Country Roads Take NHA Home

The Spring and Summer of 2011 have been very active times for Nazareth House Apostolate; both in America and in Sierra Leone.  









 Our headquarters in each Nation have now both moved from out of busy cities 





and into more rural areas. 

In America, NHA has been establishing St. Simeon Skete.   

The spiritual work (11 Prayer Offices & Daily Liturgy) at St. Simeon Skete is not new, 

its been going on for many decades - it was simply a matter of doing it in a different place.  





In this case, the location is a more suitable place, one much more conducive to the prayer life. 

View of St. Simeon Skete from on Taylorsville Lake.   (Chapel on Left, Kellia on Right)

In Africa, NHA is establishing the new NHA Compound.

Again, the work of loving & caring for the people in Africa will remain the same, only the location has changed.

There are outlying villages that desperately need our help.



And... our NHA School with all its needs is right there next to the new compound.



So as it is with NHA America, the new space in Kabala is much more conducive to the work it performs.

In Africa in Kabala and in America in Kentucky, both NHA headquarters are surrounded by the finest of nature's beauty.  

Bureh Beach, Sierra Leone

Yet there is no time to get lost in the allure of such tranquil settings. 

Doe and Fawn on Campus of St. Simeon Skete

 In addition to the prayer life at the Skete in Kentucky and the humanitarian work at the Compound in Kabala, both facilities require much physical upkeep on the buildings and property.  

 There are six buildings on the grounds at St Simeon Skete which include:  The Chapel including the bookshop, Anna House, the Kellia, the barn, the stone hermitage and St. Arsenius Hermitage located deep in the woods. Every building is in need of regular maintenance and upkeep  - as well as the usual repair work.   

St. Simeon Skete has been cloistered spiritually,

 but as of last week we are now also physically cloistered.






We now have a new fence surrounding the front of the property.

One of the things we’ve been missing is the church bell. 

 It is used to call us to scheduled prayer times.   

As Jesús  and his son, installed the bell pole into the ground with concrete, he wanted to make sure that it was level.  







Unfortunately, we need to stock up on many tools that we didn’t have before ....but never fear...  










 there is an app for that!   

And Jesús completed the task perfectly -

 just in time to ring for the next service. 

While the bell was being put in, Denny was grating the gravel road.  





The recent heavy rains formed gullies in the driveway and parking lot and it was in need of a good smoothing out.

The overgrowth of the woodland areas of the Skete have been a chore, to say the least.  


There is much tree removal and trimming to be done.   

During the Winter, Seraphim and the Archbishop made the first purchase at the skete together - they bought a chainsaw. 

I never know what I will see go pass the front door of the kellia

Last week, Denny and Seraphim tackled a tree line along the driveway 





between Anna House and the barn. At first it looks as though there is nothing but trees, but as we look closer you see Seraphim’s head as he uses the chainsaw.    







...and how is he reaching that tall tree?

"2 scoops of monk please..."

The tree removal took a good portion of the morning

there is nothing like a quick rest in a shovel before you set out for more work...

There are Purple Martin Birdhouses to be hung...

and bat houses to be placed (it is our hope that this will help with some of the mosquitoes and other flying nuisances around the property). 

And of course, with all the rain, and sauna-like heat

the grass is growing like crazy and always ready to be cut...

Fr. Donald Ashman is getting acquainted with the zero-turn radius Scag Cheetah during his recent visit to the Skete

Seraphim has become a pro at Zero-turn spinning and cutting

Back in Africa, wells are being dug

life out of the city is being experienced

and the NHA Compound is being built

Isaiah 43:18-19

King James Version (KJV)

 ¹⁸Remember ye not the former things, neither consider the things of old.

 ¹⁹Behold, I will do a new thing; now it shall spring forth; shall ye not know it? I will even make a way in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert.

So many prayers, so much work, lots of things to do, so many needs... but we have one thing that can make everything possible

We have 

LOVE

Be a part of NHA

share in the love

www.nazarethhouseap.org

Dresses, Dresses and More Dresses

As James and Lucy returned from yet another moving trip to Kabala, two USPS Priority boxes awaited them.

