Summer Girl's Camps

For the past five years, my responsibilities at the girls' camps have centered largely around organizing and implementing a craft propjet.  This year I found myself facing the thing which I had feared for more than a year.  I had to oversee an entire camp by myself.

With the departure this past July of Fr. Luke and Faith Veronis at the conclusion of the first girls' camp, the care of the camps fell to me. Fortunately fellow missionaries Panayiotis and Shannon Sakellariou volunteered to oversee the second camp, so I had responsibility only for the third.

The plan had been for Nathan and I to direct the camp together, but at the last moment, he was sent by the Archbishop to attend a conference in Malaysia.  This left the camp to me.  Though the burden of organizing and implementing the program was in the hands of two very capable young Albanian women, I still felt the weight of responsibility for making sure that things went smoothly and that the leaders got along well.

The camp began with only a third of the registered girls showing up. Such a thing had never happened before, and none of us could understand why so many girls had failed to come.  I asked the leaders if they thought we ought to cancel, but they said, No, and revised the program to fit the smaller group.  All of the leaders themselves, who numbered as many as the campers, wanted to stay, so altogether we were about 40 participants.

The ten days that followed turned out to be a wonderful experience for all of us. I was more relaxed because there weren't so many girls to worry about and even saw the reduced numbers as a blessing. The girls themselves bonded together to form a very tightly-knitted group and enjoyed the activities together and intense, late-night conversations.  I was able to teach a small group of interested girls how to bake treats each afternoon for snack time and then threw a surprise "High Tea" for them in the garden.  Using white bed sheets for table cloths and an abundance of wild flowers for decorations, we achieved a delightful garden party effect. "It's like a wedding," the girls said when they saw the spread, and told me afterwards that it was the best day of the best camp they had ever had.  The camp was spiritually enriching for the girls as well, and provided them with a loving Christian community in which to grow.

The camp was also wonderful for our children, Tristan and Katherine, who warmed up to the girls. Tristan, who is crazy about every sort of creature you can imagine, won the hearts and interest of all, from campers, to cooks, to the guard. Everyone seemed to be collecting frogs, or large bugs, or dragonflies, or turtles, or crabs, or you-name-it for him. 

For this next year, I will have oversight of all the camps, but rather than fearing the responsibility I am looking forward to it. We have mature and experienced young women to serve as directors-again, the fruit of many years' work with Fr. Luke and Faith Veronis - and the camp experience itself is spiritually and socially beneficial for all the girls who come, thus making camp involvement well worth my time and efforts. Also, I see how happy our children are at camp because they can roam freely over the monastery grounds, searching for interesting flowers, fruits, bugs, turtles and other creatures, something they have little opportunity to do in Tirana