Diocesan Photo Gallery
Photo Galleries of the Various Institutions and Ministries of the Diocese
Home » Photo Gallery »
Clergy Family Week 2023
Our Diocese held its first ever Clergy Family Camp at Camp Nazareth from June 4-9, 2023. Camp hosted 6 Clergy families (Priests, Panis, and kids) from around the Diocese which included clergy from right next door to Camp and those from as far away as New York City with a sprinkle of international flavor thrown in as well. It was a fun, relaxing and enjoyable event by all accounts and we will look forward to having the next one June 3-7 th , 2024 so mark your calendars Clergy and Families. Just a quick description of this year’s week will help us “set the stage” for next year.
The idea is a simple: host Clergy Families (which might include a clergy couple or just the Priest or just the Pani or the whole family or a Deacon and his family, etc.) at Camp Nazareth. Allow them the opportunity to come together, not when they are Camp chaplains, not when they have to be away from their kids, not when they have the responsibilities of their pastoral duties, but simply allow them the opportunity to come together at Camp, enjoy family time, enjoy the peaceful environment of Camp, enjoy each other’s company, pray together, celebrate services together and simply have fun while Camp takes on some of the daily family responsibilities for them (cooking, cleaning, planning some activities, kid-sitting, etc.). The idea is simple and so is its goal: take care of the ones who take care of us. Whenever you plan an event like this, as with any day in the life of a family, some things are structured and some things are unstructured. Meals are structured (as far as schedules and kids allow them to be in a household), but downtime is not. That is the way it went for the Clergy Family Camp. Some structure, but with a lot of unstructured time. This allowed families to get into a routine, but also have the ability to explore, enjoy and figure out what they wanted to do together themselves. At different points of the week the structured activities included things like strawberry picking at a local strawberry patch, a morning Nature Walk complete with binoculars to discover with and pails to collect with, a fun version of a Scavenger Hunt, as well as Morning Prayers, afternoon Services, Divine Liturgy and of course 3 meals a day. Unstructured time was just that: time to explore, time to have fun, time to nap, time to play board games, create a craft or just to talk and be together.
Clergy Families had the ability to plan their own day, when and what they would do, but a few highlights of the week might help to encourage others to attend as well as give you a little “taste” of the week. Among the structured and planned activities were morning events planned and offered by the CN Staff. These included the earlier mentioned Nature Walk, the strawberry patch outing, a fun spider web/laser field game, and the scavenger hunt mentioned above. These were planned for after breakfast and morning prayers, and were a fun way to get up and active for the day and provide families
some structured activities to enjoy together. Some of the afternoon and evening structured activities included an Obstacle Course, time on the Low Elements of the Ropes Course, a really fun Bowling Outing, and an amazing sequel to the Strawberry Patch Outing. Here’s a behind the scenes look at the sequel to the Patch Outing.
We called it the Strawberry Festival. After having picked the strawberries, later in the day the kids came back together and pulled the stems off ALL the strawberries!! From the youngest to the oldest, the kids did a fantastic job with a very tedious task. While there may have been a few eaten along the way, both at the patch and during the de-stemming process, most strawberries survived to make the STRAWBERRY JAM!! Jars of strawberry jam went home with each family. The kids also made biscuits from scratch to take home for STRAWBERRY SHORTCAKE!! What a factory we made together! Efficient, Mostly clean, Fun, and Hardworking. That’s how we would describe the Strawberry Factory that was Camp that evening. And guess what the parents were doing that evening? They were out to eat in different places in the Mercer/Hermitage area. The CN Staff did a little kid-sitting during the week to allow mom and dad to enjoy some time together “sans” kids if they wanted to.
Beside the Strawberry Festival, one of the other highlights of the structured activities was the family apron and T-Shirt making craft the families did together. Moms, dads, kids, families all had fun painting their own family T-shirt and putting their hand prints on their family’s very own apron. That was a rather fun, and slightly messy, endeavor. However, Clergy families carried home some useful crafts from their camping experience.
The unstructured free-times allowed families to play on the basketball court, jungle gym, hit the trails, take walks, relax, talk, play games in the Rec Room and simply enjoy being together. There may or may not have been water sprinklers involved, maybe a trip out for custard at a place called Iggy’s and some much needed napping. We are, after all, subject to our young children’s sleep schedules, and as parents we feel obligated to help them nap by showing them how to do it. (Is there anything better than a nap in the afternoon with your kids?)
Besides the structured and unstructured categories of the Clergy Family Camp Schedule, the families had Church Services, including Morning Prayers, Molebens and the Divine Liturgy, together during the week. Each priest was asked to serve at the different services and had an opportunity to preach afterwards. Meals were also taken together and the Clergy families were treated well by the Kitchen Staff as the families should be.
