The Saint Emmelia Podcast
Promoting, Supporting, and Uniting Homeschooling Families
throughout Orthodox North America
The Saint Emmelia Podcast is an outreach of the Department of Homeschooling (Saint Emmelia Ministries) of the Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese of North America. Our mission is to provide inspiring and informative resources and experiences that equip homeschooling families to educate the next generation of Orthodox faithful in North America. This podcast has four segments: Tales from the Little Church, interviews conducted by Matushka Melissa Naasko; Hiding in the Library, discussions on reading and literature; Growing with Grace, insights for teens by our Interns; and Spiritual Nuggets, wisdom from our Spiritual Advisors.
Matushka Melissa Elizabeth Naasko is the wife of a priest attached to a ROCOR monastery. They have eleven children and a hobby farm where they raise their own meat and dairy. Mat. Melissa Elizabeth writes and speaks on Orthodox fasting and parenting and is the author of Fasting as a Family and a major contributor to Seven Holy Women, both from Ancient Faith. Her new book, Hospitality for Healing, will be out in 2022 from Parkend Books. She is currently writing a personal memoir on moving to the farm entitled Coming to Idyll Hands Farm.
Mindi Popovich-Schneider, a homeschool alumna, received her B.A. from Hillsdale College and her MLIS from University of Wisconsin-Madison. A former Children’s Librarian, she is now the assistant for Saint Emmelia Ministries and works in education; additionally, she hosts the SEM podcast segment “Hiding in the Library,” which focuses on Children’s and Young Adult literature. She and her husband Calvin live in Eastern PA with their bees and their cat, Lemony Snickcat. They are expecting their first child in December ‘22.
Father Noah Bushelli, an archpriest in the Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese of North America, is grateful to be married to a living saint, Kh. Elizabeth, who homeschools their nine children. Father was baptized into the Orthodox Church in 1994 at St Peter and Paul, in Ben Lomond, CA. After graduating from University of Alaska Anchorage with a B.Ed. in 2000, they moved to St. Vladimir's Seminary where he graduated with an M.Div. in 2004 with his thesis exploring St. John Chrysostom's notion of the Church as a Spiritual Hospital. He was ordained to the holy diaconate on Christmas 2002 and the holy priesthood on Ss. Peter and Paul day 2003. After serving St. Nicholas in Bridgeport, CT for three years he moved to St. Philip in Souderton, PA in 2006, where he is the pastor. He is grateful to raise his family in this warm, generous, faithful and vibrant community and is working very hard to meet the demands of active parish life and not forget "the one thing needful".
Fr. Noah is the founding director of Saint Emmelia Ministries, an outreach of the Department of Homeschooling of the Antiochian Archdiocese. He is lead catechist and spiritual advisor of St. Raphael School and is excited to share his love for God and the Church with the students and stretch his teaching skills into cyberspace. Knowing that he is insufficient for all of these holy tasks, he thanks you for your prayers for him, his family, his parishioners, his students and all homeschooling families!