If you'd like to step away from the cares of life for a moment, here is a video about a Lenten pilgrimage to two monasteries in Ocala, Florida.

A few years ago, my wife and I visited Rome on our way to her native Romania for the summer. We’re school teachers and this gives us the freedom to indulge our love of travel.

My family and I were recently blessed to spend some time in the French Alps. These massive temples of stone and ice could leave the best poet without words, render the greatest orator speechless, and still the most skilled painter’s brush; for no human expression could possibly ever capture their grandeur. The only sensible thing to do in the shadow of such an awesome display of God’s creative power is to bathe in the reverence that it commands…the only fitting sentiment for such an experience being, “Lord, have mercy!”

It’s a cliché in the Church that we’re all brothers and sisters in Christ. A cliché is a true saying but one that’s overused to the point of meaninglessness. So, it’s true, we’re all brothers and sisters in Christ, since God is our Father. But we hear it almost every time we walk into church. So, I suspect that most people, like me, hear the words, nod and get a nice warm glow about the people we’re standing with when we encounter the phrase. Of course we are, we think, smiling and nodding away in the nave, and we go on our way as if there is no real truth to that phrase, except in our common humanity.

Join us on this tour of the "Parables Home" in the Holy Land where the Gospel parables of Christ come to life!

In this video, Justin Daniel chronicles the final stages of his journey to witness the descent of the Holy Fire in Jerusalem on Holy Saturday, and his experience of the descent itself.

The divine Psalmist petitions, “Hearken O daughter, and see, incline thine ear; and forget thine own people and thy father’s house,” and in moving to Greece we did just that. We left all those comforts behind, moved half-way around the world, and subjected ourselves to whatever this foreign country would throw at us. From the moment we had encountered Orthodoxy, all we wanted was to learn the Orthodox faith. And so, we came to Greece to study and learn as much as possible about living as Orthodox Christians.

I grew up in a Lutheran Church in Wisconsin, hearing the stories of the Bible every Sunday just as I still do now as an Orthodox Christian. And my imagination filled in the details of the tales proclaimed from that pulpit.  

Breaking through the clouds to see the snow-capped mountains of Juneau, Alaska started this Orthodox Christian Mission Center (OCMC) mission trip.  There was a team of 9 Orthodox Christian volunteers to help the communities of Juneau and Hoonah, Alaska (both churches are St. Nicholas), along with repairing the Hoonah church building.  We ranged in age from 19 to 84, and traveled from Florida, Alabama, Indiana and Illinois.

One team member was on her 11^th OCMC mission trip in 12 years.  Another member was on her third OCMC trip in three years.  For the rest of us, it was our first OCMC trip.

OCMC Hoonah, Alaska 2011 Mission Team Experience -

Off to Hoonah.  The excitement of finally seeing St. Nicholas Church in Hoonah, Alaska overcame any tiredness from the 5:00am wake-up time, so that we could make it to the ferry  During the ferry ride, Fr. Simeon shared his journey to orthodoxy.

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