PARISH VOICES

Our series looking back twenty years enters its ninth month. Last month I shared the August 2006 issue, a quiet one, with the priest on vacation and the parish singing Paraklesis in borrowed churches. September 2006 is the opposite. Everyone is back, school is starting, and the newsletter is twelve pages of a parish clearing its throat for a new year. Fr. Tom's message is addressed to parents, and it does not waste time. He starts with a newborn's forty-day blessing, jumps to

Sunday, August 30, 2026 and Tuesday, September 1, 2026 — On the last Sunday of the ecclesiastical year, our outgoing and incoming Presiding Priests served Divine Liturgy side by side, marking a peace-filled, beautiful handover. August 30 was the Apodosis of the Feast of the Beheading of St. John the Forerunner, and Fr. Tom and Fr. Rob were concelebrants, both vested in the deep red worn in honor of martyrs and the Cross.

As many of you know, there has been a process underway for some time regarding my retirement and the transition to new pastoral leadership at our beloved Holy Apostles. Early in August, Metropolitan Gerasimos formally shared this news with the Parish Council. Effective September 1st, I will be retiring from my assignment here at Holy Apostles. At the same time, I am very happy to announce that Fr. Rob Spaliatsos will be assigned to Holy Apostles beginning September 1st. We wa

I don't remember exactly how, or why, I started doing the following. When our four children were young back in the 1990's, I began tucking them in with a blessing using the sign of the cross. To Orthodox readers, this may not seem out of the ordinary. However, I was Protestant at the time. Making the sign of the cross is not a normal Protestant action. The Lutheran church and other liturgical-based denominations use it during services, performed by the pastor. In the Lutheran

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 thi

One of the funny things about writing a retrospective is stepping back into my memories to think about what’s been going on over the past few months. This quarter’s Treasurer Update includes Pascha! Here it is early August and I can hardly believe that Pascha was less than four months ago…it feels more like a year! But to settle down to the numbers. On the giving side...

As we reflect on the Theotokos on her dormition, we remember that the course of human history radically changed when this beautiful young girl, the Virgin Mary, said 'yes' to God!!! The angel Gabriel announced God's plan: "You will conceive in your womb and bring forth a Son...and you shall call His name Jesus." The God who spoke galaxies into existence, the one who suspends the planets and gives life, didn't force His way into humanity. Instead, He waited for the free respon

Saturday, August 1, 2026 — For one week every summer, a lakeside camp on Raft Island in South Puget Sound fills up with kids who are fighting cancer, the families who are fighting it with them, and a small army of volunteers whose whole job is to create "a place of joy, rest, and unconditional love in the midst of life’s most difficult journey." Volunteers from Holy Apostles have returned, year after year, to help make Camp Agape Northwest possible for nearly thirty years, a

You ever have those moments when you feel stuck and unsure, and then someone shares something seemingly simple and you start crying, look up at the icon of Christ, and think, "Okay Lord… I hear You"? That was me this morning. Fr. Tom told a story about a priest friend who grew up in Greece. He held up a tiny pencil that was barely an inch and a half long. That priest had one pencil for the entire school year. By May, he had to pay attention to every bit of it - how much was