  Our services can only seem strange and unusual to first time visitors, which is why someone should be there to greet them.  And no senior should have to worry that they may not be able to find a seat on mornings when attendance is high.

Annual Parish Meeting / Stewards of St. Michael
Our Annual Meeting will be held after Liturgy on Jan. 20 (this is a different date from the one previously mentioned).  In addition to hearing reports from various ministries (rector, treasurer, choir, bookstore) and adopting a budget for 2008, we will also elect two Parish Council members.
Your current representatives are: John Stuemke (Senior Warden), Betty Savage (Junior Warden), Eleni Wingate (Treasurer), Pavel Holder (Secretary) and Rade Budisavljevic.  Rade is up for re-election to a first full term, and one additional member will be needed to bring the total Council membership to six.  We will also choose our delegates for the 2008 Diocesan Assembly (to be held in the Pacific Northwest the first week of October) and the Fifteenth All American Council (to be held in Pittsburgh Nov. 10 -13).

All parishioners are encouraged to attend the meeting, though only Stewards of St. Michael may vote or be elected to serve on parish council and as delegates.  To be considered a Steward, one must have received the sacraments of confession and communion at least once during the preceding year, and must have submitted a pledge or indication of financial stewardship for the coming year.  Below is an updated list of Parish Stewards:

Blatnick, Ed & Gladys              Moss, Victor & Rita
Bourgeault, Larissa                   Negomir, Barbara
Budisavljevic, Rade & Lisa        Nestro, Debbie 
Dewar, Mary                             Orton, Philip & Katrina
Edwards, John & Gabriella        Perry, Timothy & Jordanna
Holder, Pavel                            Propes, Mary
Hoosier, Cathy                          Pugel, Eva
Keller, Evelyn                           Savage, Betty
Kuzmiak, John & Gabrielle       Shinovich, Michael
Lynch, Zachary & Natalia         Stuemky, John
Mironoff, Helen                        Tihonovich, John
Morley, Judy                            Wingate, Davi & Eleni
Powell, Father Barnabas & Popadija Elizabeth

Finally, Father and the Parish Council have identified a number of potential projects for the coming year and we are seeking your input to help us in setting priorities.  Following is a list of ideas currently on the table (in no particular order): handicap accessibility, refinishing the church floors, covering the church porch, chimney repairs, re-tucking the church bricks, a new hall floor, new hall windows, taking out the rectory kitchen linoleum, new rectory windows, lowering the fence, planting new trees, bookstore renovations, purchasing a group of plots at Roselawn Cemeteryabandoning the well, xeroscaping the northeast patch of lawn around the sewer access or turning it into a flower bed, and repainting/gilding the gold cross on our steeple.  Please understand that although we will not be voting as a parish on which projects to do, your input is requested by the Parish Council in order to help them more adequately fulfill their ministry.

November Treasurer’s Report

Baptismal Box Sponsor
The baptismal box or chrismation kit holds the chrism, olive oil, wands, scissors and sponge that are used to administer the sacrament of Holy Illumination.  Our box was once gold plated, but this has worn almost completely away, leaving the exposed metal underneath tarnished and discolored.  Given the beauty of the sacrament, this liturgical artifact ought to be beautiful as well.  To have the baptismal box re-plated should cost approximately $200.  Please speak with Father if you are interested in sponsoring this most worthy repair for the beautification of the Rite of Holy Illumination.

Recommended Reading
Way of the Ascetics, by Tito Colliander ($6 in the bookstore), distills the ancient wisdom of the Desert Fathers for modern readers living outside of a monastic setting.  It is packaged for “ease” of reading, with short chapters that are striking and to the point.  These can be read one per day as part of a morning prayer rule, for example.  This approach may indeed be better than sitting down to read the manual in large chunks.  At the very least you will not want to skim through it while watching television or otherwise distracted.  Rather, enter into a posture of reflection while reading Way of the Ascetic in order to gain the full benefit of its wisdom.  Here is a typical passage relating to the acquisition of a prayerful spirit: “A person who resolves to begin regular morning exercises usually does so not because he already has physical fitness but in order to get something he does not have.  Once one has something he can be anxious to keep it; previous to that, he is anxious to get it.  Therefore, begin your practice without expecting anything of yourself.”

