Summer Church Camp 2013

Church camp was held July 15-19 at St. Mary of Egypt. There were 35 children age 4-14 in attendance with 3 older teens from St. Mary's and from St. Symeon's in Birmingham, Alabama, helping us as teen counselors.

The children learned about church architecture, how to say 'Lord, have mercy' in different languages, Mt. Athos and monasticism, the Holy Fire in Jerusalem, and church music from around the world. Father Alexander taught about iconography, Maria Lutz demonstrated how to make prosphora, and Peter Epstein narrated a slide show from the Holy Land.

In the afternoons, the children enjoyed doing many crafts and organized games.

This was the second year the 13-15 year old teens did community service projects in the morning and helped with outdoor play & crafts in the afternoons. They volunteered at St. John the Wonderworker's Loaves & Fishes program and delivered many pantry goods to them, made bracelets and totes for the foster care store, put together blessing bags for those in transitional housing, baked cookies & brownies for the firefighters of Roswell, helped prepare crafts for the younger children, and delivered all the goods they made and collected to the local charities & firefighters all over Roswell.

The charities that were supported this year were: the Hope Center's Babies & More Thrift Store (an outreach for pregnant teens), Drake House, the Foster Care Support Foundation, Homestretch, and the Loaves & Fishes.