Nazareth House Apostolate Blog

St. Simeon Skete, Taylorsville Kentucky USA

NHA & St. Simeon Skete, Taylorsville Kentucky USA

Nazareth House Apostolate's St. Simeon Skete is an orthodox skete founded under the vision and Crozier of Archbishop James Provence of the Anglican Province of Christ the King during the Autumn of 2010. With St. Simeon, the God receiver, as our patron, the skete seeks to practice the ideals found in our Rule, The Thousand Day Nazareth. In simplicity and poverty, the skete embraces the struggle of inner life through the practice of the Prayer Rope.

The outreach of Nazareth House Apostolate is in Sierra Leone, West Africa. Matthew 25:31-46. For more information see our website at www.nazarethhouseap.org

Donations should be addressed to: Nazareth House Apostolate, 185 Captains Cove Drive, Taylorsville, Kentucky 40071.

Important Notice: All graphics & photographs in this blog are the copyrighted property of (unless otherwise indicated) Nazareth House Media, a division of Nazareth House Apostolate and cannot be copied, printed or used without written permission from NHA Media, Taylorsville, KY.

Thursday, February 16, 2012

NHA School in full swing

Links to this post

The Christmas Holidays behind us, the students have returned to Nazareth House Apostolate School in Kabala and resumed their studies for well over a month.

The students are packed into small rooms

which we partitioned from the original room space in order to accommodate the growing attendance and need for more classrooms.

The day is fast approaching that we will have to build an addition on to the school.

Despite the crowding, the teachers are doing a tremendous job and the students are excelling in acquiring knowledge.

Students in Kabala have to contend with many obstacles that most students in the USA do not.

They get malaria, they get typhoid from dirty water,

they have to work to help support the family (even the elementary school students),

they come to school hungry, and they have to walk miles (and I mean actual miles) to get to school.

In America, we smile at our parents as they reminisce about having "had to walk to school several miles in the snow - uphill both ways."

In Kabala, there is no snow - but there is heavy rains or extreme heat, they do walk many miles to get to school and the “hills” they must climb to remain in school are the stumbling blocks they must face daily which come at them from all directions.

Pa Foday continues to use the motorbike purchased for him by NHA to check on the students and their families.

If a child doesn’t make it to school, Pa Foday immediately goes to the student’s home to see what is going on and how to help get the child back to receiving regular education.

There is so much more to running a school in Africa than grading papers, it takes involvement at all levels - at the school, in the community and in the life at home.

One student that you know well, who has suffered illness and been away from his school desk at the NHA School has now made his way back.

Roo who is recovering from severe anemia and complications stemming from that illness, flings his backpack on his back and crosses the dirt road from his home in the NHA Compound to the NHA School.

Once back at his desk, Roo eagerly gets back to the business of learning.

A solid, well rounded education is the basis for personal growth and ability to provide for oneself. This also applies to a community.

Education opens many doors and gives opportunity for betterment. For this reason, its is vital that your prayers and support for the work of Nazareth House Apostolate remain ongoing.

...and if you haven’t yet been involved in the work of NHA, please consider doing so today. Donations can be made through the website at www.nazarethhouseap.org or by check or money order to

Nazareth House Apostolate

185 Captains Cove Drive

Taylorsville, KY 40071

Tuesday, February 14, 2012

A Bell's not a bell 'til you ring it ...

Links to this post

Last Summer, Jesús and his son,

installed the bell at St. Simeon Skete.

It is to be rung as a “call to prayer” prior to every Service at St. Simeon Skete.

One of the things I miss most in Sierra Leone is the “Adhan”, the Muslim Call to Prayer that rings from the minaret 5 times a day.

In the wee hours of the morning, hearing that wakes me from my sleep with a reminder to pray.

Sunrise at St. Simeon Skete

Archbishop Provence once said to me that “the first thing you do when you wake up is what holds your day,” “If prayer begins your day, then your day will be held by prayer. If checking the news, email or facebook is the first action you make after waking - then those things will hold your day.”

