This year St. Arseny’s Youth Orthodox Camp, under the spiritual leadership of Reverend Fr. John Hainsworth, the Rector of All Saints of Alaska Church, welcomed Orthodox children from British Columbia for one week, starting on 21st of July.

The Executive Directors, Mira Davidson and Deacon Kurt Jordan, as well as Maria Campbell, the Acting Director, all from St. Herman of Alaska Church in Langley, and second Acting Director, Graham Stobbe from All Saints of Alaska Church in Victoria, and others working in the camp were all volunteers and genuine enthusiasts.

We, from the Mainland, had to take ferry to the Vancouver Island, where the camp was located in the forest, not far from Parksville and Nanaimo. During the stay in the camp, both the children and their counselors have lived in cabins, occupied by six kids and two adults, in ratio 3:1.

Three priests, attending the camp were: Fr. John already mentioned above, Fr. Justin Hewlett form St. John of Shanghai Mission in Vancouver and Fr. Konstantinos Kaltsidis from Greek Orthodox Church in Victoria. They always were around, ready to take confessions and provide any assistance or advice. They always were happy to help us.

The camp’s daily program was filled with all kind of activities fully occupying both, the children and the personnel. Every day, the participants attended the Matins before breakfast and Vespers before dinner. The services were held in the temporary Chapel, specially constructed for this only purpose.

Daily, the camp was running for children the following workshops:

-          Book Binding.  By now they should be able to create and bind their own prayer books, story books and personalized magazines.

-          Liturgical Trades – learning how to mount an icon, design prayer books, or make candles and bake phosphors.  For boys – serving in the Altar. The mounted icons were later blessed and children took them home.

-          Russian Martial Arts -, techniques for self-control and safety, developed over the last thousand years in Russia.  If someone is interested, the instructor providing lessons gave me his web site address.

-          Illuminated Manuscript. Children learned to writestylized letters, commonly found on liturgical objects such as Icons and in Scripture. Now they will be able to create unusual invitations and personalised cards.

-          Children cleaned their cabins by themselves, and those who did it better, got a prize. Every day, Andrew, the counsellor and the photographer Victoria, were checking how the children have cleanedand made notes and a movie of what they had found. Then, in the evening we watched their movie on the screen and Andrew, a person with a special sense of humour, commented on what they found. As a result, at the end of our stay in the camp even boys decorated their cabins with irrepressible fantasy.

Besides the above prize for cleaning of cabins, there were other, such as prize for constant use of sunscreen, another for drinking water (it was very hot and it was necessary to drink water constantly to prevent dehydration) and etc.

The meals were served three times a day and food was very tasty. One day we had Greek food for dinner and the next one, the Mexican cuisine. I can’t talk for the others but I, myself felt like in the restaurant.

The active games – soccer, volleyball with towels and water balloons (I don’t think many of you heard about it), kayaking, archery and swimming, talent show, discotheque…

The evenings were spent near campfire, where we have sang with Makrina, the Choir Director and listened to the stories told by Fr. John, at the same time not forgetting to get a cap of cacao, milk and something sweet.

The older children went hiking spending the night in tents.

The younger kids, who didn’t forget their favorite “sweet” business in the camp, bought up everything in two days instead of planned three, after they got their pocket money.

Makrina was always around and during any interruption caused by waiting or anything else, the all at the camp were enthusiastically singing. So, on Sunday, our last day of the camp, we had de facto a professional choir, which has sang beautifully during the Devine Liturgy. All children took the Communion and after the Liturgy everyone was anointed with the Holy Oil provided by Deacon Kevin.

At the end, I would like to say, that I liked the camp very much. All the time children were surrounded with great attention, humor and music of singing.  The venerable priests preached beautiful sermons and I believe that children’s hearts couldn’t stay untouched.

I am very grateful to Fr. Michael and matushka Elena for the opportunity to go there with my daughter and to meet so many wonderful people. I also learned that there are many people who worship Orthodoxy beside those in our Holy Resurrection Church, and that in some way our church is unique, for services are held both in Russian and English.

Emilia Alexeyeva