ELCA International Camp Counselor Program at Calumet
wo
international camp counselors spent this summer at Calumet Lutheran Camp and Conference Center, West Ossipee, N.H., as part of the ELCA’s
International Camp Counselor Program.
Adama Isa
Rahel Barz
For
Adama Isa, 29,
from Nigeria and Rahel Barz, 18, from Germany, this was their first
time in the United States.
Calumet, the outdoor ministry
of the New England Synod, has participated in this unique program of ELCA
Outdoor Ministries since it began in 1992. The idea was conceived in 1985 by a
group of camp directors and their leader, the Rev. Herb Brokering. They dreamt
of great things – people from all over the world going back and forth between
countries working in Lutheran camps, making friends, learning to get along together
and visiting each other. This summer, the ELCA had 38 international counselors,
ages 18-30, from 24
countries, working in 29 camps.
Isa teaches homiletics and Christian ethics at the Lutheran
Church of Christ in Nigeria (LCCN) Bible College. She graduated in 2005
from the Theological College of Northern Nigeria, but, in Nigeria, ordination is only
possible for married people. Isa grew up Maiha, a town in northern Nigeria, where she attended
Lutheran Church of Christ in Pakka. The Archbishop of
Nigeria asked her to take this assignment. Isa works
in Calumet’s Day Camp, bringing
the world to area children.
Isa talks easily and avidly about her country. “Life is very
difficult in Nigeria for so many people,”
she said. “People die every day from poverty and lack of opportunities.There
is no health care. If people are sick, they have to pay themselves and the
family has to provide food. The Lutheran Church is a big church in Nigeria and has many ways in
which it helps the poor.”
Barz, who recently graduated from high school, hopes to attend college
in the fall to major in medicine. She grew up in Bordesholm, Germany, which is near Hamburg. Her father, a Lutheran
pastor, has served for 10 years at Evangelisch Lutherische Chrisuskirchergemeinde
Bordersholm (Evangelical Lutheran Church of Christ in
Bordersholm). Her mother teaches sight impaired
students. Her two younger brothers are “happy that I’m in the United States and out of the house!” Barz loves to travel and, in addition to her native German,
she speaks and writes fluent English and Swedish.
Her
father heard of this program while at the ELCA headquarters in Chicago and encouraged her to
participate. At home, she loves working with Sunday school children, and at Calumet she loved Kids Fun
Times and beach games with family camper children. And they loved her.
The
New England Synod has truly been blessed by the faith and gifts of the many
staff who have come to Calumet from around the world
these past 15 years. The founders’ dream has, indeed, come true as young adults
bring back to their home countries the rich experiences of outdoor ministry
from ELCA camps throughout the United States.
Here
are the international
camp counselors who have served at Calumet since 1993:
1993 – Mary Basta, Egypt
1994 – Kinga Klus, Poland
1995 –
Vivian Amer, Palestine
1996 – Rom Paul, Papua New Guinea
1997 – Natalia Jezna, Slovakia
1998 – Salome Makosi, Kenya; Marcel Steurnagel,
Brazil; Martina Koverova, Slovakia
1999 – Klara Balicza, Hungary
2000 – Julia Wienkemeir, Germany; Silvia Vasilkova,
Slovakia
2001 – Marja Loodma, Estonia
2002 – Betty Gombkoto, Hungary; Jessie Huang, Taiwan
2003 – Kulkanya (Kung) Wongsantichon, Thailand
2005 – Zuzana Tothova, Slovakia
2006 – Huen-Wen Yao, Taiwan
2007 – Rahel Barz, Germany; Adama Idsa, Nigeria