We will hold our annual Ice Cream Ice Skate on Sunday, February 22. The exact time will be determined by the open skating schedule that will come out in a few days. So - plan on joining us on February 22 but watch this space for details soon to come. Don't miss this fun last taste of ice cream before Pascha and a nice skate to loosen up your legs after Forgiveness Vespers! A youth activity to which all that are young at heart are welcome!

The date of the annual parish meeting has been set for Sunday, February 15, immediately following the Divine Liturgy. This is also Meatfare Sunday and we will have our annual Blini dinner that day as well. We combined these two activities last year and both were very successful! We assume many people came for the annual meeting and stayed for blini. But perhaps it was the reverse? In any case, it worked well and we will do it again. Please find all the information contined in the annual meeting mailing (which you will soon receive if you have not yet) at this link:

http://stvladimiraami.org/flyers/annualmeeting2015.pdf

The molebens originally scheduled for Tuesday, January 27 and Friday, January 30 have been canceled. These were to have been served by Fr. Joseph, but he has already had to go to Arkansas to cover for one of the priests there who is having surgery today. Fr. Gregory also is out of town on a planned absence. We ask your forgiveness for the schedule change. We will hold our usual weekly akathist for the ill on Wednesday, January 28 as scheduled.

We are planning a pilgrimage to the northern-most parish in our Michigan Deanery: the Sts. Sergius and Herman of Valaam parish in Houghton, MI. This pilgrimage is set for September 23-25, 2015. Yes – that is many months from now. BUT – we need to organize the pilgrimage NOW! How can you help? We need to hear from you by March 1, 2015 about whether you are theoretically interested in participating in this mid-week pilgrimage. That does not mean you are promising to participate! But we need to understand the order of magnitude. Will there be 10 people or 100 or something in between? That is important because the number of potential participants will help us understand whether we are renting a bus or some vans and how many hotel rooms we need to reserve. AT THAT POINT we will have a good idea how much the pilgrimage will cost.

BOTTOM LINE: please let us know by 3/1/15 whether you are interested in the pilgrimage by emailing info@stvladimiraami.org!

Thank you to all who made the visit of Mother Macrina to our Church School on Saturday, January 17 such a great success! Mother Macrina was able to join us on Saturday afternoon to discuss monasticism with our children and parents – and it was really a wonderful discussion! The presentation was interesting and the questions from the children and parents afterwards added greatly to the value of Mother Macrina's visit. If you haven't yet registered you child for Church School please do so! After the Divine Services this is the most important ministry of our parish – to raise and strengthen our children in their faith. Registration information can be found at this link – please join us!

http://stvladimiraami.org/flyers/church ... onform.pdf

Of course we will discuss spiritual things as we always do, but this time instead of board games we will play the Wii. Topic of the discussion is: “Being/Choosing a Godparent – Rights and Responsibilities”. This group will soon be old enough to be asked to be Godparents, and although somewhat in the future they will have to choose Godparents. This is not a small thing - in fact it is a really BIG thing. Please join us! RSVP to Fr. Gregory so we'll know the right amount of snacks to have ready!

Please join us at St. Vladimir's for the annual commemoration of the Martyr Tatiana. Many of our parishioners are blessed to bear this name and we congratulate them and their families with the feast! Please learn more about St. Tatiana at the links below and please join us for Vigil tonight at 6:00 p.m. and Divine Liturgy tomorrow morning at 10:00 a.m.!

English:

http://oca.org/saints/lives/2015/01/12/ ... d-with-her

Russian:

http://days.pravoslavie.ru/Life/life198.htm

Thank you to all who worked so hard to make our Theophany weekend such a success at St. Vladimir's! From the Royal Hours on Friday evening to Monday's festal Divine Liturgy and Great Blessing of the Waters many, many people contributed to the successful celebration of this very theologically significant feast and we thank you all! Look for pictures on Face Book and videos on You Tube, with a full photo array coming soon on our parish photo album page! The next of the twelve great feasts of the Church Year is the Meeting of the Lord on February 15. Please plan to join us then (and often between now and then)!

The forecast for Sunday is for some snow: 1-3 inches. This long from now there is no telling what the weather will be since things could change between now and then. That being said, this is a good opportunity to share our Inclement Weather Policy, which is found below. Please contact Fr. Gregory with questions.

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Inclement Weather Policy
Approved by St. Vladimir Church Parish Council February 21, 2005

In case of inclement weather St. Vladimir’s parishioners are urged to use caution and their best judgment when deciding whether to travel to the parish church for Divine Services. If the priest is able to reach the church the Divine Services will be conducted, but if parishioners perceive the driving conditions to be dangerous they should not feel compelled to travel to church.

International Orthodox Christian Charities (IOCC) will hold its 17th annual Souper Bowl of Caring on Sunday, February 1. On that day we are asking all our of St. Vladimir's family to bring non-perishable food items to the Divine Liturgy. At the end of the Liturgy our young people will collect all the food donations and we will in turn provide these to Food Gatherers of Ann Arbor, an excellent agency which helps many in need. Don't miss the fun! Be part of the Souper Bowl and help those in need on this day when billions of dollars are spent on Super Bowl parties alone. If we can spend that much as a society on entertainment can we not spend at least as much on those in need? Let's do our part at St. Vladimir's!

More information on IOCC here:

http://www.iocc.org/

More information on Food Gatherers here:

http://www.foodgatherers.org/

For information on IOCC associated activities in our parish and to learn how you can help, please see our IOCC liaison, Maria Edwards.