Third Sunday of Matthew, July 7, 2019

Κυριακή Γ΄ Ματθαίου. Το κήρυγμα ΕΔΩ

On July 7 we commemorate our devout Father Thomas of Mount Maleon;  the holy Martyr Kyriake; the holy Martyrs Peregrinus and those with him: Lucian, Pompey, Hesychius, Pappias, Saturninus, and Germanus. We also commemorate the holy Martyrs Eustathius, Polycarp, and Evangelos. By their holy intercessions, O God, have mercy on us. Amen.

• 8:30 am MATINS, 9:30 am DIVINE LITURGY.
• We welcome today to our community Fr. Duane and Presvytera Sandra Johnson. Fr. Duane serves as the second priest at Annunciation Cathedral in Baltimore MD and is filling in for Fr. John who is on vacation with his family.
• The fellowship hour is hosted by Philoptochos.

Next Sunday, of the Holy Fathers of the 4^th Ecumenical Council, July 14, 2019

• 8:30 am MATINS, 9:30 am DIVINE LITURGY.
• The artoklasia (offering of five loaves, wine, and oil) will be offered for health and salvation by the Giannoumis family -feast of Agia Marina, July 17.
• 40-day Memorial prayers will be offered for the repose of the soul of Elizabeth Onassis of blessed memory. Relatives and friends are invited to attend.
• The fellowship hour will be hosted by GOYA.

Dear Parishioners,

On Saturday, June 8, we held a Design Workshop to provide feedback on three design concepts for upgrades to our facilities.  We had 33 parishioners attend representing a wide range of ages and family sizes.  I want to thank everyone who attended for their help and thoughtful input.  We had three teams working together with the Architects.  Two teams reviewed all three concepts and one team focused in more detail on the kitchen requirements in all three concepts.  All the teams reported their feedback to the whole group at the end of the workshop.

The concepts were created as part of the Master Planning process to explore solutions to the objectives and needs we identified: Improving access and installing an elevator, updating and expanding bathrooms, and updating the Social Hall, Kitchen, and Classrooms.  The purpose of creating three concepts and holding the workshop was to explore what it would take to accommodate all the needs and desires and to create alternatives that imposed constraints on the scope of renovations.

The three concepts included:

I. “Large” expansion which involved the maximum amount of renovation.  It incorporated an elevator, a new social hall that would extend into the courtyard space, a new 3^rd floor for classrooms, bathrooms on all 3 floors, an expanded kitchen, and additional storage space.

II. “Medium” expansion which included an elevator, expanded bathrooms, some additional kitchen and storage space.  It also included the possibility of additional flexible space that could be used for general purposes or possibly a gymnasium.

III. “Small” expansion which included the minimum amount of renovation necessary to install an elevator and expand bathrooms.

The teams all had valuable input and created new ideas that combined parts of the three concepts.  The teams also identified several aspects that we wanted the architects to avoid, either to maintain the separation of the Holy spaces of the Church or to better fit the needs and desires of the community.

The next steps are that the architects will refine the ideas to incorporate the feedback and reduce the number of concepts.  We will then have the opportunity to review and provide additional input.  After that, the resulting concept will be the basis of a Master Plan that breaks the concept into individual projects that can be executed in phases.  This will give us the flexibility to decide how much of the Master Plan we can afford, how much we want to implement and over what time frame we want to implement the projects.  Right now we are still in a design phase of determining what might be included in scopes and how to execute those scopes.  We are not yet at a point where we will be making decisions of what we will actually move forward into real construction projects – those decisions will come later after much review and discussion within the community.

Thank you again to all the participants of the workshop for your engagement and great ideas.  It was wonderful to see everyone working together against a common purpose and goal.  For anyone that wasn’t able to attend but has an interest in the concepts we reviewed, please see me and I can share them with you.  As we proceed we will schedule additional community-wide meetings to review the progress as we continue on the Master Planning process.

Dean Dalson

50^th Anniversary Chairperson

Celebrations, Milestones, Gratitude, Comfort & Support

Pastoral care:

If you or someone you know is sick, homebound elderly, or scheduled for surgery, please call the church office to let us know so Fr. John can make a pastoral visit, or to add someone to the prayer list.

Let us pray to the Lord for health and salvation:

Suffering and persecuted Christians in the Middle East and the non-Christian world, Antonios, Anthony, Debora, Despina, Peter, Nikolaos.

Names will be kept on this list for approximately 3 months. Please resubmit Names if needed. Fr. John will include the submitted names at the Psokomide “Offering of Gifts” during the first part of the liturgy when he prepares the mystical gifts of bread & wine. Please lift these names up to the Lord in your personal prayer life as well.

Prayer for healing: Heavenly Father, physician of our souls and bodies, who have sent our Lord to heal every sickness. Visit and heal us. Grant patience in this sickness, the strength of body and spirit, and recovery of health. Lord, You have taught us to pray for each other that we may be healed. We pray that You heal, guide and protect your servant (s) (pray by name for those who are sick) and grant them the gift of complete health. You are the source of healing and to You we give glory, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen

Happy wedding anniversary! To those celebrating next week:

Anagnostakos, Paul & Maria; Pappas, Dimitrios & Stacy; Sidelsky, David & Voula; Pappas, Albert & Sophia; Speir, Olivia & Trevor; Kanakis, John & Francesca; Malitas, Eleftherios & Kyriaki; Markos, Ronald & Virginia; Fkiaras, John & Heather; Mack, Kevin & Mary.

Χρόνια πολλα!  Happy birthday!   God grant you many years!  To those celebrating next week:

Maria Anagnostakos, Constantine Konugres, Stephanos Papanikolaou, Maria Grigorakakis, Steven Kagiavas, Dean Kalogrias, Georgia Pitsakis, Alexa Zissios, Stephanie Ballas, Gloria Johnson, Jonathan Contoudis, Christopher Morris, Christine Samaras, T. R. Seiler, Sebastian Gonzales, Julia Marmarou, Louise Voutsinos, Augustus White, Kalli Cunningham, Maria Hatzopoulos, Christopher Merrick, William Sandilos, Eugene Stackhouse, Thomas Dinneen, Thomas Gazonas, Michael Johns, Niki Mountis.