Four Evangelists 2008 Picnic

For the last six years Four Evangelists Mission has had its annual picnic at the beautiful Fountain Green Swim Club. I have attended five of the picnics and I have found the facilities fantastic and the staff very accomodating. The first year Ihad expected some type of challenge or complication, but there was very little, if any. If there was any, it would had been because my name was not on the list, but that was resolved within a minute.

This year when I arrived, they just waved me through. It felt as if they were expecting me. As soon as I entered the area, a woman called me and showed me exactly where our group was this year. The location was different than the last time, but near the location in previous years.

I missed the picnic last year. I think that my parish also had a picnic on the same day and it would not had been proper for me to go to Four Evangelists' picnic instead of my own parish.

Besides seeing people whom I have not seen for some time, I also was brought up to date on some news. I was indeed saddened to hear that Subdeacon Basil fell asleep in the Lord. I wanted to be at his funeral when he passed away.

This was the first time that some people have seen me since my ordination almost a year ago. I also met some people for the first time. Angelique was one of them.

Alex and I enjoyed comparing Nikon equipment. He owns a Nikon D80 [and I'm really green with envy] and I own two Nikon D50 bodies. His flash is the SB800 and mine is the SB600. I don't need the SB800. I don't even use the SB600 that often since the flash built into the camera works quite well for me for the most part. But then, I'm using Nikon.

I also have more lenses than Alex. He has the 28-135mm and I have the 28-80, 70-300, and 50mm f/1.8. He was surprised to hear that I've taken over 20,000 photographs in two years.

As usually at an Orthodox picnic, there was plenty of wonderful food. We had so much, that some of us took some home.Between the picnic and coffee hour at my parish, I have enough food for the first half of this week at least.

I'm lookng forward to the next time that I can serve at Four Evangelists. Some members of the parish asked me to visit them more often.