Our Woman of the Week is Anne Wilkinson, who works with young adult ministries at church settings and youth volunteers at her day job! We asked her to tell you about herself:
“I live in Connecticut. I was Chrismated at age 14 at Holy Myrrhbearers Monastery (OCA) in New York, where my aunt, Mother Raphaela, is abbess. My father is a former Episcopalian priest (he and my brother are now Orthodox too!), so I grew up as a ‘Priest Kid.’ When I was little I began visiting Mother Raphaela at the monastery every summer, so was exposed to Orthodoxy at an early age. For various reasons I moved into the monastery in high school, and was Chrismated shortly thereafter.
“After college I got a Masters in Teaching and worked as a public school teaching assistant and then as an environmental educator at a nature center. I eventually realized that teaching wasn’t really my calling, and found a job at a large Congregational church. While working there I went back to school to get an MBA. During my time at the church (which I referred to as “work-church”, as opposed to “church-church”) I continued to deal with my serious eye issues that began in 2007, and I had 10 surgeries during my decade there. All of that time as a patient led me want to give back by volunteering at my local hospital, Yale New Haven Hospital. In April 2018, I was blessed to get a job there as a Volunteer Coordinator, working with high school volunteers. Based on our research, we believe that ours is the largest hospital-based high school volunteer program in the US! I love having a positive impact on the lives of our patients – and the students who volunteer with us.
“At my home parish, Christ the Savior, in Southbury, CT I’m an assistant choir director and the person on our board in charge of outreach. I’m also on the committee for the Connect Conference for Orthodox Young Adults, and am separately working on starting Young Adult ministries at my home parish and also state-wide in Connecticut.”
Anne is also Axia's treasurer and has written a blog post about how we got our name: https://www.axiawomen.org/blog/why-axia.
Axia!
You can learn more about Anne's parish at https://christsaviorchurch.org/. And more about Connect at https://www.connectorthodox.org/.
We asked Woman of the Week Anne Wilkinson, nominated for her work with youth and young adults, about one of her favorite things, time in the kitchen. Here’s what she said:
"I LOVE to bake. I started baking with my aunt, Mother Raphaela, in the monastery kitchen as a little girl. She taught me how to bake pies using the recipe from the Pennsylvania Dutch side of our family. Every year I would enter the County Fair competitions for cakes, pies, and cookies, and even won Best in Show for my pies a couple of times.
"Baking has remained my favorite hobby. I love the science of it, looking at different recipes for the same thing and figuring out which one I think will be best, trying out new flavor combinations, and tackling new challenges like an intricate recipe or a new technique. Mastering Swiss meringue buttercream – and how to rescue it when it has broken and curdled looking – is one of my proudest achievements. I have actually prayed out loud, “God of all things including buttercream, please help me fix this!” in a particularly desperate seeming situation in which it seemed like a pound of butter and half a dozen egg whites were going to need to be thrown away (they did not).
"Baking is one of the ways I show people that I love them by sharing one of my God-given gifts with them. Making someone their favorite birthday treat, giving away some of my chocolate chip cookies as a thank you, baking a special breakfast treat for my family on a Saturday – all are ways for me to say “I love you”. It became a tradition that after many of my surgeries I gave homemade chocolate chip cookies to my surgeon and his or her office staff. The staff in my eye doctor’s office still call me 'cookie'!"
As always, we asked our Woman of the Week about her morning routine. Here’s what Anne Wilkinson (seen here cleaning up after coffee hour one Sunday) admitted:
"Mornings are...not my strong suit. Once my feet are on the floor I’m fine, but getting to that point is often a struggle. My formula for what time I set my alarm is: whatever time I need to leave my house minus exactly how many minutes I need to get ready, plus some built in time for hitting snooze and looking at my phone. Once the “if I don’t get up RIGHT NOW I’m going to be late to work” minute comes, I am up. I dash around the house showering, getting dressed, quickly putting on some makeup, and trying to finish the one mug of coffee I try to drink at home and which I set up to brew the night before (a travel mug comes with me). I eat breakfast at work as the cafeteria in the hospital where I work fortunately has good (and cheap!) oatmeal.
Having a formal prayer routine is something I continue to struggle with. I became Orthodox at 14, and like most teenagers I was a bit rebellious. My rebellion took the form of not saying morning prayers (I know - shocking), and unfortunately it is something I just never got in the habit of doing. Instead, my prayers are said throughout the day and are frequent, short, and informal: “please help that person”, “thank you”, or “give me strength”. I also have tried to build my life around Matthew 25:31-46 in that I work hard to see Christ in everyone I meet, and to treat them accordingly.
I would love to be someone who gets up early, prays, goes for a walk, eats breakfast at home, etc. but I have come to terms with the fact that, at least for now, it just isn’t me. I pray that as I continue to grow in my faith it may happen."
Thank you, Anne!
