wfn.org | [ENS] Summer chapel helps to reconnect, deepen faith

["Matthew Davies" <mdavies@episcopalchurch.org>]

Daybook, from Episcopal News Service

September 1, 2005: Thursday Thesis

Summer chapel helps to reconnect, deepen faith

By Pat McCaughan

ENS 090105-1

[ENS] -- The Rev. Teddra Bynes says officiating at one summer Sunday
morning
service at the Wade H. Chestnut Memorial Chapel is every bit as
wonderful as
spending a week rent-free at the North Carolina shore.

She was able to do both this year at the seasonal Episcopal chapel,
which is
open summers only and historically has been served by visiting clergy,
some
from as far away as New Hampshire.

"It's a wonderful, transient community of vacationers from all over the
country," located in Ocean View, a barrier island 2,600-miles long just
north of Wilmington.

"You're given the parsonage to stay in for a week if you celebrate a
Sunday
morning service," said Bynes. For the South Carolina native, it reprises
youthful memories of crabbing, fish fries, family and relationship.

"My two sisters and I spend time together there every year to reconnect
and
to deepen our relationship," said Bynes, 50, a chaplain at Voorhees
College.

The chapel also has special significance for the local African American
community, says Fannie Chestnut Hairston, 60, because it pre-dates the
Civil
Rights movement and was the first opportunity for Blacks to own beach
property in then segregated North Carolina.

"Edgar Yow, a white attorney in Wilmington, bought the land on the beach
and
asked my father and uncle and others if they wanted to invest in a
one-mile
stretch of the property," she recalled.
The chapel was named after her uncle, a local developer, who managed
sale of
lots to other blacks. It was the location of Camp Oceanside, created in
1955
to offer a summer camp for African American youth.

"There were a dorm for girls and one for boys," recalled Hairston, who
spent
summers there as a teen. "Spending time there was a wonderful
experience.
There were counselors from different churches, time for the ocean, for
arts
and crafts, for Bible study. I made some lasting friendships there."

Bynes also recalls summers at Camp Oceanside.

"As a young Black woman growing up in the East Carolina diocese, Camp
Ocean
View offered a way for Black kids to go to camp. It was an Episcopal
camp
available for kids during the 1960s and 1970s, and later was
dismantled."

In 1985, Camp Oceanside merged with Camp Leech, a nearby camp for white
youth, and was christened the Trinity Center. The chapel, built in 1957,
continued as a mission of the Diocese of East Carolina and as a summer
worship space for vacationers.

"Priests just hear about it and want to come, so we always have more
than we
need," said Hairston, a vestry member. Visiting clergy agree to
officiate at
an 11am Sunday service and, in exchange, get to stay in a two-bedroom
rectory adjacent to the chapel rent-free for a week.
The island itself has an interesting history, said the Rev. Ralph Fogg,
a
part-year resident who hopes to serve as advisor to the chapel's vestry.

"It was used by the Navy at the end of World War II to test
ground-to-air
missiles," he said.
It is also one of the fastest-growing areas in the country. "It
currently
has more building permits issued than any island on the coast of the
U.S.
from Maine to Florida. Property values have escalated. At Serenity
Point,
where I live, my condo has more than doubled in value in five years," he
said.

The chapel closes for the season Labor Day. Plans are in the works to
spruce
up the chapel and convert it to a year-round worship space, possibly
even by
next year, Fogg said.

The white wooden chapel seats about 60 people comfortably and has
historically attracted an eclectic congregation of people from all
denominations.

That's what makes it so wonderful, Bynes said.

"The people there really seem to be about developing their faith. They
make
a way even on vacation to worship on Sundays. And this is not a
community
that gets together during the week-there are different folks every
Sunday,
which sometimes makes it a challenge to come up with a sermon that
inspires
them. But the hospitality is wonderful," she added.

So is the ambiance.

The chapel's baptismal font consists of a giant salmon-colored Conch
seashell discovered in a backyard, attached to a metal stand, Bynes
said.
Its cross was constructed from the anchor of a naval ship.

"It's a beautiful, quaint chapel. I go there sometimes even when I don't
have to preach, just to be still and listen to the ocean and listen to
God."

-- The Rev. Patricia McCaughan is senior correspondent for the Episcopal
News Service and associate rector of St. Mary's Church in Laguna Beach,
California.

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