From Mother to Board Member: Joan Farha’s Prayer for the Next Generation

Joan Farha remembers the very moment her professional world gave way to a lifelong ministry of presence: “My last day ‘at work’ was the day I went into labor with my first child.” That gentle pivot—from hotel management to full-time family life—set the stage for decades of passionate Orthodox Christian service, community-building, and compassionate leadership.

Today, Joan serves on the Orthodox Christian Fellowship (OCF) Board with a perspective shaped by faith, motherhood, and years of hands-on ministry. She and her husband David live in Wichita, Kansas, where they were both raised and where they raised their three daughters. It’s a city known for community, hospitality, and loyalty—especially when it comes to college basketball.

Her spiritual journey has included nearly every role imaginable in parish life: parish council member, choir singer, Sunday School teacher, chair of committees and conferences, and national leadership with the Antiochian Archdiocese and Antiochian Village. She also served on the board of Saint Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary and currently volunteers weekly with Treehouse, an Orthodox social service agency supporting mothers and babies.

But it is her role as a mother, mother-in-law, and now grandmother that fuels her deepest hopes for OCF.

“I have three college-educated daughters with three vastly different experiences in their Church life through those college years,” Joan reflects. “In part because of who they are, but also due to the type of colleges they attended and the OCF presence they encountered.”

Joan brings this personal lens to her role on the board: a parent’s desire for her children—and all young Orthodox Christians—to find belonging, spiritual nourishment, and vibrant fellowship during the pivotal college years.

“I hope that my witness to their experiences can offer some insight from a parent’s perspective,” she shares. “I also hope that my past board experience will be useful to the organization as well.”

Whether she’s planning a parish dinner, lifting her voice in the choir, or listening to the stories of new moms at Treehouse, Joan embodies the kind of leadership rooted not only in vision, but in deep personal care. Her prayer for OCF is simple and profound: that every college student finds what her daughters sought—an authentic, life-giving connection to Christ and His Church.