General Assembly Report of St. Anna Parish Council President, Emil Sicoe (5 Dec, 21)
I am humbled and thankful to our Lord Christ for His great mercy bestowed upon us through the holy Communion we shared today, and that we were able to come together here in this assembly again and discussing our ministry.
The year of the Lord 2021 began in the shadow of a gloomy Covid pandemic that forced us out of the sanctuary building, yet resiliently continuing our regular worshiping prayers under the tent canopy, and under elements. While our congregation gathered in prayer on site, a large number of faithful joined their prayers online. We were hopping that the newly released vaccines could bring the pandemic to a quick ending, the reality proved that everything will happen in God’s time. Thanks be to God that we were spared from having a Covid infection hot-spot on site. As the restrictions were gradually lifted, on early April we could resume the services inside the church while keeping a sitting area outdoors as well.
This way we progressed to having more regularly youth activities in person, and on late Summer we were happy to resume Sunday school for all the children, with the blessings and leadership of Father Seraphim assisted by Ana Tsu and Nick Pasco.
Bible Study classes that were regularly online in 2020 continued that way to the second half of 2021 when Father Christopher, Father Seraphim, and Deacon Joseph made them available in person while some of the seminars continued online as well. Parish Council and Building Committe embraced the convenience of online meetings, and are yet continued that way.
In February, Father Christopher had the initiative to increase the potential of our church grounds on sustainability projects and gave us the blessings to planting 35 fruit trees, and 43 more citrus trees were prepared for planting starting this Fall. Our small apiary produced around 100 pounds of honey that was gladly shared to our parishioners. The vineyard harvest was modestly yielding several gallons of juice, and we hope that the resulting wine to meet the quality needed for communion wine.
We were happily sharing our talent, time, and fellowship in a series of three food to go festivals in May, July, and September, under the gracious leadership of Stephane Tziavaras and Christy Moustris.
His holiness Metropolitan Gerasimos joined us in celebrating our most worthy Father Christopher’s 25 years of holy ministry, as our community gathered in a wonderful agape luncheon on October 10th.
Our parish Philoptokos under gracious and tireless leadership of Kathy Craighead, and with Deacon Joseph’s blessings, continued its charity work and resuming their traditional fundraising and sharing our alms and grace to those in need. In the same spirit our parish volunteers lead by Markella Magliola were helping at the Saint Vincent the Paul foundation with meal preparation, serving on every Tuesday.
With God’s grace we marked this year a major milestone in our Parish history as we commissioned the construction of Saint Anna’s shrine. In January the Building Committee, having an instrumental leadership in Jason Jurrens and Paul Stamas has concluded the selection of a General Contractor and negotiating the cost for the sanctuary building. In February, the Parish Council and Special General Assembly unanimously approved the sanctuary project budget, and AP Thomas as General Contractor. In early April the necessary line of credit from Five Star Bank was secured thanks to our Capital Campaign Chair and benefactor John Sobchek. At the end of April, the project architect Lionakis completed all the final plans reviews requested by the City Engineering Division. AP Thomas was able to secure the building permit and received our notice to proceed with construction on early May. Our church sanctuary was contracted to being completed in the second part of June 2022. Once the work commenced, Building Committee was closely monitoring the progress of the construction and holding weekly and biweekly meetings. Our Project Manager Joe Fancher had permanently following up and coordinating all the parties working on this project, and keeping the BC updated. Stephen Kristoff has graciously helping with installing a live camera so all of us could watch the worksite at any time. Stephen was periodically sharing with our community his wonderful montages on the progress of the work. We praise God for all the blessings, and venerate Saint Anna for her love and intercessions, praying to keep our clergy and community in the unity of faith and steadfast commitment to this magnificent project.
I was deeply moved observing the tireless and unconditional love, support, prayers and blessings from our clergy, and I am asking you all to keeping them on your prayers!
Thank you!