Sorry, due to pregnancy issues, the Akathist has been moved to Monday Feb 9, 5:45pm.

Hello All, as usual the normal late notice for events . By the way the last event was wonderful, we had 7 people out and learned some interesting things about Theopany.

Next Week
Monday, 5:45-6:15 Feb 2 we will meet @ Sheptytsky Institute Chapel (on the corner of wiggins and college)for the Akathist "Glory to God for All Things". Directions are on the attached poster. A warning that it may be rescheduled as Fr. Andre may have a baby over this week.

Some Topics We Will be Covering this Semester:
God's Justice - Retribution and Rehabilitation. - Throught the College of Law - Crown Prosecutor John Syrnick
Being Angry at God. -Elijah, Job - Most likely Bruce Anderson
Exploration of The Prophesy of Isiah
Living for God in a Community
War and Peace: Orthodox View of Christian Participation in War

Some Fun Things
Bowling
Pool night
Card Games
Ultimate Frisbee

Prayer:
Weekly prayer if there is an interest (go through one of the Hours in the morning or lunch hour)
Akathist /Vespers once a month

There a national conferences with full scholarships provided in PA, CA, and NY as well as service project groups over the summer to go interantionaly and work in missionary and charity feilds. Let me know if you would be interested in going.


If you know of any lay person or priest that would be willing to speak on topic, I would love your suggestion, we can always use help organizing speakers.

I apologize, it has come to my attention(by five emails pertaining to the matter) that I put the wrong date down for the OCF meeting, which explains the lack of attendance. The small amount of people that showed up discussed OCF. It was decided that we would meet twice a month, on the 2 and 3 week. One time will be a prayer time followed by a fun activity and then the other a speaker followed by food.

The times suggested are,

1) Monday 4:00pm
2) Wednesday 5:00pm
3) Thursday 5:00pm

Please email the ones you can make it to so we can decide, we will only meet twice this term. The first time will be bowling and an akathist. The second a talk on being angry at God and then a pizza or potluch. I have also line up a person to give a bible study on 1 John in febraury. We may have a talk in december. As following our mandate of growing Orthodox young adults in fellowship and Christ we will be focusing on bible studies this year.

Also, I need your input, meet somewhere on campus, at a church, or at someones house, what works better?

Please email me with your input. I will make a decision on saturday, so we can get the ball rolling on organizing november meetings.

If you want to go the Nov 7-9 retreat, email me at mrl999(at)mail.usask.ca, we still have some open spots. It is only 50$ for all accomodations and food, or $20 if you can only come for saturday(the day with the talks). If there is a problem with money, we may be able to accomodate you. It should be quite fun, we have a good movie called Ostrow lined up, a gym to play sports, and a football and frisbee. We should also have many guitars out there if you would like to bring yours. Mathew Francis is an amazing individual, I encourage you to come and here what he has to say, he has wisdom beyond his years.

Michael Luciuk
OCF President

Glory to Jesus Christ,

Welcome back to school. I hope the God of all is blessing everybody in their studies. I apologize for the lateness of this post. If you would like to be removed from the newsletter please email me.

I have 8 classes this semester including a undergraduate thesis as this is my last year. This has consumed alot of my time this year. It looks like we will have a scaled back OCF compared to other years. If anyone is willing to help out, I would be extremely grateful, we need someone to take it over next year.

We are hoping to do 2 meetings a month from Nov on. This would include one prayer time with a fun activity after and one speaker time with food. We are looking at a doing a 3 part bible study on a prophet in the old testament in January. Also we have an exciting retreat coming up at Nov 7-9. If you are interested the retreat is 50$ with food/accommodations/gym/

activities provided. It is at blackstrap(1/2 south of Saskatoon) and will have Mathew Francis speaking on, Eklesia(Mission) as members of the God's Church. If you are interested email me, and I can send you more info. Registration is due Nov 1.

Next Week we will have a discussion session to decide our direction for this year. It will be held at Michael Luciuk's house (1126 -425 115th st E) at 5:00pm on Thursday, Oct 30. There will be FREE PIZZA! There will be rides for anyone who needs them.

