Deanery pics

I didn't get many pics at the deanery, but you can find a few at my flickr account here.

yet another fine sunday

It saddens me to have to write this...

FREE to a good home:

2 Male Neutered Cats with all shots up to date. 1 orange med-hair cat almost 3 years old. 1 Gray & White Long haired cat 3.5 years old. They are great with kids and other animals, very friendly, and good moucers. They need to have access to inside and outside. Take one or take both. Call Gabe or Amy (in Chilliwack) at 604-795-4223 or email lanteigne (at) shaw (dot) ca.

~sigh~

The only reason we are looking to do this is becasue with the weather getting cold, and them unable to come inside at our new house, we are worrying about them freezing to death. So if someone has a house or barn that they could go in and out of at their leisure, that would be ideal for them. They are great kitties!

This is us last Christmas (Amy is holding Weazley and Gabe is holding HoJu - Homer Junior).

one fine sunday...

All is well at twenty weeks!

Just a little visual update on how our pregancy is going... Thanks to everyone for all your prayers!

And congratulations to Fr Justin and Mat. Sarah on the baptism of their exquisite little Jensina, and love to Rhiannon and Greg who must be roughly at the same stage as we are (perhaps a little farther along?)

With love and prayers to our St Herman's family,

Cheryl+Matthew (+ the Kumquat)

Cocktail, anyone?

This photo is from the latest ladies get-together. It was a cocktail party at Amy's house celebrating her birthday and Muryn's birthday. I feel weird speaking in the third person.

So, when is the next get-together ladies? Do we have to wait until Christmastime? When can we get together in November?

BC Deanery Meeting

The first public Annual General Meeting of the BC Deanery (OCA) will be held on Saturday, October 28th, from 10am to 3pm at Holy Resurrection Orthodox Church, 75 E 43rd Avenue, Vancouver (in BC, of course!). Full details can be found in the poster below (click on the image to download a full-sized PDF version of the poster), redistribution of which is encouraged!

Our new little wonder...

(...click the photo to see the whole event on flikr)

I wonder who it could be...?

Someone we know celebrates their birthday today. But I promised I would not say who. So, here is a clue... this is the birthday person's patron saint:

The Holy Great Martyr Marina was born in Asia Minor, in the city of Antioch of Pisidia (southern Asia Minor), into the family of a pagan priest. In infancy she lost her mother, and her father gave her into the care of a nursemaid, who raised Marina in the Orthodox Faith. Upon learning that his daughter had become a Christian, the father angrily disowned her. During the time of the persecution against Christians under the emperor Diocletian (284-305), when she was fifteen years old, St Marina was arrested and locked up in prison. With firm trust in the will of God and His help, the young prisoner prepared for her impending fate.

The governor Olymbrios, charmed with the beautiful girl, tried to persuade her to renounce the Christian Faith and become his wife. But the saint, unswayed, refused his offers. The vexed governor gave the holy martyr over to torture. Having beaten her fiercely, they fastened the saint with nails to a board and tore at her body with tridents. The governor himself, unable to bear the horror of these tortures, hid his face in his hands. But the holy martyr remained unyielding. Thrown for the night into prison, she was granted heavenly aid and healed of her wounds. They stripped her and tied her to a tree, then burned the martyr with fire. Barely alive, the martyr prayed: "Lord, You have granted me to go through fire for Your Name, grant me also to go through the water of holy Baptism."

Hearing the word "water", the governor gave orders to drown the saint in a large cauldron. The martyr besought the Lord that this manner of execution should become for her holy Baptism. When they plunged her into the water, there suddenly shone a light, and a snow-white dove came down from Heaven, bearing in its beak a golden crown. The fetters put upon St Marina came apart by themselves. The martyr stood up in the fount of Baptism glorifying the Holy Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. St Marina emerged from the fount completely healed, without any trace of burns. Amazed at this miracle, the people glorified the True God, and many came to believe. This brought the governor into a rage, and he gave orders to kill anyone who might confess the Name of Christ. 15,000 Christians perished there, and the holy Martyr Marina was beheaded. The sufferings of the Great Martyr Marina were described by an eyewitness of the event, named Theotimos.

