Your prayers are needed

Glory to Jesus Christ!

I hate emails which have been mailed to several people.  They seem to get deleted before they are read.  But please read on. The Community Center of St. Mary the Protectress Orthodox Church needs your prayers..  And prayers are needed for those we serve.

If you live in Indiana you have probably read the stories about the long lines at Indiana’s Workforce Development offices as the number of unemployed grows.  In cooperation with the Indiana Workforce Development and the Indiana Office of Faith Based and Community Initiatives, several additional locations for Hoosiers to file their unemployment claims and weekly reports are available.  Serving Marshall, Starke, and Fulton Counties is the Community Center of St. Mary the Protectress Orthodox Church, 1000 South Michigan Street, Plymouth, Indiana. There is no charge for this service.

Workforce Development trained our volunteers who can help your friends with their initial unemployment claims, week reports, preparing their resume, online job searches, and many other employment related activities.   Workforce Development and Ancilla College and others in Marshall County have provided the computers needed for this free program.

The community center wants to make a difference for our friends and neighbors in this time of economic crisis.  You can also make a difference by referring those in need to the community center.  The only way to file for unemployment benefits in Indiana is online.  Many have limited computer skills.  We will help them with their claim and with their computer skills.

Someone asked me the other day why we are doing this. Someone even suggested that we were being saints for opening the church’s doors and giving our time for the training and for the assistance we are providing.  We are not saints.  We are just simple Christians who have answered Jesus call.  And we do know that we do get some thing out of all this.  We are blessed.  What more can a Christian ask for or expected.

You can also be blessed with us.  We need your help in getting the word out about this free program and service.  For those of who who live in Indiana, I have attached a flyer for the employment program.  Please print it out.  If you have a bulletin board, please post it.  If you know of any other bulletin boards, please post it there.  The program officially started last Sunday, but has been helping people for almost three weeks.  We have already served people from several of the surrounding counties including St. Joseph and Elkhart.  If you do not live in Indiana, but know someone who does, please send the flyer and ask them to post it.  If you are close to us and want to volunteer with the program, please do.  But most important, please keep us and those we serve in your prayers.

The computers are online and people are coming in for help.  The community Center is open:

Sunday  12 noon until 4 pm
Monday  10 am until 4 pm
Tuesday  10 am until 6 pm
Wednesday  10 am until 6 pm
Thursday 10 am until 4 pm

We are open Sunday afternoons because that is the first day for individual to file their weekly report if they need to receive their week check on Monday or Tuesday. File later and the money comes later.

If you want to discover more about this program and the other community center social service programs, you can call the church at 574-540-2048.  Or better yet, stop by.  St. Mary the Protectress Orthodox Church is located at 1000 South Michigan Street, Plymouth, Indiana.  We are on the corner of Oak Hill and Michigan in the A-frame building across from the Webster Elementary School.  Come at noon during the week and join us as we pray for peace and healing and for the end of this economic crisis.  Stay and join us for coffee and some of my mother’s awesome homemade soup.

Please help us make a difference.  Please let your friends and neighbors know about this free program and service. Please pray for those we serve and for the program.   God is truly an awesome God, and we know He does answer prayers.

Thank you for reading this rather long email.  And thank you for your help in letting people know about the program.

Yours in Christ,
Father Theodosius