I love a good celebration and I love God so a spiritual celebration for me is pretty much as good as it gets.  For Sasha’s baptism, I planned many months in advance, worked with Rock Paper Scissors to create gorgeous invitations, and invited many special people to the event.  Sashenka was baptized in Dahlgren Chapel at Georgetown University, the same place where I was baptized when I attended college (Sasha’s paternal grandfather attended Georgetown as well, so it was common ground).  Andy flew his coworkers to the event and many of my family and friends attended.  Guests enjoyed a delicious catered lunch and we felt proud of a great event.

Little Andy was baptized in Houston at a Ukrainian Catholic Church, a beautiful and simple place that really welcomed us when we moved back to Houston.  The people of that church took us in and made us feel like we weren’t alone in a great big city.  Again, I made invitations (using Shutterfly this time), we invited our friends and family, and enjoyed a wonderful meal at The Olive Oil not too far from the church.  Little Andy wore his little Ukrainian Vishivanka afterwards and we celebrated with the people we loved.

For Matthew, it was really about the actual baptism.  I had planned to have him baptized at the same Ukrainian church that was so good to us, but the woman I wanted to be the godmother attended a different church.  She confided in me that she spoke to her priest and found out she could not be the godmother of a non-Orthodox little guy. At first, I huffed and puffed and thought about the audacity of that priest.  Who does he think he is?  Why is his Church the best in the universe?  And then I attended the service.

In case you haven’t figured it out yet, I am a bit of a free spirit.  I go to a life-giving Bible Study at a Methodist church almost every Monday.  I love Catholic Mass and when I was pregnant with Sasha, I would attend at least twice a week (some weeks every day).  But when I attended services at this Orthodox church, it felt like coming home.  I am from Kiev, Ukraine, but I dream and speak in English, though I like to speak Russian (this makes it difficult to attend a Ukrainian Catholic church because I feel like I “should” be speaking Ukrainian).  At this Orthodox church, the priest was American but there were Russians there with whom I felt free to speak Russian.  Why not go to a Russian Orthodox Church, Elena?  Because I’m Ukrainian (it’s complicated, guys). The bottom line is that I could be myself at this Orthodox Church in Houston.  And it was stable.  It wasn’t going to change anytime soon.  Given recent events in my life, it felt good that have that stability.  And so Matthew’s baptism became about–wait for it–the actual baptism.  Every night, I would read a book to Sasha and Andy about the upcoming event so they would know what’s going on.  When the day came and someone tried to explain to them what was happening, Sasha looked at that person and said, “We know.  We have a book about it.”  It wasn’t about the guest list or the party.  It was about the baptism.

In fact, the priest originally told me that he would baptize Matthew around Easter.  And then a few weeks before December 19th, he told us the great news that we could have the event right before Christmas.  Sasha, Andy, and I would also be joining the Church, so we could all have communion together.  This was great news, but given the short notice and also other complicating circumstances, I decided the guest list would be pretty small (basically, just our family and a few friends, mainly from that Orthodox church).   Two wonderful women, Emily and Elena S, organized everything. Emily’s family members also played key roles in the event and a big thank you to them!  My one regret is that I didn’t invite our family friend Martha, a pillar of the Ukrainian church who had been like a surrogate grandma to my children.  But I forgot, and I am sorry.   And despite my oversight, a great cloud of witnesses surrounded us–the Saints (the VIPs who came anyway).  Thank you to all of you, here with us and above, who are helping us raise our children!