Wellness and Spiritual
Counseling in North Carolina
Start of the Mary &
Martha Center
About
Jana Strukova,
Ph.D.
Jana Strukova, Ph. D., is the founder and Executive Director of The Mary and
Martha Center for Women and Community Care. Jana has decades of experience in
leadership, higher education, and interdisciplinary studies in theology and
psychology. Her focus is helping her clients find deepening and meaningful ways
to work through questions of faith and spiritual practices. Jana loves to learn
new things, meet new people, and experience new ideas and cultures.
She has traveled extensively and has collected different perspectives and areas
of wisdom through the different cultures, ethnic groups, and geographies she has
encountered. She loves passing her wisdom along to others and helping them put
their fears and anxieties into perspective of knowledge and clarity. Jana has
had the privilege of working with skilled mentors in the past, and she is
personally committed to providing compassionate and wise mentoring to her
clients at the same level.
Jana came to the United States as an immigrant from Slovakia without connections,
money, or influence. She has truly worked her way up from the bottom.
Now, she strives to facilitate the same opportunities for her clients. Her
background and faith have provided her with the values she holds dear today:
selflessness, virtue, acts of service, and integrity.
She is particularly compassionate about helping people and communities who are
overlooked and unacknowledged, especially women. Her goal is to empower the
underserved, help them realize their potential and self-worth, and allow them to
shine.
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Call us today for your needs and we are there to help you!
What The Mary and Martha
Center means to Jana Strukova
Jana believes that “…truly holistic care is restorative care.
Restorative care embraces hope and the inner reservoir of strengths and virtues
that every individual has been endowed with. In this model, people who come to
health providers for healing are not failing in the sense of personal deficiency
(although one must admit that in a strictly mechanistic view of the human body,
their organs might not be performing at medically expected levels). Restorative
care does not see people’s behaviors as problems (despite not conforming to
behavioral standards for what constitutes normalcy), and therefore it does not
engage in an asymmetrical relationship between a fixer (a health care
professional) and an object (a patient) who needs fixing and recalibrating.”
Jana dives deeper into this concept, the backstory, and the manifestation of this
nonprofit within her book Befriend: Taking Care of Community through
Nonprofit.
Jana as a
Public Scholar and
Missionary
Jana comes to this field
of work as an academic, teacher, author, and missionary.
In her first two publications, Jana’s scholarship revolved around youth and their
Christian spiritual formation. In her third publication, she builds on her
entrepreneurial experience with running a nonprofit in mental health services.
Befriend: Taking Care for Community through Nonprofit was launched in December
2023. The book represents an interdisciplinary analysis of community, nonprofit,
health care, friendship, holistic, and others. It offers strategies and
practices for building healthier and more connected communities. Churches,
faith-based nonprofits, mental health providers, and institutions of theological
studies can benefit from this publication.
Global Missional
Work
Currently, Jana is working on researching care for displaced communities due to
war conflicts. Her initiative involves learning about war-initiated traumas of
women in Liberia, Africa, and Eastern Europe, mainly Ukraine. Jana has been
traveling to her home country, Slovakia, to help the Ukrainian refugees, compile
stories of Ukrainian families, and learn about the dynamics of living in host
countries. As an immigrant herself, Jana’s personal and professional
efforts highlight displaced people’s struggles and offer a compassionate
presence through her teaching and mission trips.
Trips and Educational
Events
In partnership with the UMC of Western North Carolina and Wesley Theological
Seminary in Washington, D.C., Jana Strukova will lead a trip to Eastern Europe
in May 2024.
Being a Church with the Displaced: Missions with Ukrainian Refugees represents an
educational trip and a class for credit (for those who choose so) to visit
Poland, Slovakia, and Hungary from May 13-26, 20024. Registration will open in
January, and all interested persons can return to this website for more
information.
The
Philosophical Faculty of Šafárik University
Prešov, Slovakia M.Ed. in Linguistic Studies and Educational
Psychology, 1994
Princeton
Theological Seminary
Princeton, NJ Ph.D., Practical Theology, 2007
Candler
School of Theology, Emory University, Atlanta GA
2007-2008
Post-doctoral fellow and instructor in Practical Theology and
Religious Practices.
2008-present
Higher Theological Education and Nonprofit Sector
Speaking Engagements With
Jana
Jana is the founder and Executive Director of The Mary and Martha
Center. She has an extensive background in theology and social
sciences. Her work has taken her around the world, where she has
worked with a diverse population and developed a focus on helping
women, specifically minorities and immigrants, to overcome spiritual
and material crises.
Currently, Jana helps her native Slovakia and hometown with
establishing a psychological and pastoral care center for refugees
from Ukraine and other countries.
Jana has written multiple books and has extensive experience as a
professor teaching at seminaries, leading workshops, and other
collaborative events. Her latest book treats the concepts of
nonprofit and community formation and mental health.
Schedule a speaking engagement with Jana, and she will deliver a
moving, inspirational, and meaningful discourse.
Why Work With Jana And Her
Team At The Mary And Martha Center For Women
Jana takes an unconventional and open-minded approach towards life and a
person’s wellbeing. She is equipped to guide people in the questions of
personal discernment through her training in theology and
spirituality.
Jana has the experience and dedication needed to connect her clients to
their true purpose or path in life and help them find value and
contentment.
She is highly intuitive and can see connections and patterns in events
and lifestyle habits that others might miss. Her creativity, empathy,
and intuition help her discern the healing energies needed to begin the
journey toward healing.
She doesn’t work alone though. Her team comprises unique, dedicated, and
compassionate women with experience, training, and wisdom to assist
women on their path to overall health.
If you’re ready to begin your healing journey, call or contact us online to
explore how we can help. We offer expert guidance, consultations, counseling,
and conversations in the fields of mental health, mentoring, stress-management,
faith-based healing, spirituality, self-care, holistic wellness, and more. Let
us help you be the best person you can be by reaching out to us today.