Though born in Iowa, I was raised in Wichita, Kansas. During my high school years, while attending an Evangelical Free Church with my family, the life of Christian ministry captured my imagination. After graduating, I enrolled as a Religion major at Friends University in Wichita in order to prepare for ministry.

My studies at Friends opened my eyes to the breadth and depth of Christian tradition. As the greater potential of Christian life grew ever more intriguing, my home church seemed increasingly bland and irrelevant ? even false. So I began to investigate alternatives.

When I stepped into Wichita's St. George Orthodox Cathedral in October 1997, it was the most unlikely of moments. I knew next to nothing about Holy Orthodoxy. Yet, spiritually hungering for deeper roots and wider horizons, I showed up on a Visitor?s Sunday at the suggestion of a friend. I fell in love on this spiritual blind date. Though I was left in wordless wonder by the experience, I later came to realize what had hooked me: Orthodox Christianity?s rich theology and genuine spirituality came to life in the piety and love of the parish community. After a period of catechism I was sacramentally received into the Church on Holy Saturday, 1998.

After prayerful discernment of God's calling for my life, I enrolled at St. Vladimir?s Orthodox Theological Seminary in 2001 to prepare for ordained ministry. My years of study at "St Vlad's" were intense, challenging, enriching and fulfilling. I received my Master of Divinity degree in 2004.

That summer I departed for a year-long mission to Australia. His Eminence Metropolitan PHILIP and other benefactors sponsored my work in the Antiochian Archdiocese there. I taught and counseled their? youth? (ages 3-30), helping them to understand Orthodoxy's relevance to their modern, ?New World? lives. It was truly my ?fourth year of seminary,? leaving me with invaluable lessons and experiences.

After returning to Wichita, I was ordained a deacon by His Grace Bishop BASIL at St George Cathedral on January 1, 2006. I worked full-time at the Cathedral until being ordained a priest there on July 16, 2006. I was then assigned to St. Elijah Church as Assistant Priest on August 1, 2006.