Welcome baby Maliah

we interrupt all this stuff about bells to congratulate Ryan & Naomi on the birth of baby Maliah! Many years to all of you!

another image of the bells

photo by TJW

BLESSING of (RECYCLED) BELLS at ORTHODOX CHURCH

WHAT'S BEHIND THE DOORS?

Langley, B.C.-- What does the modern commitment to recycling have to do with the ancient faith of the Orthodox Christian Church ? Bells!

Sunday, April 6 at 10:00 A.M. , the Orthodox Church of St. Herman of Alaska in Langley invites the press and public to attend the blessing of their six newly-created bells—which began life as oxygen cylinders. Air Liquide donated the empty cylinders of high quality steel, which produces a beautiful sound. Deacon Kurt Jordan and musician Dan Steenburgh and their helpers cut the bottoms, ground the cylinders to the proper size to produce the proper tone for each bell, sand-blasted them clean and painted them. Now there are six less cylinders as potential land-fill and six more instruments to beautify the world with music and proclaim the glory of God.

In the rite of blessing, each bell is sprinkled with Holy Water, anointed with Holy Chrism (blessed oil) and named. In this case, the bells are each named for different saints of Alaska who brought the Orthodox Faith to North America—one of whom is St. Herman himself, the patron of the parish.

The bells will be rung before each Sunday Liturgy to summon the faithful to worship, and on Pascha, to announce the Resurrection of Christ. (Orthodox Pascha—or Easter—is on Sunday April 27 this year.)

The Church is on the corner of 72 Avenue and 198B Street. The bells and their enclosure adjoin the church and will be sounded every Sunday at 10.00 am.

PHOTOS added Sunday Mar. 30: Dan testing sound, Deacon Kurt & Dan discussing bells.

snowy wedding

snowy wedding, originally uploaded by pasivirta.

here is one of the pictures from our wedding, click the pic for more. I miss my mainlanders, but it was nice to see you at said wedding. party pics will be up soon.

love,

team Pasivirta

Someone asked for a photo of Nicholas ...

Here he is, being churched by Fr. Justin at St. John's this morning: