MIDDLEBURGH. N.Y. — The Web site of the Bethany Ministries has recently been enhanced, according to Peter Chepaitis, coordinator of the community.
The organization has a new webmaster who has posted the recent newsletter of the ministry on the site www.midtel.net/~bethmin.
Visitors to the Web site will also find past newsletters that outline the history of the community in which Peter has served since 1995. Some of Peter’s goals for the Web site include a bi-monthly or monthly reflection and looking for other ways to preach the Gospel through the internet.
Peter and Anna Tantsits, IHM, the treasurer of the Franciscan Ministry of the Word at Bethany Ministries, ministered to nine parishes and a campus ministry community during the seasons of Lent and Easter. During this time, they went to the dioceses of Albany, Rochester and New York.
The most challenging program included one at three parishes in the Rochester area and the Nazareth College student community, he said. Anna and Peter preached at 13 Masses over the weekend, 11 as individuals and two as a team. In another mission for two parishes in Greene County, NY, they preached at two morning Masses each day and one evening service for parishes which were 25 miles apart and served by the same pastor. They concluded their lenten ministry with a Confirmation retreat for 31 high school candidates in Ravena, N.Y., which ended with Peter presiding at the parish Mass for Palm Sunday and involving the candidates in a communion meditation which summed up their retreat experience.
At the end of the Easter season, they led their last mission for a parish that was in transition between the retirement of their pastor of 20 years and the start of a lay administrator as parish life director.
Peter said that he and Anna continue to be members of The Prayer House Community, an ecumenical group that maintains a hermitage in Dingmans Ferry, Pa., known as The Prayer House. He has used the building as a place of private retreat for himself and recommends it to anyone who wants “to take some time alone and is willing and able to provide their own food.” Peter is co-president of the organization.
In 2004, because no one was overseeing the well that serves The Prayer House and roughly 20 other residences, he became president of the Highland Acres Water Corporation, Peter said. Over the past two years, he has spent time working with the community to insure that there is a continuing supply of pure water.