By Phoebe Farag Mikhail

Collaboration was my word of the year for 2019, and collaborate is what we did. Being in Community has grown and accomplished so much last year, it took me a month into 2020 to put this post together and share it with you. From new contributors to the blog, to your spreading the word about my new book, Putting Joy into Practice, to your contributions to numerous charitable campaigns – we’ve done so much together, and I’m so honored to have collaborated with you.

We shared our stories and our voices

In 2019, twelve authors contributed their writing to the Being in Community blog. Among them: Deacon Daniel Malyon shared a beautiful Nativity meditation on the favorite Christmas Carol, “The Little Drummer Boy,” in his post I Have No Gift to Bring. Madona Lawindy addressed one of the difficulties parents, especially moms, face when their daughters start to ask them about wearing makeup in Girls and their Tough Questions. Madonna just joined Shereen Marcus and Laura Michael on a new initiative called Bridges to Orthodoxy, which provides high quality Sunday School curriculum materials for churches and Sunday School teachers. Victor Wanjala shared his thoughts about community in the post A Living Encouragement (more about him in another section).

We put joy into practice

When my new book, Putting Joy into Practice: Seven Ways to Lift Your Spirit from the Early Church was released in the Spring, seven writers shared their experiences with each of the seven ways to put joy into practice. Jessica Ryder-Khalil wrote about praying the hours in An Hour in a Few Minutes, Nardeen Mickail Loka wrote about Joy in Sickness, blogger Nic Hartmann wrote about repentance in my first graphic blog post, Turn it Around, blogger Laura Michael wrote about thanksgiving in Choosing a Better Question, free-lance writer Allison Backous Troy wrote Hospitality and Healing, children’s book author Mireille Mishriky wrote about arrow prayers in Shooting Arrows to the Heart of God (she has a new book coming out this year!), and blogger Traci Rhoades wrote about praising God in Come, Let  Us Sing for Joy to the Lord (she also has a new book coming out this year!).

Launching the book into the world involved collaborations with some wonderful authors and makers, including Divine Designs on Etsy, Mireille Mishriky, Creative Orthodox, Coptic Dad & Mom, May Designs, We the Copts, Faith and Hand t-shirt shop, and OrthodoXes Etsy Shop. Due in no small part to these collaborations and to the efforts of a fantastic launch team, Putting Joy into Practice remained #1 new release on Amazon in two categories (Christian Orthodoxy and Christian Prayer Books) for several weeks, and hit #1 bestseller in Christian Orthodoxy in November!

We were the change we wished to see in the world

Being in Community may not be the biggest blog out there, but somehow we are all making a big impact by working together! Eyvette Hanna ran the Broad Street Run with TeamCMMD, and we helped her raise $2,000 for the TeamCMMD Foundation’s work fighting cancer. In 2019, the Team CMMD Foundation granted $200,000 to financial requests by local cancer patients, $25,000 to high school seniors heading to college who have been affected by cancer, and $80,000 to the American Cancer Society for cancer research.

After that run, Eyvette wrote a beautiful story on the blog called We Don’t Finish the Race Alone, about her experiences running while differently abled. Through her story we learned about her history with Ainsley’s Angels of America, and organization that matches differently abled athletes with partners to run with them. And together, we helped Eyvette raise enough money to buy TWO NEW running wheelchairs for Ainsley’s Angels, making it more possible for EVERYONE to participate!

We worked to end the stigma of treating mental illness. One of my most shared blog posts on Facebook was “Can’t I Just Pray? Joy and Mental Health.” And with that post, we helped raise $5,000 to fund the start of the Coptic Counseling Center (website in progress), a much needed resource for providing mental health services and ending the stigma for seeking therapy started by my dear friend, mental health practitioner Silvia Farag, Counselor, LSW, MSW.

Our work together went global. Over the summer, we helped the Littlest Lamb fill a container of toys, books and essential items for the forty orphaned children living in the beautiful Birdrock home in Egypt. And by the end of 2019, we helped raise over $10,000 for the Seeds for Hope Jeremiah Scholarship program, making it possible for Seeds for Hope to fund thirteen youth in Nairobi, Kenya, who aspire to achieve great things. One of those scholars, Victor Wanjala, also wrote a guest post to the blog!

We read so many books

The most popular post on the blog in 2019 was my Lenten Reading List. We are a community that loves to read. If clicks through my Amazon affiliate links are a good measure, your most purchased books on my blog were Putting Joy into Practice, The Jesus Prayer by Frederica Mathewes-Green(now available as audio), and various books from the Philo and the SuperHolies series by Mireille Mishriky. Author Nicole Roccas shared a wonderful guest post about her new book, Under the Laurel Tree: Grieving Infertility with Saints Joachim and Anna, about how communities can best support friends and loved ones who are dealing with infertility. And although I announced it in 2020, our 2019 Being in Community Book of the Year was Xenia the Warm-hearted by Grace Brooks!

We sought wisdom

The two most popular posts after the Lenten reading list were stories about two wise people whose examples still teach us today. The first was Please do not spend too many hours praying … and other wise words for the college-bound, twenty-three years later, about a letter from my dear friend Uncle Sameh Mitry, who reposed in the Lord in 1999, and the second one was a guest post by Nardeen Mickail Loka, Just to look at her face: A tribute to Tasoni Angel, who reposed in the Lord in 2019. These were also the most shared posts on Facebook.

I can’t thank you enough for being a part of this community! Together we are strengthening the relationships that make us who we are, loving our neighbors as ourselves, and growing in God’s love.

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