Our guest blogger is Alexa Janda of Houston, TX. She is a sophomore at the University of Texas-Austin, studying Nutrition. She has been an active member of the parish community of St George Antiochian Orthodox Church in Houston, TX. Alexa recently traveled to Istanbul, Turkey to participate in Orthodox Christian Fellowship (OCF) Real Break. These "real breaks" serve as alternative destinations/trips for college students throughout the US & Canada to offer service to their "neighbor." Please enjoy reading her reflection upon coming home from this amazing experience, as well as the awesome pictures:
My decision to serve with the OCF Real Break mission trip to
Constantinople was one of the best decisions of my life. Initially, my spring break plan was to spend
a week in Alaska with my parents.
However, my plan changed last Christmas break when I found out my two
good friends Mary Catherine Huneycutt and Mary Dahdouh were going on the OCF
trip. I shared the Real Break
information with my parents who instantly recognized what an amazing
opportunity this trip would be for me. I
registered for OCF Real Break not realizing that this mission trip would be
a life changing experience.
This OCF Real Break trip to Constantinople is unlike any
other Real Break trip as Constantinople is a city steeped in Orthodox history. Tragically, Christ’s beautiful and significant
faith is being rooted out from Turkey.
Today, about 1% of the population maintains to be Orthodox. Our trip had three primary objectives: to serve the Church of Constantinople, to experience
Constantinople’s extensive Orthodox history, and to meet His All-Holiness,
Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew.
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| OCF Real Break team with His All-Holiness, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew |
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| College students meet with and receive a blessing from Patriarch Bartholomew |
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| His All-Holiness, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew |
The first objective of this and every OCF Real Break mission
trip is service in the form of manual labor.
However, unlike the other mission trips, we did not work to clean and
refresh an orphanage, monastery, or church.
Instead, as requested by the Patriarch, our 22-member team spent our
time restoring an unkempt and vandalized Orthodox cemetery. To me, this seemed a little odd at
first. Why weren’t we disposing
ourselves to the living rather than to the dead? I quickly began to realize the importance or
the assignment, or rather, I thought I did.
I figured that by restoring the graves, we offer respect, remembrance,
and reverence to those brothers and sisters who have gone before us (and who
have limited or no family left in Turkey to keep their graves). Our efforts would also encourage hopefulness
that one day Christianity will be restored in Turkey. Although these reasons are true, I didn’t
realize what the greatest benefit would be until we actually began working. Each passing day would give me more of an
understanding into the Patriarch’s unusual request.
One of the students in our group eloquently addressed our
mission when she wrote on paper what each of us wrote on our heart:
“The
work is humbling because we’re not here to receive praise or rewards. We are
here to care for the bodies of our brothers and sisters who have fallen asleep
and to commemorate them as they await the Resurrection. Graves are physical,
tangible reminders to the living that life is fleeting and one day we will all
rest in the ground. As Orthodox Christians, we also value human bodies as icons
of Christ, sanctified by the very act of the Incarnation, and strive to care
for them even after the soul has departed. Caring for the dead concretely
demonstrates our theology and eschatology to the rest of the world and is the
least we can do for the small Orthodox presence in Constantinople. Finally, our
work is an excellent analogy to preparation for Lent. Just as we are using
rakes, rags, and shovels to uncover these broken stones in order to piece
together the graves, our Lenten journey is also a tool designed to help us
uncover our broken hearts in order to piece ourselves back together by the
grace of God. This is a never-ending journey of physical and spiritual
restoration which will not cease until we, too, are laid in the ground awaiting
the Resurrection.”
- Alison Sailer
Bennett (OCF Real Break participant)
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| OCF Real Break group |
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| Orthodox Christian Cemetery at the Phanar (in great need of repair) |
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| Fr Mark Leondis (group leader) playing the role of lumber jack |
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| Group effort is effective! |
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| Orthodox Cemetery at the Phanar |
As our focus changed from worker to tourist, we visited the
Church of the Panagia (Mother of God) Vlacherna, the Chora museum, the Orthodox
seminary on Halki Island (which has been closed by the government for over 40
years), the Church of St Mary of the Spring, the Hagia Sophia, the Blue Mosque,
the Basilica Cistern, and both the Spice and Grand Bazaars. Each and every one of these sites was so very
different and so very captivating. Each
spoke to us of its history. But as you
can imagine, of particularly great import was our visit to the Hagia Sophia. The architecture of this once active Orthodox
Church turned mosque turned museum was amazingly exquisite. Most of the gorgeous mosaics were, and still
are, covered in plaster. Unfortunately,
the overall condition of the Church is both disheartening and politically eye
opening.
I must confess that the absolute pinnacle of the entire trip
for me was our audience with His All-Holiness Patriarch Bartholomew at the
Phanar, the headquarters of the Patriarchate.
Knowing that I was blessed to stand beside His All-Holiness, a truly
God-fearing, humble and influential man, still blows my mind. The fact that he made the time to meet with
us and thank US for giving our vacation time to help him minister to his flock
is beyond words. He told us that we are
a witness to the remaining Christians in Turkey that they are not alone. That Orthodoxy IS alive. The Patriarch instructed us to be the “leaven
to the bread” of our world, to rise above the earth’s sinful nature. My initial nervousness calmed into a feeling
of welcome and love as this amazing man spoke.
His All-Holiness is a true inspiration.
This trip offered so many wonders packed into a mere 5
days. The work, the friendship, the
spirituality, and yes, many, many laughs combined to make this trip one of, if
not the highlight of my life. We laughed
as our bus driver spoke Turkish to the church grounds keeper who would
translate Turkish to Arabic for someone to translate Arabic to Greek and then
to someone who would bring the comment home to our English. (We did wonder just how closely what we heard
in English matched the original Turkish.) We prayed daily. We worked ‘til we ached. We marveled at how a group of 22 strangers
from all over the United States could bond so closely to each other in such a
short period of time. We cried at the
restored cemetery when we prayed the Trisagion before our final exit for we
knew that our group had become a family and our prayers were sincerely offered for
our beloved brothers and sisters resting here until the Resurrection. But mostly, we thank those Orthodox who have
gone before us and those courageous ones currently struggling for preserving
our Faith in a non-Christian land.
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| Skyline of Istanbul, Turkey |
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| Iconastasis at a local Orthodox Church |
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| Hagia Sophia |
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| Venerating an icon at a local Orthodox Church |
In the end, I learned that it was not I who had served those
who lay at rest, but they who had served me.
Without uttering a word, they gave me new insight into our Faith. They helped me understand as a young adult what
I had been taught as a child. Now, I
grasp that their lives and those of all Orthodox live on in the Faith. I am beginning to “get” the Divine Liturgy. My ears are open and I hear the Liturgy as
I’ve never heard it before. No longer
are the Litanies just tedious words followed by a “Lord Have Mercy.” These
short and fervent prayers are meaningful, necessary and timeless. Through death, I have discovered life, my
life in Christ and His Holy Orthodox Church.
So did I serve on OCF Real Break? No, not at all. I was
blessed by it.
- A Day in the Life of the Youth Director
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