Up until the taking of Constantinople by Western crusaders in the year 1204, the relics of the Great Martyr Marina were in the Panteponteia monastery. According to other sources, they were located in Antioch until the year 908 and from there transferred to Italy. Now they are in Athens, in a church dedicated to the holy Virgin Martyr. Her venerable hand was transferred to Mount Athos, to the Batopedi monastery.

Happy birthday special seret person whom I love! God grant you many years!

Alisha.

These are pictures of my beautiful soon-to-be baby cousin Alisha.

My Aunt Alex and Uncle Sharon are in the process of adopting her from Bombay, in India and are running into endless amounts of red tape. Please pray for her and them.

She turned a year old today. The orphanage had to shave her for hygenic reasons (they don't have the time to wash and dry all the children's hair). Isn't she beautiful?

Our Jesse

I just had to share this picture with all of you. I took this picture at the kids market, a couple of days before he took off. You are loved and missed, Q.

Beauty... and coffeehouses... will save the world...

Fr. John sent around a note, agog at this beautiful Orthodox coffeehouse in Colorado Springs, Colorado. It's called Agia Sophia, after the church whose worship was so lovely it saved the Slavs. And this place even has an available Russian Samovar room for tea, books of good theology laying about, and other good food and drink.

Jensina is a week old

 
I know I'm little biased, but is she not perfection? 

Meet Jensina Marie

To settle the dispute over spelling and pronunciation (although this will probably not be the last time Jensina will have to deal with this question), we are overjoyed to finally be able to present to you Jensina (pronounced Yen-SEE-na) Marie, born at 7:19pm on Wednesday, August 30th. "Jensina" is a Scandanavian feminine form of "John" - after St. John the Theologian.

Jensina was the lightest of Matushka Sarah's newborns, weighing in at a "tiny" 8 lbs, 3 oz, but took the longest to come out, with labour starting at 3pm on August 29th. Despite the long labour, Matushka Sarah is doing well - thank you all for your prayers! - after the most peaceful labour and delivery we have ever had. Technology has its uses...

The boys are very excited - they started jumping up and down, shouting out "We have a sister! We have a sister!" when they heard the news - and have welcomed her into the family with great enthusiasm. As soon as we brought her home, Simon, following in a Hewlett family tradition, brought some toys and gave them to Jensina (Justin did the same when we brought Simon home):


We are looking forward to introducing Jensina in person after the forty days. Glory to God! And thank you for your prayers.

It's a girl!

Welcome to the world, Jansina Marie! (hopefully I spelled that right.) Both mother and daughter are very healthy and doing well.

Glory to God in the highest!!

Jensina Marie Hewlett

Glory To God!

Today, at 7 p.m. the Hewlett family welcomed little baby girl Jensina Marie (pronounced YEN-sina, meaning John in Norwegian) into this world. Matushka Sarah is officially un-pregnant!

Father Justin and Matushka thank everyone for all our prayers. (He sounds so happy!)

Glory To God!

uhhh...

Maria and Jordie's wedding

Yesterday, Maria Daphnis married Jordan Tyson at the Serbian Cultural Center in Burnaby.
Here, Maria's Dad walks her down the aisle.

This is the Orthodox portion of the ceremony.

Maria chats with Amy, Muryn, and Melissa during the reception.

God grant you many years Maria and Jordie!

A new thing

Matthew and I are two separate people, and consequently we have two separate blogs. However, we have become a part of something in which we are so entangledly mutually complicit, blessed, responsible, involved, affected, rejoiced, changed, excited and bewildered... that we've decided to start a blog together so we can share it with you.

Go check it out.

(Consider this our formal announcement)

With love,

Cheryl and Matthew

Good News!

Do you remember that movie "Kindergarten Cop" with Arnold Schwatshisname? Remeber the scene where he has a headache and some little kid says "maybe it's a tumor?" and he says (in that great accented voice) "It's not a tumor". The way he says it, it sounds like "too-mah". It's not a too-mah.

Well, that is what my Doctor said to me today. It's not a tumor. Yay! I don't have a tumor on my brain. Such good words to hear! Thank you all for your prayers - they worked!