St. Simeon’s Skete’s “call to prayer” is not from a large bell, its not fancy, its simple and functional and in this way a perfect representation of life at the skete. It is enough.

Seraphim appointed Joanie Markwell as the Official Bell Ringer of St. Simeon Skete. Every Sunday, she rings the bell eleven times, five minutes before the Liturgy. The bell is rung eleven times in honor of the eleven patronal saints of the skete.

✞

Last week, Joanie celebrated her birthday and the small study group that meets on Wednesdays at the Holy Trinity Kellia presented Joanie with an Official Bell Ringer tee-shirt and hat.

This past Sunday, Joanie came dressed in her Sunday hat

but made sure to change into her “bell-ringing hat” while ringing the call to the Liturgy.

As the Lord's Supper was celebrated on Sexagesmia Sunday at St. Simeon Skete, little Vicki Ann Mansaray's life

was being dedicated to God by her doting grandfather, Pastor Foday

at his church in Kabala.

The family gathered together

for this special and very joyous event.

James and Kadijah are very pleased to have made the return to Kabala and are anxious to settle in and spread the work of NHA throughout Kabala and the outlying villages.

We have made some medical shipments to Sierra Leone for James to receive, however, they have not arrived as timely as hoped. In one of the boxes filled with medication is a small valentine gift for Roo and Vicki.

St. Mark's Parish in Portland, Oregon has also sent Valentines to the students of the NHA School in Kabala. Obviously, the boxes have not made it to their destination in time for Valentine's Day. And so this year's greetings may be more on African time (where they are event oriented rather than Chronos or sequential time). Love has no expiration dates and I’m sure St. Valentine would be the first to agree that the message of love should be everyday - love for God and love for all mankind.

"A bell's not a bell 'til you ring it,

A song's not a song 'til you sing it, Love in your heart wasn't put there to stay,

Love isn't love 'til you give it away. " - Oscar hammerstein II

Wednesday, February 8, 2012

Links to this post

As a Religious Organization with an outreach in Sierra Leone, Nazareth House Apostolate wants you to be familiar with the work and how we do that work. Others may do things differently and we applaud everyone that makes an effort to help those in need. There is so much suffering, it requires everyone to do their part in lending a hand.

The following is what we have found works best for NHA and those that we serve. Specifically we want to talk about shipments made overseas from Nazareth House Apostolate. We’ve been working in the war-torn West African Nation of Sierra Leone for well over ten years now. When we began, we had no clue how to help, we only knew there was a need that we refused to ignore. Through the years we’ve had many trial and errors but any disappointments have been far outweighed by the many accomplishments. Every time you help a child to go to bed at night with a few less hunger pains - you’ve made a difference. Every step (backward or forward) has been a learning experience and we are thankful, very thankful for it all.

Nazareth House Apostolate is a religious organization.

As the human body has many parts, so it is with Nazareth House Apostolate. (see previous post: click to read the NHA Blog: Many Parts, One Body)

The heart of Nazareth House Apostolate is St. Simeon Skete (prayer) from which all that we do begins, circulates and is pumped out. Our daily prayer rule “The Eleven” is the beating of that heart. Nazareth House Kabala in Sierra Leone (outreach), our field house in which the mission work is accomplished is that prayer being broadcasted into the world. The supporters and the beneficiaries are the food that supports the body enabling it to do its work.

Our work in Sierra Leone is all about love. Love as expressed in Matthew 25: 35-40.

During the war and soon after, it was necessary to ship as many supplies as possible. There simply wasn’t anything left or available. As the nation slowly began to heal, more and more merchants provided staples and shops began to re-open.

Today, you can find most anything in Freetown with the exception of good (safe) medications.

Some items are available at an exaggerated price, however, when you weigh the cost of shipping that item from the States, it remains more prudent to purchase it in country.

Kabala is known for its cloth and tailoring, and especially for the making of the "ronko" gown - (reference:click here to read wikipedia).

It is for this reason that we ship little to no clothing to Sierra Leone. Handmade clothing is available all over Kabala at a good price.

