finding your calling at church

[Hoankan]

First, this is meant to be more on the light side of things.

Recently, I've found two things at church that I seem to be good at, both by accident. I was wondering if anyone else had interesting stories like these.

In June, we had a small bbq at the church and I mentioned to Father George that I was very good at bbqing. It was decided then that I was the cook for the Sept. bbq at the children's study camp.

Later, I offered to get the meat as I knew a good place to buy tasty and cheap. They didn't really take my word that it'd be cheap and gave me $300 to buy the meat. I got all the meat at just over $60 :sorry: and it was so tasty that I'm the official bbqer and meat boy.

My other story happened yesterday. There was a wedding of a Japanese man and a Romanian woman. Since she was tall by Japanese standards at 5'8 and he not much shorter 5'7, Father George wanted the two tallest people he could get to hold the crowns. Me standing at 6' and my Serbian friend standing at 6'3 were drafted (nobody comes close to our height at the church). It was quite interesting since it was my first Orthodox wedding and I got to participate, but I can tell already that the next wedding, I'll be asked again to hold the crowns.

[cassc]

:) Well that great, I think both of those jobs sounds like a lot of fun! On a more serious note I think that finding your place in a parish can be a challenge but is certainly important as it helps bond you to the community. I know that when my cousin got married the first thing my Aunt did to make her feel at home (like it or not) was to start assigning her chores at every family event. In casual conversation I mentioned one day to my Priest that another close friend of mine had moved away and if this kept up I was probably going to need to start making new friends. He promptly made me the chairperson of our Young Adult Group's activity committee! (My first event is this coming Thursday so it remains to be seen how successful I will be) ;)

[ma2000]

:clap:
Apparently I can sing.. so I started singing in the choir.

[nestoj]

Great Hoankan, you gave me an idea. My parish pressed me for a time to join the choir, but I've refused (whoever heard me singing will know why). I think they wanted me to join the choir so I would bring counterbalance to my best friend who sings there. He, besides his inability to produce something non hurtful for the ears while singing, also suffers from inability to register when he is lousy in something. I think they wanted me to join, start singing, and get him to tell me how I stink at singing, when of course I would explain to him through what test of faith he puts us whenever he joins the choir stand (something the rest of the choir is to polite to do). But, I've seen trough this plot and refused.... Anyway, cooking...now that's something I'm good at. I'll ask our priest to appoint me to the position of official Chef of the Parish...

nestoj
God helps

[ma2000]

Great Hoankan, you gave me an idea. My parish pressed me for a time to join the choir, but I've refused (whoever heard me singing will know why). I think they wanted me to join the choir so I would bring counterbalance to my best friend who sings there. He, besides his inability to produce something non hurtful for the ears while singing, also suffers from inability to register when he is lousy in something. I think they wanted me to join, start singing, and get him to tell me how I stink at singing, when of course I would explain to him through what test of faith he puts us whenever he joins the choir stand (something the rest of the choir is to polite to do). But, I've seen trough this plot and refused.... Anyway, cooking...now that's something I'm good at. I'll ask our priest to appoint me to the position of official Chef of the Parish...

nestoj
God helps
:D
Hi, Nenad! :wave:

[nestoj]

:D
Hi, Nenad! :wave:
Good to see you still swimming these waters Marius. What's going on with the job?

nestoj
God helps

[ma2000]

I'm still trying to find one. I have to remember and study a few things first. If I only wouldn't be that lazy! Oh... :(
I'll find a job eventually, don't worry! :) Thanks for asking.

[Hoankan]

It's sort of strange how I've ended up in the newsletter of my church. My cooking was apparently so good, that they put a picture of me in talking about how I made such delicious food. The other picture that just came out was of the wedding. Fortunately, my ugly mug was cut from the picture and you can only see my hand holding the crown.

I really do think it's important to become apart of the church community, even if it's only something small. That's why I thought it'd be interesting to see how people accidentally found their niche.

[Matrona]

I think they wanted me to join, start singing, and get him to tell me how I stink at singing, when of course I would explain to him through what test of faith he puts us whenever he joins the choir stand (something the rest of the choir is to polite to do).

^_^

I wish there was some nice, tactful way of telling someone that they have an unpleasant singing voice. :doh: It's either that or try to drown them out...

[nutroll]

I guess I have a slightly interesting story that I can share. As a teenager, my dad and I used to be referred to as the twins by some people at church. We are very much alike, and what he was interested in, I was interested in. He did most of the reading at our church because there weren't any other people offering to do it. At a certain point, he had me start helping him with the readings, and because he is tone deaf, and didn't think he did a very good job at it, he thought I should take over completely.

My dad had also dabbled in iconography for years. He had no formal training in it, but he had training in art, and had the desire to teach himself iconography. So when I took over the readings at church, I joked with him that he would have to teach me to paint icons too. It just so happened that my dad (who was the librarian at the Antiochian Village at the time) worked with a professional iconographer, so without being entirely serious about learning iconography, I found myself working in an icon studio as a summer job. I was really bad at it at first, but thank God I was too young to realize just how bad I was, and so I didn't get discouraged, and I kept practicing. That was 16 years ago now, and for the last 9 years I have been working as an iconographer as my sole profession.

So many things in my life have been set on the path in front of me. There are very few things that I do that I have really had to seek out. All I have done is to do the best that I can with what is set in front of me, and God has blessed me in many, many ways.

[nestoj]

^_^

I wish there was some nice, tactful way of telling someone that they have an unpleasant singing voice. :doh: It's either that or try to drown them out...
Hehe...when it comes to my friends I'm usually direct as they are with me. Just, this time I find the faces of choir people funny when they congratulate each other on good singing after the service, then come to the Nesa (my singing friend) and their faces start getting purple color while they think what to say to him...:o :doh:

Anyway, nutroll's post made me think about telling others my opinion about something they like doing, and I'm gonna keep my mouth shut when it comes to something like that.

nestoj
God helps