Good luck on midterms!

Michael Luciuk
President

Hey!

Last week was wonderful with 6 people for the first talk and 35 for the second. Fr. Vladimir led us in an insightful look at what is an icon and whether any artistic person should be an iconographer. In short the answer was only if you want to glorify God and not for personal fame. He also talked about the theology behind icons and using creativity in the worship of God.

This Week
We will have a short bible study on the 3 epistles of John @ Group Space, Tuesday 5:15 pm March 25 . There will be pop and snacks provided. Please bring a bible and read the 1st epistle before.

Next Week
No Meeting due to business of school

Week After
Will be the BBQ and general meeting, location and time to be announced, If you have an exam on Saturday April 12 please email us, as that is the most likely time
Also please consider joining the exec, we normally split up meeting organizing so you only have to organize one a month, please consider it.

OCF Krew

Hello, one and ALL!

Last week
We had 5 people go to Regina for the retreat. It was amazing, I never knew how important charity and fulfilling peoples needs was to salvation and church community.


This Week

We have Fr. Vladimir Lysac (formally known as Bill). He is a good family friend of mine and agreed to take time off his backlog of icons (in between trips around North America) to come to speak. He is a world famous iconographer who studyied under Heiko in Edmonton and under the monks in New Valaamo (Archbshop Seraphim's former Monastery(OCA)) and Moscow. He is going to speak about his journey to monasticism and iconography. He is going to attempt to explain the experience of being a monk but more importantly, offer his opinion on artistic worship and whether artistic people should be inconographers?

HE WILL BE SPEAKING WEDNESDAY March 19, 4:30 PM at the GROUP SPACE . The topic is "Worship through the Arts, Iconography as a Vocation" Wednesday, March 19, 4:30pm @ Group Space.

We will then go to St. Vincents for 6:30 pm Presanctified Liturgy Which Father will serve and then he will speak on "Beauty in My House: Church Beautification" Wednesday, March 19, 8:00pm @ St. Vincents Orthodox Church, right after the service he will begin. FREE SUPPER will be served AFTER the TALK.

See posters below. Please come as he has traveled quite far (5 hrs) from his Icon writing retreat in rural Southwest Sask.


NOTE: NOTHING ON TUESDAY

NEXT
NOTE: WEDNESDAY is our second last meeting.

March 25 will be a bible discussion group on the epistles of John (very short epistles) 1hr thing.
APRIL 1 will be canceled due to the business of school and life for everyone.
Then April 8 will be a year end BBQ/Potluck.

Hello!

Hope the reading week was great, I personally didn't get a whole lot of reading done unfortunately. Hope everyone is well rested.

This Week
We will be having vespers on 4:30 pm Thursday, Feb 28 @ Sheptytsky Institute Chapel. Most likely confessions will be available and Father Andre Lalache would like to invite all attendees to free dinner after. This is a great time to pray for success in midterms and prepare for the beginning of lent.

On Sunday, March 2/08 the St. Vincent College and Career would like to invite all interested young adults to a cross-country skiing lesson at Kinsmen Park at 3:30 PM. Neil and Jan Sedgewick will do some instruction for those who want to learn. This will end at 5:30 and then everyone is invited to Machnee's for supper around 6:15.
You need to do two things: 1. If you need boots/skis, please call Jan at 931-3305 by Tuesday, Feb. 26 with your shoe size and she will make sure there are boots for you. There may be a small fee for rental if Sedgwicks do not have your size. 2. Call Lois 933-2884 by Tues. to let her know if you will be at the supper. Hope you join us!

Next Week
We will have crown prosecutor John Syrnick speaking on "God's Justice, Rehabiliation or Retribution" at Tuesday 7:30 pm @ groupspace. This is really exciting and I personally can't wait to here his perspective considering his personal experiance of the system.

Week After
We will have Fr. Vladamir Lysack a master iconographer from Finland and now residing in Yorkton, will speak on "Creative Worship, Iconography as a Vocation" and "Beauty in My House, on church decoration" Tuesday 5:15 pm @ Group space.

see above posters!