Introducing Elaine Piniat!

This Friday, May 8, we’ll be interviewing another of our newest missionaries live: Elaine Piniat! Elaine is currently preparing to serve in Sweden and has had a remarkable journey that has led her to follow God’s calling to serve as a missionary.

While she initially drew back from the idea of serving as a missionary, God gradually called her to get more and more involved in serving in the Church. Her first experiences of serving abroad were with short-term mission trips to China, Guatemala, and Albania. Meanwhile, she also spent a great deal of time serving locally! Elaine served in parishes, coached youth volleyball teams, participated in a New Orleans home build with IOCC, interned with Athletes in Action, assisted with Sunday school, and served in special needs, urban, homeless, and human trafficking ministries.

A trip to visit missionaries in Central Asia reignited the fire for missions in her heart, and so she soon applied for a OCMC Mission Team to Albania, where her team served the children at the Home of Hope. She has spent the last 10 years working in journalism, but, after returning from these mission trips, she could not get the thought of serving the Church in a more full-time capacity out of her head and heart. This thought led her to occasionally browse orthodoxjobs.com, where she eventually discovered an OCMC job posting, seeking a missionary to serve in Sweden.

The position was perfect for her! The internet ministry role they were trying to fill perfectly matched her skills from her prior experience in journalism. After much prayer and deliberation, Elaine finally came around to the idea of serving as a missionary in Sweden!

When she goes there, Elaine will be supporting the Metropolis of Sweden, both with in-person outreach and by developing a multi-platform online presence to inspire parishioners to grow spiritually. Much of her work will be done alongside our previously featured missionaries, Josef and Effy Candelario! It’s so important that we have such a strong and talented team preparing to serve in Sweden, because around 73% of Swedes say they’re either “not religious” or are “convinced atheists”. In other words, “the harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few” (Matthew 9:37)!

If you want to hear Elaine’s story in more detail, and even ask questions and engage with her ministry live, visit the OCMC Facebook page this Friday at 5 PM! We’re looking forward to sitting down with her and learning a great deal about discerning our vocations and using our talents to serve the Lord in our own lives!