In all, the Clergy Family Camp was a really wonderful first-time event that will now be offered each year by our Diocese. Taking care of the people who take care of us is a good way of looking at this week. We will revise and adapt the schedule and its contents over the course of time. Maybe speakers will be brought in. Maybe there will be built in time for Confession. Maybe we will add Reflection/Quiet Time with journaling. The morning and evening events will be different and unique each year of course, but the hoped for end of everything is a rejuvenating experience for our Clergy Families. Thanks be to God for everything, truly. This was a beautiful and blessed event. We are looking forward to many more together. Mark your calendars…next year’s Clergy Family Camp will be held at Camp, June 3-7, 2024.
The idea is a simple: host Clergy Families (which might include a clergy couple or just the Priest or just the Pani or the whole family or a Deacon and his family, etc.) at Camp Nazareth. Allow them the opportunity to come together, not when they are Camp chaplains, not when they have to be away from their kids, not when they have the responsibilities of their pastoral duties, but simply allow them the opportunity to come together at Camp, enjoy family time, enjoy the peaceful environment of Camp, enjoy each other’s company, pray together, celebrate services together and simply have fun while Camp takes on some of the daily family responsibilities for them (cooking, cleaning, planning some activities, kid-sitting, etc.). The idea is simple and so is its goal: take care of the ones who take care of us. Whenever you plan an event like this, as with any day in the life of a family, some things are structured and some things are unstructured. Meals are structured (as far as schedules and kids allow them to be in a household), but downtime is not. That is the way it went for the Clergy Family Camp. Some structure, but with a lot of unstructured time. This allowed families to get into a routine, but also have the ability to explore, enjoy and figure out what they wanted to do together themselves. At different points of the week the structured activities included things like strawberry picking at a local strawberry patch, a morning Nature Walk complete with binoculars to discover with and pails to collect with, a fun version of a Scavenger Hunt, as well as Morning Prayers, afternoon Services, Divine Liturgy and of course 3 meals a day. Unstructured time was just that: time to explore, time to have fun, time to nap, time to play board games, create a craft or just to talk and be together.
Clergy Families had the ability to plan their own day, when and what they would do, but a few highlights of the week might help to encourage others to attend as well as give you a little “taste” of the week. Among the structured and planned activities were morning events planned and offered by the CN Staff. These included the earlier mentioned Nature Walk, the strawberry patch outing, a fun spider web/laser field game, and the scavenger hunt mentioned above. These were planned for after breakfast and morning prayers, and were a fun way to get up and active for the day and provide families
some structured activities to enjoy together. Some of the afternoon and evening structured activities included an Obstacle Course, time on the Low Elements of the Ropes Course, a really fun Bowling Outing, and an amazing sequel to the Strawberry Patch Outing. Here’s a behind the scenes look at the sequel to the Patch Outing.
We called it the Strawberry Festival. After having picked the strawberries, later in the day the kids came back together and pulled the stems off ALL the strawberries!! From the youngest to the oldest, the kids did a fantastic job with a very tedious task. While there may have been a few eaten along the way, both at the patch and during the de-stemming process, most strawberries survived to make the STRAWBERRY JAM!! Jars of strawberry jam went home with each family. The kids also made biscuits from scratch to take home for STRAWBERRY SHORTCAKE!! What a factory we made together! Efficient, Mostly clean, Fun, and Hardworking. That’s how we would describe the Strawberry Factory that was Camp that evening. And guess what the parents were doing that evening? They were out to eat in different places in the Mercer/Hermitage area. The CN Staff did a little kid-sitting during the week to allow mom and dad to enjoy some time together “sans” kids if they wanted to.
Beside the Strawberry Festival, one of the other highlights of the structured activities was the family apron and T-Shirt making craft the families did together. Moms, dads, kids, families all had fun painting their own family T-shirt and putting their hand prints on their family’s very own apron. That was a rather fun, and slightly messy, endeavor. However, Clergy families carried home some useful crafts from their camping experience.
The unstructured free-times allowed families to play on the basketball court, jungle gym, hit the trails, take walks, relax, talk, play games in the Rec Room and simply enjoy being together. There may or may not have been water sprinklers involved, maybe a trip out for custard at a place called Iggy’s and some much needed napping. We are, after all, subject to our young children’s sleep schedules, and as parents we feel obligated to help them nap by showing them how to do it. (Is there anything better than a nap in the afternoon with your kids?)
Besides the structured and unstructured categories of the Clergy Family Camp Schedule, the families had Church Services, including Morning Prayers, Molebens and the Divine Liturgy, together during the week. Each priest was asked to serve at the different services and had an opportunity to preach afterwards. Meals were also taken together and the Clergy families were treated well by the Kitchen Staff as the families should be.
In all, the Clergy Family Camp was a really wonderful first-time event that will now be offered each year by our Diocese. Taking care of the people who take care of us is a good way of looking at this week. We will revise and adapt the schedule and its contents over the course of time. Maybe speakers will be brought in. Maybe there will be built in time for Confession. Maybe we will add Reflection/Quiet Time with journaling. The morning and evening events will be different and unique each year of course, but the hoped for end of everything is a rejuvenating experience for our Clergy Families. Thanks be to God for everything, truly. This was a beautiful and blessed event. We are looking forward to many more together. Mark your calendars…next year’s Clergy Family Camp will be held at Camp, June 3-7, 2024.
