Help an aspiring saint reintegrate into the world!

In my last update, I said that I’d have more to share “in the coming weeks”. As it has now been several months, I am lost past overdue. I officially left California January 20, the same date that I arrived at the monastery last year. While wholly unintentional, I found it to be quite fitting, as I then began a slow drive back to Georgia. In late last year and early this year, the fathers of two different childhood friends died, pushing the mortality of my own parents to the fore of my mind. While I very well could’ve settled into Southern California, I felt compelled to return East, at least for a time, to spend time with my family, especially my parents. As I said above, it was a “slow drive”, as I spent nearly a month, spending time in Joshua Tree National Park, Phoenix, Sedona, Albuquerque, Dallas, Houston, and New Orleans, before my final push to Augusta. On the way, I got to spend ample time with priest friends in both Phoenix and Dallas, in addition to making a silent retreat at a hermitage just under an hour north of Phoenix, also having time to seek spiritual counsel from the priest-hermit there. Getting back to Augusta was surreal, in that this is the longest that I’ve spent in my hometown since moving away in 2007. Being back has been wonderful, what with spending time with family and catching up with old friends (in addition to making a few new ones, too!), to getting plugged into my old Melkite Church (where I get the “Melkite Joe” moniker!!), where I’ve been serving as a cantor. Beyond the spiritual struggles that inevitably come with discerning out of a monastery, probably the most difficult thing for me was returning to work. Finding the motivation to do so was nearly impossible, and I am eternally grateful to an old friend who got me a job at a place where he works. Reintegrating into a work atmosphere has been good, even though the pay has been less than desirable (easily my lowest pay in 20 years). With all of this said, in the week after Sunday, June 25, I will be hitting the road again, relocating to North Dakota for at least a year. (It is because of my upcoming departure why I’ve not sought out better paying work.) At the funeral for one of the aforementioned deaths, my mother met a priest from North Dakota. He is Ukrainian Catholic, and essentially told her that, while we had never met me, he knew who I was, through mutual contacts. Upon his returning to North Dakota, at the prompting of the Holy Spirit, he reached out to my mother, by way of a mutual contact, specifically to get in touch with me, essentially to invite me to move to North Dakota. To top it off, a good friend of mine is also living up there! The main aim with this, beyond living in a stunningly beautiful area (Theodore Roosevelt National Park is only about 20 minutes away, in addition to the Montana border being just under an hour away), beyond being plugged into a vibrant faith community; beyond all of that, the main aim is to work for a year in the oil & gas industry (high paying jobs being like shooting fish in a barrel, according to both the priest and my friend) so as to bankroll my desire to finish hiking the Appalachian Trail next year! For anyone who knows me, be it personally or from the podcast interview that I did last year, hiking the Appalachian Trail, in full, has always been a lifelong dream of mine. To recap, I began it in the Spring of 2007, making it around 500 miles into Virginia, where I had to get off due to a leg injury. As difficult as that was, it ultimately culminated in my moving to Pittsburgh, where I lived for nearly 12 years, before then moving to the NYC area for the 3 years leading up to my move to the monastery. During the Covid lockdowns of 2020, my main usage of all of my free-time was hiking, such where I ended up hiking another long stretch of the AT. While not done linearly, I hiked it from Harpers Ferry, WV to Great Barrington, MA, roughly the same distance that I hiked in 2007, now bringing my combined mileage to close to half of the entire 2,200 mile trail. I had another 500+ miles of hiking on the AT planned out for 2021, but an adverse reaction to the first dose of a Covid vaccine ultimately shelved those plans, which ultimately helped lead me to the monastery. There’s obviously a lot of minutiae that I’m skimming over here, as I feel like this is already plenty long, but I will say this: when I left for the monastery, a friend in Manhattan asked me what I would miss the most. Beyond family and friends, I told her that I would miss my freedom to up and hike whenever and wherever I wanted, particularly my dreams of wanting to finish the AT. She suggested that I finish the trail first, going to the monastery afterwards. In reply, I told her that I felt that I was being called to the monastery NOW, and that I felt so strongly about this that I believed it would be making an idol out of hiking the AT, putting my wants above where God was calling me at that time. I told her that I believed that God knew my desires, and that He would honor my willingness to sacrifice them. I ended by telling her that I also believed that God would specifically honor this either by satiating that hunger of mine in ways that I can’t possibly imagine, or that He would offer me an opportunity to finish the AT sometime in the future. Even today, 2.5 years later, I stand by that conviction. Even today, while it’s certainly not been an easy transition, I stand by my convictions to leave the monastery. Please keep me in your prayers as I embark upon this next journey! Also, while I’m not pushing for this maybe as “aggressively” as I have in the past, any financial support would be very helpful. As I’ve said, the pay at my job hasn’t been very good, which has made it difficult to save up quite as much money as I would like to have for my move. My GoFundMe page here is still active (though I will probably close it upon getting settled in North Dakota), but here are links for both my Venmo and CashApp, as people have asked, in the past, for alternatives to GoFundMe for supporting me. I also have Zelle, and I can share information for that, too! (my bank doesn’t provide a link, such as Venmo, but a QR code; or one can find me with either my email address or cellphone, which I can happily provide via DM) Again, please keep me in your prayers for this next leg of my journey, and feel free to reach out! I’m not generally one to publicize much about my private life online, but I feel obligated to do so, due to the sheer amount of support that I’ve received from so many of you, from prayers, to words of encouragement, to financial! Regarding all of this support, I am eternally grateful for it❤ Venmo: CashApp: https://cash.app/$cocamojoe82