Dear Friends,
Thank God, after years of labor, donations, struggles, prayer, and action we have come to a truly crucial point in the life of our parish, that is, the opening of our parish school! Yes, we have been holding classes for two years already, utilizing our parish church several times per week, and with the young people studying at home with parents and on-line several times per week. We have been serving the Divine Liturgy every Wednesday that school is in session for nearly two years. And through the prayers, hard work, and other support of our parish family and the friends of our Ann Arbor Orthodox Classical Academy we are ready to open enrollment for the 2024-25 school year! And we have been able to lower our tuition to $500 per month – A HUGE BIG DEAL!
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Such good news! Surely this means we are done with this project! But on the contrary, one of our biggest temptations as Orthodox people is to get things done about 95% and then stop. At least for me. You might not have that temptation. But the reality is, we need to not only get close to winning the game, we need to play right until the last second ticks off the clock. We need to REDOUBLE our efforts now that we are in view of victory!
In other words, now is NOT THE TIME to rest on our laurels and admire the good job we have done. Rather, now is the time to push, to make sure that we don’t just build a school, but to make sure that the school is successful by ever metric we can measure, not the least of these being a robust enrollment when we open the doors in the September of 2024.
But how can you help at this late date? How can you make sure that we run the race right until we cross that finish line? I am calling upon all our parish family – EVERY SINGLE MAN, WOMAN, AND CHILD – to pray every day for the success of our school, beginning on Monday, February 12 (the feast of the Three Hierarchs – the patron saints of education!) until December 12 (the feast of the patron saint of our school, St. Mardarije of Ann Arbor). Let us all, at 8:00 p.m. every night, say the prayer that the Lord taught His disciples: The Lord’s Prayer. And let us concentrate especially on the words: “...Thy will be done, on earth as it is in Heaven…”, for we believe that indeed we are doing the Lord’s will by investing in the education of the next generation of Orthodox Christians who have found themselves living in a secular humanist world that is diametrically opposed to Christianity. And we are encouraged in our confidence that this is the Lord’s will by the words of Archbishop Peter’s Nativity Epistle. We also encourage your entreating St. Mardarije for his prayers before the Lord. And for this reason we will have the relics of St. Mardarije available for veneration of our St. Vladimir’s faithful every Saturday evening and Sunday morning beginning this Saturday, February 10.
Who among us cannot join this prayerful labor? And if your child does not know this prayer yet, let us use this opportunity to teach it to him. And if you desire to know this prayer in Church Slavonic, let us take this opportunity to learn the prayer in Church Slavonic. If we all pray for the Lord’s will to be done we can be confident in His blessing. For He said: “... where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.” (Matthew 18:20) Moreover, He assured us: “Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you.” (Luke 11:9) And if we all pray together each evening we are talking about hundreds seeking, asking, and knocking together. Let us encourage our friends and loved ones to join us in this effort as well, entreating the Lord for His blessing on our school!
Above I write that we are investing in the school. And I think it is crucial that we see our efforts towards our school as an investment indeed. Not just and investment in the children and families that will benefit from the school, but in our entire parish, our state, our nation. In other words, yes we should thank God that we can plan and execute the building of the first Orthodox parish school in Michigan, but this is not just abject altruism. On the contrary, the children and families that will benefit from our school will also benefit our parish. It is these children and families that will grow into the leaders of our parish, and it is through the growth in the parish that the school will drive the successfully complete (with God’s blessing) the next project for our parish family: the building of our new church and hall. The school will drive growth. The school will educate children. The school will bring new converts. The school will make it possible to continue to bring new people to Christ, and to continue to outgrow our present parish church, which honestly, we outgrew some years ago.
We announce here for the entire parish family to know: we are actively negotiating with Lima Township on the date of the groundbreaking for our new church! The school therefore is not the END of a project, it is the FIRST STEP in the greater building plan of our parish, and construction of the new church and hall will, barring any really unforeseen circumstances, start this year if the Lord 2024!
Therefore, I hope that we all see that we are not entering a time of rest, but having completed our parish school as a base for continued growth, we will be REDOUBLING our efforts as a parish family and building our new church and hall, using the success of our school as a jumping off point and a proof of concept. We built the school with our efforts and God’s blessing – we can do the same with our new church and hall!
And so brothers and sisters, let us thank God for the challenges He gives us. For if He gives a challenge He also gives the strength to bear it, and the grace to spiritually grow from it. Working together with Him, and through the prayers of our Sts. Vladimir and Mardarije let us not turn back, but reengage in our parish family’s effort to complete the school strongly, and push right through to the next big project of our new church and hall! If we add our time, talent, and treasure to our sincere prayer, and from that prayer we receive the Lord’s blessing on our labor, THERE IS NOTHING WE CANNOT ACCOMPLISH AS A PARISH FAMILY!
Join us in prayer! Join us in labor! Join us to win the victory for the Lord’s Church and for all those that will know Him and be saved by Him through our humble and sincere efforts!
Asking Your Prayers,
Fr. Gregory
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