From: Father Elijah Drake
-We recently baptized two catechumens on Nativity (Old Calander).
-We also recently made 3 more Catechumens. And 5 more inquirers who have gotten to the place where they have expressed a desire to be made catechumens.
-Sadly we had one Catechumen move away because of cost of living and rent. He transferred to another parish in a different state.
-2 of our catechumens and 1 inquirer are homeless and we are trying (so far unsuccessfully) to find them long term housing. This has shown us all the more the URGENT need to find a property/land which can also serve as a place for transitional temporary housing/RV/Trailer parking.
-We have 20 Catechumens, [soon to be 25 catechumens, Lord willing], some ranging from being new catechumens and others being catechumens of 1-2+ years. So we are hoping to add an additional catechumen class on Saturdays before vespers. We will continue to also offer our weekly Thursday evening catechumen dinner and class. Hopefully this will allow us to have a more Orthodoxy 101 and 201 type of Catechumenate instruction.
-Recently our store front building has been at or exceeding its comfortable capacity on several occasions on Sunday mornings. We have also seen our Saturday night vespers attendance triple in the last couple months. Glory to God for all things!
-I have been actively trying to help various parishioners apply for jobs: Helping with resumes, writing recommendations, printing documents and more. Please pray for our parish, about 1/4 of our parish us currently unemployed or underemployed and looking for work. Sadly one Catechumen had to temporarily move away to stay with family because he was unable to find work.
-Our parishioners have taken pilgrimages to several monasteries recently, and we are starting to integrate pilgrimages into our standard catechumen process.
-My secular job as a remote contract work Analytical Linguist Project Manager is winding down. In California contractors in positions like mine are only legally able to contract for 2 years. My contract ends in less than a month, and so far I have not been able to find a job which has been compatible with my priestly work and the intense pastoral needs of my parish/mission. So this time next month I may be unemployed again. But I am so grateful for the support from Share the Faith, as it will be my only source of income in the coming months during my continued job search. This has helped relieve some of the stress on my family during this time.
I really enjoyed being part of the Share the Faith panel on missions in America.
