When you look at the photos of the faces of the children of 2019 camp, of those who happened to participate in this 2022 Orthodox Children St. Tikhon camp, you can see that they have change a lot, the kids have grown up, and you realize how much time passed since 2019.

Only three years later, by the Lord’s grace and mercy, we managed to organize and hold the so much awaited event – our Children’s Camp at the shores of the Pigeon Lake in this year of 2022.

Since this year is the jubilee year – 125 years anniversary of Orthodoxy in Canada, this topic, according to the intention of Father Igor and by the blessing of His Grace Matthew, Bishop of Sourozh, became the catechistic-educational theme of our children’s camp.

As always, we tried to maintain a balance between rest, prayer and acquiring new important and useful knowledge and skills for a Christian.

The camp is located on the shore of Pigeon Lake, and therefore it is convenient to get there from all three of our main church centers – Edmonton, Red Deer and Calgary and their surroundings.

The territory is spacious, clean, on both sides there is a forest, from the south there is a country road between the camp and other holiday homes, and in the west, there is a lake shore with a beach and a small boat bridge.

And most importantly, there is a small, beautiful church in the “Barvinok” camp, which was once at a farm, and now children pray (and learn to pray) here in the morning and evening, as well as participate in the Liturgy.

Every year the camp itself gets better in some way (repairs, improvements in living conditions, new trees), although at the same time the conditions are just fit for active recreation for children.

Having done a lot of work to gather our inhabitants, as well as those who wished to work for this good deed, we made sure that the camp had enough food, not only daily bread, but also a lot of special treats!

Here we will mention the first name – this is our grandma Sasha – Alexandra Dirda, who supervised the purchase of food products, so that almost everything, including even bread, was cooked there, to be homemade and natural, as well as original and very tasty.

Our kitchen, as always, has become the hottest and most difficult place to work, often with breaks for the workers on average only 4-5 hours for sleep! Therefore, with gratitude we remember those who worked there. First of all, of course, this is grandmother Alexandra, and Natalia Ilina, and Natalia Dmitruk, and Evgenia Yeremiia, and Olena Kushnir, and Alla Kolyadova, as well as those many who helped them, and matushka Faina, and Mila Folina, and Tatiana Popovskaya, and our mentors (counselors), and our older children campers, and even some younger children, and our priests. (We apologize if we forgot to mention someone; just let us know about it in our group in WhatsApp, or in some other way.)

Many parents of our children came for as many days or hours as they could and helped, some in the organization, some in the kitchen, and also on cleaning our good shelter, the camp.

We always tried to express our gratitude for their work, and immediately after the thanksgiving prayers after each meal, according to the tradition established by Father Igor, we always applauded them together!

We started the days with morning prayers, and every day, except for the days when we served evening services on the eve of the Liturgy, in the evening we read prayers “for those who depart to sleep”; the children themselves read, in silence and reverence, in English and Slavic languages, in our bright and cozy church of Archangel Michael, and listened to the Gospel every day.

Then we cleaned up the whole camp by dividing the chores between all the groups, switching each time.

And after that, there were very important and interesting lessons on the history of the Orthodox Church in Canada, from the very beginning – the arrival of the first immigrants, to the present day. First, Connie Hargreaves told the children about the first settlers, and how the move to a very distant country took place in general, and the very beginning of life here in Canada, about the first churches, bishops and clergy.

Then the priests – Father Igor, Father Andrey and Father Eugene, each talked about their churches and the cathedral, about their history, geography, traditions, modern life.

With regard to our camp, we remembered with gratitude all the parishioners of the Patriarchal Parishes who gave it to children, and also thanked those who continue to donate every year to the establishment and holding of an Orthodox Children’s Camp. These are the Parish Councils of: the Cathedral of the Great Martyr Barbara (President – Roman Lopushinsky; Rector – Archpriest Igor Kisil), and the parishes of “Orthodox IX” (President – David Boris; Rector – Archpriest Evgeny Protsenko), and “Orthodox V” (President – Joachim Lopushinsky; Rector – Archpriest Alexiy Suraev).

It is symbolic that the land on which the “Barvinok” camp is located today once belonged to the grandfather of one of the Presidents of our parishes, who is also now the chancellor of this district, Philip Pavlik. Thanks God, this year he again pleased the children (and all the staff as well) with a boat ride on the lake! Special thanks to him for this!