The two boxes were from Granny Pearl's Trunk ,

The follow is the words from the creator of the Facebook Community Page of Granny Pearl's Trunk, 
Wanda Karen Thompson of Athens, GA:


This project is an effort to help the mission of Nazareth House Apostolate in their work in Sierra Leone. I want to spread the word about the amazing work they do while also providing dresses for the little girls in Sierra Leone. I named this project in memory of my precious grandmother, Pearl Phillips Thompson. She was a talented seamstress and a loving Christian woman. Granny Pearl never had much in life in terms of material things but she had a trunk and you never knew what you might find in there! I hope to fill it now with hundreds of dresses to send to the little children in Sierra Leone.

Roo anxiously gets ready to open the boxes

Lucy and Roo begin to sort through the boxes

Dresses and Medication and Tuna Fish were enclosed

This project was a team effort from several in Athens, Georgia.   Currently, James and the family are in the middle of moving to Kabala.   You'll see more on this story in detail on this blog once they are able to unpack and distribute the dresses and medicines.   For now, we wanted Wanda and those who put this together to see that their gifts of love have arrived all the way to Sierra Leone and will be given to needy little girls very soon.   Thank you all!

Lucy holds up a dress

Roo models a blue dress that he has named "BLING CATS" .    

I’m going to miss Freetown, after all!

Freetown is busy, its loud, its hectic

the concrete all around makes the hottest days even hotter

We’re very excited about the move of NHA to the quieter, simpler Kabala

However, make no mistake, after 11 years in Freetown, NHA will miss it!

And we’ll especially miss St. Laurence House, the love, the fellowship.  

One thing about it when you were at St. Laurence House, you were at home, you were with family. 

Our work in the villages pulls us into Kabala, our NHA School is there, our work is there.  

The move is practical in that the cost of living is much cheaper in the upper provinces, also.  It has its drawbacks, every place does, but the benefits to the people that NHA serves far outweigh the minor inconveniences of a more simpler lifestyle.  

We still owe $14,000 to complete the construction on the Compound.  We really need your help to pay the contractor so that we can move James and his family in.  Right now they are in limbo waiting for those final dollars to be paid so that they have a roof over their heads.  They are nervous, they are concerned -  but they are making the best of it and focusing on the work.  The landlord in Freetown has exhausted his mercy to them and is ushering them out of St. Laurence House very soon.   In Freetown we would have paid $300,000 for the same type building and land.  We’ve paid less than a third of that sum for the structure in Kabala. 

So as Nazareth House reorganizes and moves forward in Kabala, I can’t help but to think of the good times in Freetown: 

I will miss sharing meals together in our little rented 

St. Laurence House

I will miss the walks

in the crowded Freetown Streets

I will miss our dear dear neighbors

I will miss the vendors,

I will miss Kadijah’s back yard, where we washed our clothes,

 hung them to dry

where we had great conversation and Kadijah always had food prepared waiting for the hungry

I’ll miss the slimy things in the shower (as well as the never-flushable toilet)

I’ll miss gathering round the table

I’ll miss Spiderman slinking all around ...

I’ll miss that porch, 

remembering the hot nights 

where it was the only place you could possibly get a bit of a breeze (even with the hovering mosquitoes)

I’ll miss packing 

and unpacking supplies 

on the floor of St. Laurence House 

all this I will miss,

 but life goes on, life changes 

and now its time for new beginnings.  

Time to create new memories 

and I have no doubt they will be just as full as they were in Freetown ...and I have a sneaking suspicion - we won’t be trading old memories for new memories, 

but instead blending them into one long beautiful journey.    Freetown will be never be forgotten, NEVER!  We owe a lot to Freetown, it raised us and taught us a lot.   We can fly the nest with strength and courage, all lessons learned well.  

 Only the structure and the location are changing, what makes NHA - the people - they remain the same.   To those we leave behind in Freetown, we say "So Long"!  We don't say "Goodbye" for we will visit whenever we can.  

 The same circle of love expanding and bringing more and more into the fold.  

  We love you all!

Thank you to everyone who is helping us complete this step and make this journey.  We appreciate your continued prayers and support.  Don’t be stingy, let others receive the same blessings bestowed on you by caring and becoming one family with our those in Sierra Leone.   Share the work, tell them what YOU are doing in Sierra Leone through Nazareth House.   We are in this together, come... join us.

...the sky is the limit to what we can achieve as long as we remember that all things begin, continue, maintain and end in prayer.  

God bless you all 

Donations should be mailed to:

Nazareth House Apostolate

185 Captains Cove Drive

Taylorsville, KY 40071

or made through the Paypal Donation Button on our website

www.nazarethhouseap.org