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Day camp offers spiritual lessons
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Keith Hayes counselor and DeShante Allen 7, watch intently as Sunshine Gospel.
Day camp offers spiritual lessons
Gospel Sunshine Clown shares Christian-based messages through her ministry.
YOUNGSTOWN — Geraldine Banks, the Gospel Sunshine Clown, taught children multiple lessons by her sheer presence at a summer day camp at Martin Luther Lutheran Church.
Though sore and moving slowly after being shaken up in a car accident Monday, Banks showed up Tuesday decked out in a yellow curly wig accented by a flower-adorned hat, black and white striped shirt, oversized black pants and red shoes — and two-inch eyelashes that complemented her clown-painted face.
Just by being there, Banks, who has had this ministry for 21 years, demonstrated the value of a promise — she didn’t want to let the children down. “I’ve done so many shows; I don’t know how many,” she said, and noted she never has missed one. “God gave me a gift to share.”
Banks also told her audience that one never knows what will happen from one day to the next, so it is important to have Jesus in their lives. “I thank God I’m here,” she said.
With upbeat Christian music playing in the background, Banks first showed her young audience a Bible with blank pages, saying “this is you if you don’t let Christ into your heart.” She opened it again to colorful sketches to reveal what happens when Jesus is part of their lives.
In a trick with colored paper, eager volunteers helped Banks rip the strips into pieces. “Satan and sin rip us apart,” she said, stuffing pieces into a box. She told the children “to pray for Jesus to come into their lives,” and pulled out a scarf of many colors, representing how Jesus can make them whole and happy.
Banks, of Niles, said she attended clown college in Florida and also is a self-taught trickster. Her assistants are her granddaughter, Emontae Mendenhall, 13, and grandson, Eugene Carper Jr., 17, both of Youngstown. Banks deliberately flubbed a scarf trick to show children that “Jesus gives us second chances to make it right,” she said, as the trick worked perfectly the second time.
This presentation and other activities in the summer day camp at Martin Luther Lutheran Church touch children “spiritually, physically, emotionally and socially.”
That’s how first-year coordinator, Loisjean Haynes-Paige, sees it. She’s also youth director at the Lutheran church, 420 Clearmount Drive, and has made a career of working with children. She has a year in as a computer applications and business teacher at Chaney High School, but taught at Austintown-Fitch and the former Wilson high school, and was assistant principal at Eagle Heights Academy. Haynes-Paige said the Gospel clown was one means to engage the children and reach them on many levels.
The church program is described as a free summer day camp, but at its heart, it is a vacation Bible school. It differs from other programs, which usually meet for two hours or so over the course of a week, in that its hours are from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.
The four-day program, which began Monday and concludes Thursday, packs multiple activities into the time frame. Northeastern Ohio Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America underwrites the camp.
“We’re serving the entire child,” Haynes-Paige said, noting that children receive breakfast, lunch and a snack.
The camp, which involves 39 children from age 6 to 12, is supervised by four certified teachers, four teachers’ aides and four volunteers. The camp includes fun-filled activities such as crafts, sports, music and games; the spiritual aspect is the driving force. Daily themes are “Choose to Believe and Choose to Act,” “Choose to Forgive,” “Choose to Obey” and ultimately, “Choose Jesus.”
Children made Jesus pillows as a craft project. “It’s to give them comfort,” said Haynes-Paige.
Pastor Paul Heine said the camp is one way that the church is doing its part “to foster a neighborhood atmosphere.” “Our church is an integrated congregation,” he said. “At camp, we talk about how we can get along and support one another.”
Pastor Heine said family is an important concept. “For many, the traditional family doesn’t exist,” he said. “So we talk about different family groups, the neighborhood family and church as the family of God.”