Our parish was fortunate to support one of our own who served as a long term missionary to Guatemala. Below are some of the newsletters sent to our parish during Jennifer’s time in country. Although she is no longer in the missions field, her love of Christ and service to the faithful of Guatemala remain inspirations. Thanks be to God!
Summer 2020 Update
"Love is a fruit in season at all times and within reach of every hand.“
- Mother Teresa
Since I last wrote, I was preparing to visit so many of you on the West Coast, which unfortunately did not come to fruition as planned. I am sorry that circumstances related to the coronavirus prevented this.The coronavirus pandemic has brought many changes to our routines and plans, some negative and some unexpectedly positive. At this point, I would like to share with you all one recent change in my life that reflects both aspects.
At the beginning of this year, I had the experience of meeting someone who had an unexpected impact on me. At the prodding of a mutual friend, we met and began a dialogue about church life and missions, a dialogue which continued to build over the following weeks as we explored all sorts of common topics near and dear to our hearts. Though my time away from Guatemala due to coronavirus has been frustrating in not being able to serve the Church there as I would have preferred, this unexpected period stateside has allowed me to spend more time with my friend and further develop the bond between us. After many weeks, we reached the unbelievable point of planning to join our lives together in the Sacrament of Holy Matrimony later this summer. I have been truly blessed in an unexpected way to have my fiancé, Pantelis Kostoulas, enter my life, through a shared love of Orthodox missions. We will continue to seek for the ways that the Lord will allow us to serve His Church, and helping to leverage our talents from the United States in support of the mission in Guatemala and in Asia, where he spent many years. The unexpected manner in which love has blossomed in my life reminds me of the quote of Mother Teresa, “Love is a fruit in season at all times and within reach of every hand.”
While pondering on what life has in store for me after marriage, I continue to think of and pray for a place near and dear to my heart, Guatemala. While I was originally anticipating returning to the field, I tried to assist as best as I could from afar, which for the time being has focused on translation projects as part of our efforts to cultivate the next generation of leaders for the Orthodox Church in Guatemala and Southern Mexico under the guidance of Archimandrite Fr. Evangelios, Vicar for Guatemala and with the blessing of Metropolitan Athenagoras of the Greek Orthodox Metropolis of Mexico, Central America, Columbia, Venezuela, and the Caribbean Islands.
As part of those efforts, I was recently reading from In Albania: Cross and Resurrection, which is a collection of interviews with Archbishop Anastasios (Yannoulatos) of Tirana, Durrës, and all of Albania. In this, His Grace reminds us of the great need for the Orthodox Church to rediscover our missionary identity as well as offers the following on how a missionary thinks:
“A missionary feels the need to share with others that which he or she is holding….all people have the right to share their faith, knowledge, and love… you are simply sharing God’s gifts. It is an act of charity, not of commerce… You resemble a small candle trying to light other candles…” (p262).
I can’t thank you enough for your prayers and support which has permitted me to do just that since 2014: to offer what I can as a small candle attempting to reach out to others. Over the years it has been a great joy to be involved in mentoring the choir of the Cathedral of the Annunciation in the liturgical life of the Church. They have also been a source of light and by their example inspired other choirs to form!
Later this month we will encounter Mathew 5:14-16: “The Lord said to his disciples, "You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hid. Nor do men light a lamp and put it under a bushel, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.”
Being a light is something we all can do no matter where we are located! It is important for us to share our gifts and talents with others. We might not even think our everyday encounters might be a venue to do so, but they can. When I was a high school teacher, I happened to have one of my former students stop by at the end of the day to check in and say “Hello.” While doing so and without me knowing, Josh left a post-it on my computer screen before departing. It read: You make an attempt to brighten everyone’s day and it works. His kind act brightened my day! I was extremely touched by that note, and it remained on my computer for some time as a reminder of how we don’t always know the type of impact we might have upon others. There are times when we will see that visible light, however it may not always the case.
I have been blessed to serve the Church in Guatemala full-time for the last 3 years, and am thankful for your support which has made my service possible. As much as I have been able to assist the community in Aguacate and serve as a light to them, they have also helped broaden my life and my understanding of the catholicity of the Church.
When I think of the many people in my church family in Guatemala and the changes now occurring in my life, I am reminded of the words of Fr Epiphanios Theodoropoulos who said, “My heart has only entrances. It does not have exits. Whoever enters it, remains there. No matter what he does, I love him the same, as I loved him when he first entered my heart. I pray for him and seek his salvation.” Though I am ending my service in Guatemala, the community there will always be in my heart. I will always pray for them and do what I can to assist from the United States.
I am hopeful to continue to find ways to be involved in the life of the community there, even for short periods, but how and when still remains to be seen. All will occur as God intends. For now, I will seek to be a light for Christ to those around me in the United States. As I move into a different phase of my life, I thank you as always for your support these past years, and may the love of Christ also continue to bear rich fruit in your hearts.
With Gratitude,
Jennifer Rice
OCMC Missionary to
Guatemala & Southern Mexico
Tea & Psalmody
The weather in Aguacate has taken a bit of a dip temperature-wise which has prompted me to increase my hot tea consumption. In doing so, I’ve been reading the inspirational quotes on each of the accompanying tea bag tags used to brew each cup of tea. A recent tag offered the following: First listen, then learn, then practice.
This process mirrors the method we are using to teach the hymnology of the Church within the Mayan communities of Guatemala. As I write this, the choir in Aguacate is currently learning a slower melody of the Communion Hymn Receive Me Today. This is because, thanks be to God, on any given Sunday there are several hundred people prepared to commune, and the quicker melody the choir is accustomed to singing, is just that, too quick!
The teaching process initially includes having the choir listen to me sing the hymn, because the choir isn't familiar with reading music. Next, we learn the hymn by teaching section by section while referring to a copy of the text. Then the choir practices what they’ve learned by repeatedly singing the hymn.
Additionally, choir members use their cellphones to record the practice and refer to it when they are practicing on their own. Depending on what is being learned, this process can take several weeks before the choir feels confident enough to implement and lead in singing the new melody during liturgy.
St. Basil the Great describes psalmody as“bringing about choral singing, a bond, as it were, toward unity, and joining people into a harmonious union of one choir— produces also the greatest of blessings: Love."
Thank you for making it possible for me to serve the dear people of Guatemala in unity and in Christ’s love!
Your fellow servant in the harvest field,
Jennifer
Since the last update, we welcomed two short term medical missionary teams to the Andres Giron Medical Clinic to serve alongside resident Guatemalan medical and dental students completing their clinical hours.
OCMC long term missionary Jesse Brandow (pictured) and myself have begun the collaboration process with Fr. Seraphin Dedes of AGES Initiatives (pictured) and Dr. Michael Colburn, OCMC mission specialist, to use the Translator's Management System (TMS). This will allow us to input translations into a database to generate services and publications as part of an effort to digitize the Church calendar of Bible readings, service texts, and hymnology into Spanish.
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