Sunday, January 13, 2008

Campamento Verano 2008 Part I

The Diocesan campground is the Centro de Conferencia Episcopal Obispo Lenuel B. Shirley (Bishop Shirley Episcopal Conference Center) in Santa Clara, a beach town on the Pacific side in the province of Coclé. It's a really nice place, and several groups from TEC have been out to help us in the past few years; students and friends from Virginia Theological Seminary; St. Paul's Episcopal Church, Alexandria; Church of the Holy Cross, Valle Crucis; Valle Crucis Conference Center; the Diocese of Western North Carolina helped re-build the chapel, and folks from the ECW of the Diocese of Chicago were here in 2005, painting and repairing cabins. I'm sure I've forgotten other groups who came out to help over the past few years, and I apologise.

Here are photos of the campground, to help set the scene for the photos to follow over the next few days.


The Sign. Bishop Shirley was the first Panamanian to be Bishop of the Diocese of Panamá.

These are the cabins. We have a total of four buildings which serve as cabins.
The High School Boys' Cabin

Interior of the High School Boys' Cabin, featuring artwork by the Chicago ECW



My room in the High School Boys' Cabin (I spent the first night here)

Chicago ECW artwork

Cabin 1 and 2, which housed the girls and the Jr. High Boys

The Bishop's Cabin

The Circle. Concrete benches built around an old mango tree, where we gather when the bell rings.

The Bell. This bell calls us to El Circulo where one gets instructions of where to go next.

Los Ranchitos. These are where the kids had Bible Studies and hung out during Free Time. The ranchitos were rebuilt recently by folks from the Revda. Jean Finian's church.



El Campo

El Arbol

The steps to the Dining Hall

The Dining Hall (exterior)

The Dining Hall (interior)



La Capilla de Santa Clara (exterior)

La Capilla (interior)

TOMORROW: Photos of camp activities, featuring the Beautiful Youth of the Diocese of Panama.

4 comments:

Janis Bland said...

Wow! There seems to be such a vibrant Episcopal ministry there.

Jane R said...

Can't wait to see them!

So is the diocese West of here, the Dio. of Western NC, in an official companion relationship with the church in Panamá?

We (Dio. of NC) are in a companion relationship with Costa Rica, and Bishop Monterosso was at our Convention last year. I'm hoping I can get down there some time in the next few years. (Side trip to Panamá? One can dream.)

We have a new companion relationship (keeping the old one, just adding one) with the Diocese of Botswana -- the Bishop and his wife and one of the pastoral theological people are coming this weekend for Convention. Our bishop, Michael Curry, went down there a few months ago to initiate the relationship.

Nice facility! But the youth will be more beautiful. Hope you had fun (and are recovering...).

THE REV. JEANNE FINAN said...

Hey Padre! I love your blog and read it all the time. Just a few corrections here..since this may be my 15 minutes of fame...my name is spelled Jeanne Finan. And the Church of the Holy Cross in Valle Crucis is a great one but never came to Panama. It's St. Mary of the Hills in Blowing Rock that has come 4 times--repainted the dining hall, did the creative painting there, painted all the chairs and tables at the camp and did some of the painting in the cabins. That group also painted the exterior of the cabins and paid for much of the renovation work on the Bishop's house. No one did it for credit but I do see blogs as rather the nouveau way of history so wanted to get the correction in there. Thanks!

Padre Mickey said...

Hola Revda. Jeanne!
Thanks for correcting my errors. I have a better working knowledge of who did what and when concerning the second through sixth century than I do about what happened around here in the past few years!

Sorry I missed your visit last year.

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