Camp Amazing Grace 2008

Teenage members of the Nu World Art Ensemble played African drums, danced and sang about African-American heroes, of healing, choices and wanting “to live.” The director then invited counselors and campers to join in the dancing, singing and drumming. The children were thrilled.

Each day the campers wore different brightly colored t-shirts that also served as name tags. And they made tie-dyed shirts. They went home with green shirts embossed with the camp logo of a sunrise with a cross in its rays.

By Val Hymes

The big yellow bus was scheduled to arrive at the Bishop Claggett Center Sunday afternoon, June 28. This year, there are 26 campers, including those whose mothers have served or are serving at the women’s prison in Jessup, and four children of fathers in the men’s medium security prison in Jessup. Two of the children come via the ministry at St. James’, Lafayette Square.

A new team joins those camp staffers who have worked since 2006 for this special ministry to children, 8-12, with parents in the criminal justice system.

They are Will and Holly Pass. Will, a staff accountant with the diocese, was raised by a single mother; Holly, program director, is a high school teacher, formerly with the city and now Baltimore County. They are joined by Holly’s mother, a former teacher, and another teacher and a guidance counselor from Perry Hall High School. A priest new to camp is the Rev. Glenna Reed, rector of St. Luke’s, Carey Street.

Other new members of the staff include a police officer, YMCA youth directors and others experienced with at-risk children.

Returning are Deacons Patrick Arey and Linda Hollis, Staff Director Rick Conover of St. John’s, Ellicott City, social worker Marshella Riddick and business owner Wadi Williams from St. Martins-in-The Field.

Also counselors Anne Coble, Samantha Crosby, Nicole Polsinelli, Elizabeth Saxe, Sara Wubbenhorst and nurse graduate Katie Lynch..

Beginning June 28 and ending July 3, the children will swim and hike and visit a slave graveyard. They will go canoeing and fishing and play flag football and other sports. They will make bluebird boxes for the Bluebird Sanctuary at Claggett.

The wood for the boxes was cut and signed by the youths sentenced to Backbone Mountain Youth Center in Western Maryland, where Deacon John Charles Martin Jr. teaches woodworking. He will help the children assemble them.

The camp is made possible by the members of the parishes of the Episcopal Diocese of Maryland and the Prison Ministry Task Force. For information, valhymes@aol.com, 410-224-2478.

There, the children, 8-12 years old, swam, caught fish and threw them back, danced, played soccer, tie-dyed shirts, met some bugs, learned teamwork on the ropes course and heard African drums and scary stories. They even sang with a bishop, the newly consecrated Bishop of Maryland, Eugene T. Sutton.

Divided into three teams, on most days they fished in the pond, played music and worked on art and crafts. There was swimming at least once a day and worship daily plus special programs.

Bishop Sutton visited one afternoon. He sang a song with the campers, asked them questions and told them stories about his days at camp and how it “made a tremendous difference” in his life as a child in Washington D.C.“Can you imagine growing up and never rolling around in the grass?” he asked them.

“There’s a connection between finding God out in nature and finding God within,” he added. “By the end of this week there will be a lot of tears when you don’t want to go home. Just know that you can create a beautiful space for God in your heart that is as beautiful as this place.”

Messages of safety, responsibility and “doing good things with our hands” were woven through the educational programs. The magician, Hugh Turley, urged them through his magic to “”Stop, look and listen” and “Never talk to strangers” then gave them magic wands, top hats, “God is with you” cards and introduced them to “Stu,” his white rabbit. They also had their choice of books sent by two parishes and journals to write in, compliments of a senior group at a Baptist church that also provided personal kits.

On the ropes course, the campers had to work together to be able to climb a wall or ropes or balance a tipping platform. Their reward was a flight through the trees on the zip line. One of the girls’ favorite times was what they called the “Dance Hall”— a dance competition in the hall at North Cottage. “The girls were really upset about leaving,” said counselor Anne Coble, 18. “To make them feel better, we decided to make fools of ourselves and have a dance contest…. It was a tie this year, but I think the (teenage) counselors totally won!”

Awards were given out during lunch each day and at the closing ceremonies, when special framed citations were given to the children. Then three teams — God’s Little Bombs, the Jazzy Jammers and the Wildcats -- each presented — to wild applause and hammy acting — skits that included “A Day in the Life of Camp Amazing Grace,” a rap number and a synchronized dance piece.

“I’m proud of this camp,” the Rev. Joe Rushton, staff director, said. “Because the children began to look out for each other, they got to do many other things like riding the zip line. The whole week was wonderful.”

“It was filled with grace,” said the Rev. Patrick Arey, camp director. “We learned as much from the campers as maybe they learned from us. It’s the way camp should be for these kids.”

During the final worship Friday morning, the campers were given their painted, glazed and fired meditation balls. The children had earlier made clay balls, first filling them with notes spelling out things they wanted God to change. Then they wrote a special thought on them. (Bishop Sutton wrote “Amazing Grace” on his.) The balls were then dried; the children painted them. Then they were glazed and fired in a 2,000-degree oven at the studio of pottery artist Barbara Bustard-Burnside and returned to the children.

“My heart melted during the meditation balls,” wrote Nicole Polsinelli, 17, “when the kids found hope and, if even for one week, threw away all the bad things in their lives.”

“To God, you are just as unique as the tie-dyed shirts you made,” said the Rev. Shawn Hill, who helped lead the worship services with the the Rev. Madeleine Beard and the Rev. Carol Bustard-Burnside. Before they left, Bustard-Burnside told the children stories in the Bible about God or others anointing people to empower them to go out and do what God wants them to do. Then the counselors anointed the campers with oil by making a sign of the cross on their foreheads, sending them out from camp with words like “May God be with you.”

There was some fighting in the last hours. Some of the children were angry about going back to a home with a missing parent. For three of them, their caregivers are suffering with serious forms of cancer. After lunch, they hugged, climbed into the big yellow bus and headed back to Baltimore. Just as the bus pulled into the parking lot of the Diocesan Center, Bishop Sutton was coming out of the building. He jumped on the bus, greeted the campers, and shouted, “Welcome back!”

“Camp Amazing Grace showed them,” said Polsinelli, “that God is listening and wants the best for them and I believe that God has given them hope and courage.”