There were also additional lectures – the story of Father Deacon Andrew about St. John Maximovich, of Shanghai and San Francisco, whom he remembers personally, and practical classes of Father Igor, where children learned how to properly organize, their Christian life and prayer.

I should say that we have always tried to sing our most basic and important prayers (as well as the Symbol of Faith, the Creed) all together.

Our counselors who organized the children: Oksana Meheriuk, Natalia Servitovska and Ulyana Savytska, Anastasia Filimonova, Irina Neprienko, Nikita Kushnir, Alexander Belobrov, Alexander Kaliberov, Elisaveta Shapoval and father Evgeny Protsenko.

While the younger group, for example, was in class, the older one was busy with creative art in a specially designated place for this in our dining-living room.

The original tasks, in the spirit of our Orthodox camp and our main theme, were prepared for them by Svetlana Sachyk and Evgenia Shybko, as well as Oksana Meheriuk, Elisaveta Shapoval, and those who helped them in this. You can see some of the children’s work in the photo.

Special thanks to Evgenia Shybko for organizing a library for children, with the most interesting books of English classics that we love. (Please, see the picture)

In the morning, of course, the morning exercises! Those were conducted by the counselors of the men’s groups, who themselves had recently been residents of our camp: Alexander Kaliberov, Nikita Kushnir and Alexander Belobrov.

The same guys held outdoor sports games in the evenings for our always energetic camp residents.

Each of our eight groups bore the name of the saints of this region, or the patron saints of our temples, or the saints whose memory was on these sunny summer days.

The task of the campers was to get acquainted with their lives, and creatively present what they learned to the entire Orthodox camp during the final concert.

Father Igor prepared the icons of the saints so that the children themselves could complete their creation by decorating them in beautiful frames. For them become the main illustrations for our theatrical narrations.

The mentors had to prepare a performance with the children, so as to convey the main meaning, and taking into account the age of the participants.

On the eve of the concert, Svetlana Sachyk held a rehearsal, combining the performances together, and adding additional performances to them.

This additional number was a beautiful hymn about the Orthodox Faith – by Christina and Sofia Obeziuk, whose father, a clergyman, is now in Ukraine, may the Lord remember him!

Then girls’ groups showed us original theatrical performances, even with costumes (for example, an angel with big white wings), which they very skillfully made with counselors.

The boys recited the adapted transcription of the lives of the saints; in turn, they told the lives in simple language, solemnly passing icons of their saints from the hands to the hands at this time, and the mentors opened the performances with introductory words, and summed up at the end.

All groups learned and presented the singing of the troparia of their saints in the appropriate tone, with the help of the mentors of the groups, the clergy and those guys (such as Sofia and Christina) who already acquired this important church skill.

Then the guys handed over thank-you cards specially created with the help of our art teachers to all those who worked in the camp, we took a general photo and began to prepare for Sunday worship.

This year, during seven (almost eight) days, we were vouchsafed to serve the Liturgy twice in the St. Michael’s Church – on the Feast of the Transfiguration of the Lord – on August 19, and on Sunday of August 21, with a children’s choir, with many communicants, not only children, but also adults – workers and guests of the camp, with festive dinners after the services.

To be honest, when we found out the start date of the camp provided to us by the administration, we assumed that about half of the days could be rainy, and not very warm… But the Lord has given us very favorable weather. In many ways, it resembled the climate of those parts from where we once arrived.

Especially pleasant that was for those who have just arrived; for, there were about 10 children among the participants, as well as their parents, who were forced to leave Ukraine due to the war, in fact, as refugees. Our Orthodox Children’s Camp provided them with a free admission; we tried to support them by providing everything they needed. We thank their parents for finding the strength to save their children from the war, for bringing them to our camp and for the help they provided to our common cause. May God grant you to arrange your life safely in hospitable Canada. And God grant peace to Ukraine and keep the people!

Each camp, each year is different from the others, each has its own achievements and its own trials, which we Orthodox Christians call temptations; we call them so because it is also very important not to avoid them, but to accept, pass and learn the most important art – spiritual church life, in the grace of God, in peace with God and neighbors.

I would like to finish this narrative by paraphrasing the words from the Thanksgiving Prayers after the Holy Communion: may God grant us to participate in this joyous and beneficial lifetime in the future, in every coming summer of His Goodness! Glory be to God! Amen.

f. Yevheniy Protsenko

Photo Album (photos by: f. Yevheniy, Alla Kolyadova)