Lutherans Help Children to "New Ground" Post-Sept. 11

CHICAGO (ELCA) Placing children on "new ground" was the priority this summer for about 800 children from New York and New Jersey metropolitan areas. "Camp New Ground," a week-long day camp for children hosted by Lutherans, served to help children process their feelings from last year's Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the United States.
Camp New Ground "helped kids move on to new ground, to a new place of support, knowing that God is with us in that new place," said the Rev. Ann M. Tiemeyer, St. Jacobus Lutheran Church, Queens, N.Y., camp director.
"Kids respond to disasters just like adults do," said Tiemeyer. "Everyone has a different reaction, so the kids [attending the camp] were at different places emotionally. We tried to build a camp opportunity where those at different levels of experience could be acknowledged, talked about, shared and valued."
Funded by Lutheran Disaster Response, a ministry of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) and the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod (LCMS), Camp New Ground featured morning and afternoon worship, music, arts and crafts, Bible lessons, recreational activities and mental health assessment. Camp New Ground was launched July 15 and ended Aug. 16.
About 40 mental health counselors offered opportunities for children to talk about terrorism, identify their gifts and articulate their dreams for the future. The Lutheran Counseling Center, with offices on Long Island, N.Y., employed the counselors and provided resources for parents on ways to talk with their children about terrorism. College- and high-school-age Lutherans from across the country also served as camp counselors.
Each day campers met with a mental health professional and went "through a series of journal questions that gave opportunities for kids to engage in conversation about Sept. 11," said Tiemeyer. "Kids were asked, 'What makes you happy, and what makes you sad? What dreams do you have for yourself, your family and for your community?'" she said. "The mental health coordinators were able to flow with what the kids were giving them and ask questions."
"Joseph's Journey" served as the camp's theme. In the book of Genesis of the Bible, Joseph was sold into slavery in Egypt by his brothers. Later, famine swept the land and Joseph (chief administrator working with Pharoah to deal with the crisis) encountered his brothers and forgave them for selling him into slavery.
Campers engaged in a unique activity to learn about forgiveness. "Kids were given a red piece of paper shaped like a brick. On the top of the brick [was written], 'How I feel about terrorists.' Kids were instructed to write questions and draw," Tiemeyer said.
The bricks were structured into "a wall and the kids talked about how anger and hate create a wall around us. On the last day [of camp], the brick wall came down, as they talked about forgiveness, wrote prayers of forgiveness or [drew] pictures about forgiveness and about a variety of things in life where they've experienced forgiveness or offered it. The bricks were turned into a road [designed] to help us walk into a new place and [see] how only through God's forgiveness can we move into a new place. That was true of Joseph; that's true of us," Tiemeyer said.
In addition to counseling, "there was plain old good fun. Kids made handprints and played with a parachute to work off energy. There was a variety of ways for kids to be in community together and have a sense of support," Tiemeyer said. Firefighters, emergency workers and rescue dogs also came for an afternoon to meet with the kids, she said.
"The biggest success of Camp New Ground is that it created a variety of new networks of support and care, not only for the campers but for the congregations and schools that hosted," she said. "The camp provided a whole new network of support for families and churches by connecting people with each other and connecting us, not only with each other but with God in that process," said Tiemeyer.
Camp New Ground was managed by Koinonia, a camp ministry of the ELCA and LCMS. Koinonia is based in Highland Lake, N.Y. -- -- --
Information on Camp New Ground is maintained at http://www.ldrny.org on the Internet.

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