Our series looking back twenty years enters its eighth month. Last month I shared the July 2006 issue, with its building-fund arithmetic and Fr. Tom's story about a couple who would not give up their airplane seats. If July asked "what comes next?" the answer in August is, "a break!" The August 2006 Messenger is quieter, in the way August always is. The priest is on vacation, the knitters are on holiday, the President's Corner is dark, and the whole issue leans toward one thing: the Panagia.

Fr. Tom's message, "The Church that Honors," opens with St. John of Damascus and a question about the Fourth of July. How many of us, he asks, actually paused to honor the people who shaped this country, rather than treating the holiday as "a venue for huge store sales luring us to buy products that we really don't need"? Then he turns to our faith and our traditions. "Our Holy Orthodox Church never forgets" the people and events that shaped it, and honoring them is simply "what family members do!"

And so, for fifteen days in August, the parish fasts, prays, and sings Paraklesis to the Theotokos, "the first person who accepted Jesus, who said 'yes' to God." If that phrase sounds familiar, it should. Twenty Augusts later, Fr. Tom wrote his Dormition column on exactly that "yes." It's worth hearing, over and over again, that our whole story of redemption starts with a very human choice to cooperate with God's desire for us.

Stewardship Chairman Richard Mosher talks about the parallel between Titus 3:8 and the situation our heroes found themselves in, twenty years ago. St. Paul writes to Titus, "reminding him that the young church on Isle of Crete to which Titus became the Bishop, needed to focus on their faith in God and keep doing good works." When Richard wrote this, Holy Apostles was a young church, feeling its way through a recent building transition and growth. He continues:

By the time this article publishes, we, the Twenty Years Later parishioners of Holy Apostles, will have learned that August 31 will be Fr. Tom's last day as our Presiding Priest, after 27 years of serving Holy Apostles. We will have learned that, glory be to God, our incoming priest is Fr. Rob Spaliatsos and that we will be welcoming him and his family starting September 1. And, let us not forget, this change for our parish is happening against the backdrop of our own ongoing major building remodel.

Once again the beauty of God's timing strikes me as I read through these old newsletters. Twenty years ago, beautiful people including Fr. Tom, Pres. Pat, Richard Mosher, George Plumis, and countless others set out to plant a legacy. We have now inherited that legacy and are asked to tend it, hold it for a season, nurture it, grow it, and eventually pass it on.

We do not build for us, we do not grow for us, we do not run the race, as Fr. Tom would say, for us. We do these things for Christ, because He has asked us to, and for those who, twenty years from now, will receive what we hand over to them. God has provided this opportunity in our still-young parish's life for a very good reason, too. That next step is ours.

The other feature I keep coming back to is the two-page thank-you for the church grounds clean-up. It is nothing but photographs and captions of parishioners at work. A few months into owning a building of their own, our heroes had discovered what every homeowner discovers: moving in ends; the weeding never does. Notably, Earl Bardin is "mowing and pruning all of the trees." I have to tell you, gentle reader, that Earl is still mowing and pruning all the trees, and spearheading these yard-work parties and clean-up efforts. Our latest work party in late May 2026 shows Earl, barely aged at all, chainsaw in hand, breaking down a pile of brush.

Through August our heroes kept the fast, sang the Paraklesis, and pulled weeds. They slowed down and reminded each other to walk by faith. They held that which was entrusted to them with love, dignity, and good works. May we all be blessed to do as much.

The full August 2006 PDF is below. Click on the cover image to download. I'll see you next month for September, when school starts, the President's Corner returns, and the parish hands its former hosts a thank-you check.

Warmly,

Erica