Celebrating Twenty Years of Sending Missionaries
Orthodox Christian Mission Center (OCMC) – Celebrating Twenty Years of Sending Missionaries
August 10, 2006
The Orthodox Christian Mission Center (OCMC), St. Augustine, FL – An
excerpt from OCMC’s Spring 2006 magazine issue: Celebrating Twenty Years
of Sending Missionaries by Fr. Martin Ritsi, Executive Director of the
Mission Center.
“Day after day we stood face to face with hundreds of Africans crowding
to see us after having walked two to three hours from their remote
homes. Their deep brown eyes and features worn by the harshness of their
lives gazed upon us. As newly sent missionaries standing before them,
we asked: “God why are we here?”, “What do we have to offer as strangers
in this land”, and “Shouldn’t we be serving in our homeland where
there are so many needs among our own families and churches?”
Many Orthodox Christians still ask these questions but there are many
who know the answers: those who send, those who have been sent, and
those who have received!
Twenty years ago, the Mission Center sent its first missionaries to East
Africa. Today, over 75 missionaries and well over 1000 short-term
mission team members have traveled to distant lands in their footsteps.
Aid is given to those who suffer, schools are erected, clinics are built
and supported, orphans are cared for and thousands are baptized by our
missionaries, while tens of thousands are baptized by those who have
been trained and supported by the Mission Center. In return, our Church
at home is strengthened and invigorated by the enthusiasm of those
returning from these experiences and those who have been blessed by
supporting them.
The Mission Center also celebrates a new milestone for mission outreach
in the years to come: the completion of a six million dollar campaign to
build a permanent missionary training and administrative support center
and establish endowments.
Is it worth it? Should we be sacrificing to carry our Orthodox Faith to
distant lands? Let me answer that with what I came to understand that
day in the hot African sun, standing on a barren, dry hillside with so
many eyes gazing upon me as a new and young missionary that had come to
visit them from America:
“These eyes, which reflected their suffering, looked to us - but with
joy and with hope. And now, we stood naked before them, with nothing to
give. It was during this journey that we were finally led to understand
just why we had come to Africa and what the power of the Gospel of Jesus
Christ really is - not only for Africa but for the entire world! While
giving is a part of being Christian, we have seen that all our giving in
East Africa looks insignificant when compared to what the people have
received in Jesus Christ.
To be assisted, freed from material needs, to be affluent, or even to
live a life of luxury is of no value to a soul which is suffering. But
to be filled with love and hope, to have an understanding of life and to
live in harmony with God and one's community, gives a quality to life
which even the harshest of conditions cannot destroy. While in the midst
of hardship, many of the eyes before us were filled with that hope and
knowledge of God. And not only did they have a new hope for the future,
but their ’today’ had become fuller. Because God is love and His love is
sanctifying their existence.”
My question at the end of that moving experience was no longer: “Why are
we doing missionary work” but, “Why haven't we gone out sooner to the
rest of the world which still hungers and thirsts for Jesus Christ?”
We ask for your continued prayers for all our missionaries, mission team
members and mission priests. Funds to help support our ministries can
be sent to the Orthodox Christian Mission Center to P.O. Box 4319, St.
Augustine, FL 32085-4319. To find out more about the Mission Center’s
missionaries, visit www.ocmc.org . or contact us at missions@ocmc.org .
To read more about our 20 years of missionary service, please email us
at communications@ocmc.org to request an issue of OCMC’s Spring 2006
Magazine or call us at 877-GO-FORTH (463-6784)
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The Orthodox Christian Mission Center: Helping Orthodox Christians
respond to Christ's call to preach, teach, baptize, minister to the poor
and make disciples of all nations as the official international mission
agency of the Standing Conference of the Canonical Orthodox Bishops in
the Americas (SCOBA).