+Volunteers Are Needed to Clean Church.  Sign Up in Narthex+

Parishioner Profile: Judy Morley

If you thought the hall looked beautiful for Christmas, you have Judy Morley to thank.  Since converting to the Orthodox faith of her ancestors, Judy has been a hardworking and thoroughly dedicated member of St. Michael’s.  Born in Johnstown, PA to Julius Ward and the former Draga Uzelac, Judy was raised in her father’s Church of the Brethren.  Her mother had been an Orthodox Serb prior to marriage, however, and Judy’s ancestral faith would eventually draw her home. 

As a teenager, Judy moved to Tampa, FL, where she attended Baptist, Lutheran and Presbyterian churches.  She was also exposed to Orthodoxy largely through her Serbian Orthodox aunt, who took her to Christmas services.  Although Judy desired to go back to her roots, the process was slow and gradual.  A major turning point came about through a disabled cousin whose caregiver was also an Orthodox seminarian.  Judy recalls that he wore a beautiful cross around his neck and when she asked him about it, he took her to meet his bishop, who had made it.  That seminarian is today a priest in the Carpatho-Russian Diocese.

Judy eventually moved to Colorado, and her exploration of Orthodoxy continued here at a moderate pace.  She visited SS. Constantine & Helen and St. Michael’s as far back as the mid-1990s, and began attending this parish regularly a few years ago.  It was primarily the Serbian connection that piqued her interest.  She also knew Michael Shinovich, who was inactive in his faith at that time but who also began to come back to church.

Her years as a Protestant had given Judy a love for God’s Word, which was an important criterion in her study of Orthodoxy.  “The more I read and studied the Bible and Orthodoxy, the more they came together,” she recalls.  Going through the Paschal cycle was the clincher in her decision to become Orthodox, and Judy was baptized on the Feast of Pentecost.  And how does she feel about her new life?  “This faith is demanding yet freeing, complicated yet simple.  Humbling, but through this humbling I find joy,” she says, “I feel like the eyes of Heaven are on me.”

Judy has had a number of interesting occupations, including work as a victim’s advocate for the DA, teaching preschool and managing the Red Cross station at Evans Army Hospital during Desert Storm.  In 2002, she earned a degree in Sociology/Psychology from CSU Pueblo.  Since joining this community, Judy has begun coordinating our food pantry and teaching Sunday School.  The mother of two, grown children (Chris, 39 and Heidi, 34), she is also currently the host mother of Dino, our beloved exchange student from Macedonia.  It is a joy to have Judy Morley as a parishioner of St. Michael’s and to welcome her home to Orthodoxy.

Ladies Meeting
The next Ladies Meeting will be January 29th.  We will learn how to make prosphora and kolivo.  In addition to the three ladies currently making prosphora (Eleni, Lisa and Katrina), it would be nice to have more women share in the ministry of baking the bread that is used for Holy Communion.

Thanks for a Wonderful Christmas
Thanks to the singers, servers, readers, cleaners and everyone who contributed to making our Nativity celebrations such a joy this year.  This includes Campbell Flowers, who donated the wreaths.  Special thanks go out to the men who made breakfast for everyone after Liturgy on Christmas.  It was beautiful to see the men working so well together, and the result was a Feast reminiscent of Pascha itself!

St. Michael’s Cookbook
Some of the women at St. Michael’s have expressed an interest in putting together a cookbook.  Please contribute by:

1. Bringing the recipe for your coffee hour dish
2. Bringing any recipes you wish anytime that would be great for the cookbook.

*Please put your name and phone number on the recipe and give it to Judy or Popadija*

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