Even in Freetown, where prices are generally higher, you can find clothing in shops and on the streets at reasonably fair prices.

It is for these reasons that Nazareth House Apostolate prefers not to ship any article except the most needed items to Sierra Leone - namely medications.

By purchasing material from a cloth merchant and having a tailor sew the item, we have stimulated the economy; providing a sale for the merchant and income for the tailor. Rather than one child receiving an article of clothing to wear, we have touched three lives in a positive way - 1. the cloth merchant, 2. the tailor, 3. the person who receives the clothing - for much less than the cost of shipping.

Nazareth House Apostolate’s goal for a village is to become unneeded. This means that the village or town becomes self-sufficient and no longer requires our assistance. When a village reaches that goal, we can then move on to another. It is important that a town or village is not put into a position of becoming dependent on humanitarian aid.

The saying “Give a man a fish; you have fed him for today.

Teach a man to fish; and you have fed him for a lifetime”.

Our goals are simple in Sierra Leone.

The farm in which Pa Foday labors tirelessly, provides vegetables for several, we want to expand it so that there is food for more...for eating as well as produce for marketing.

Education is one of the most important tools for a community's growth. We’ve built a very nice school building, servicing nearly 300 students.

It needs expansion to accommodate the ever growing enrollment. We are having to turn students away. This is not good.

Communication. There are no landlines in Kabala, only mobile towers. Internet accessibility is limited to the IP’s whims. NHA is working to strike a deal with satellite company to provide satellite capabilities. We are considering an internet cafe ran by a NHA Staff member with the proceeds benefiting the NHA School.

Water. We are very excited that we now have a permanent center of operations in Kabala - our NHA Compound. The water in Kabala, however is not very good.

Our well at the NHA Compound reached water but it is not able to be pumped into the house. We will need to hire more workers and equipment to finish this project. However, it is more than the NHA Compound that needs a water system rescue. There are many agencies that install and maintain water supplies, we will be speaking with them about the needs in Kabala.

While we press on with new projects and more needs we continue to provide humanitarian aid to those in need - rice to sustain families, medical fees for the sick as well as supplies for the clinics, benevolence to sustain, salaries for our teachers, aid to One Hut village as well as outer villages, operating and upkeep of the NHA School --- NHA is very active in Kabala. Plus, there are those we continue to maintain in Freetown. When James makes the monthly supply run to Freetown he sees to it that these people are not forgotten. NHA never drops and runs, we remember and check on the people and villages that we serve. Our monthly expenditure to provide these needs is $2,200. We currently are supported by 31 donors who give monthly ($25 or more), regularly (quarterly and annually). We also receive the one time, random, and gift (in honor or memory) contributions. So far we have been able to make the needs each month. This amazes us as most of the time we barely scrape by and come up with just enough, just in time. Sometimes we are late distributing but we have never failed to provide. The work in Sierra Leone is sustained solely by donations.

It is a difficult trip for James to make from Kabala into Freetown and back. We have brought to your attention the need for a vehicle of our own to help curb the dangers of rental car costs and “scares” (unsafe vehicles with unsafe drivers) on treacherous roads. This is another reason we limit the amount of shipping sent to Freetown for James to receive. If boxes come in and our left to sit, there is a good chance the contents will be stolen. Therefore, James must go to Freetown when notified of the arrival of a shipment. We try to time shipments to arrive when he makes his supply run so as not to endanger him any more than he already is by making the trip.

It is our hope that this writing clarifies our stand on shipments to Sierra Leone. We encounter tremendous needs in Sierra Leone, yet we ask that people resist the urge to donate items to this cause unless specifically requested and approved. In a nutshell, it’s actually prohibitively expensive to export goods from the United States to Sierra Leone. Rather, cash donations are preferred and greatly appreciated. This approach benefits the local economy (local skills, labor & materials) and assures your tax deductible donation goes directly to support needs and projects and reduces administration costs such as shipping.

Nazareth House Apostolate

185 Captains Cove Drive

Taylorsville, KY 40071

www.nazarethhouseap.org