Last weekend, the Creation Care Commission, a new environmental ministry of the Diocese, met at Honey Creek to establish programs that reduce and recycle waste and to increase awareness of ways to better care for "this fragile earth, our island home."

A food waste reduction program will focus on reducing overall food waste at summer camp and composting or recycling as much waste from meals as possible. Food waste will be weighed and tracked after each meal, with incentives offered for reaching certain waste reduction goals. Liquid waste will be recycled to water an existing butterfly garden.

The theme of the food waste program is "Reduce Bad Gas (in the environment)," to emphasize the connection between food waste, greenhouse gases, and climate change. Nearly 20 percent of waste in landfills is food, which creates methane-a potent greenhouse gas-when it breaks down in a landfill," said Deacon Leeann Culbreath, who organized the work weekend. Methane is 20 times more lethal than carbon dioxide.

A three-compartment compost system was built using recycled wooden pallets. Finished compost will be used to nourish current flower, herb, and butterfly garden beds, and a vegetable garden in the future. The group also donated recycled clothing to be used as rags for daily dorm cleaning, to reduce paper toweling use.

"The waste we create, and what we do with it, affects people, animals, and ecosystems around the world," Culbreath said. "Loving God's Creation through simple actions means loving our neighbors near and far, and being a healing force in a suffering world. Reducing waste at Honey Creek also has many economic benefits."

The compost system still needs to be lined with hardware cloth to help keep critters out and compostables in. If you have materials or labor to donate toward this effort, please email Deacon Leeann Culbreath at [email protected]. To keep up with the Creation Care Commission's ongoing work, and to view more photos of the work weekend, visit their Facebook page.

Diocesan Office Update

With last Sunday's visitations, Bishop Benhase completed his calendar for this year. Next week, he travels with the deputation to Salt Lake City for the General Convention of the Episcopal Church.

Canon Logue will preside and preach this Sunday at the Episcopal Church in Okatie, SC. On Monday, he travels to Utah for the General Convention.

Canon Katie Willoughby will be on vacation this week, June 15-19.

Bishop's Visitations

Bishop Benhase is pictured above with Deacon Karulynn Koelliker, and the Rev. Stephen Norris, along with those confirmed this past Sunday at St. Andrew's, Douglas.

Diocesan Community Update

Kelly Steele has accepted a call as a Missioner for Columba House and Lay Curare for St. Michael and All Angels', Savannah. Born and raised in a loving family in Pittsburgh, she grew to love God through "spiritual, non-religious" meditation. Steele attended Duquesne University in order to teach spirituality, group dynamics and character development with music as the vehicle. Through the Holy Spirit's apparent work, she discerned a call to love the church despite its flaws and use her pedagogical curiosity to teach Christian formation. She dove headfirst into theology and church thereafter. She graduated from Duquesne with a bachelor's in Theology and and a certificate in Gender Studies in 2012 after having formed close friendships through Antioch Overflow Experiment, a network of student-led "simple" churches. Steele arrived at Duke Divinity School with a hunger for tradition, denominational accountability and justice work and found it at St. Joseph's Episcopal Church and the Franciscan Way in 2012. In May 2014, she married Guillermo Arboleda, whoc she says is kind and generous and who "taught her to confuse important people in the Episcopal Church with Marvel characters." She graduated from Duke in 2015. Steele is a candidate for Holy Orders in the Episcopal Diocese of Georgia. She loves living with other people and therefore loves living in the Columba House as Missioner. Steele hopes to blend the traditions she's encountered through planting Episcopal house churches someday. She bikes, sings, draws, and will not turn down Indian food. She also wants to own a Goldendoodle.

Guillermo Arboleda is serving the Diocese part time as Missioner for Columba House Savannah and part time as Lay Pastoral Assistant at St. George's Episcopal Church in Savannah. Arboleda is originally from Levittown, New York, and most of his family still lives in Long Island and New York City. He received a Bachelor of Arts degee from Messiah College, Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, in 2012, majoring in Congregational Christian Ministry and minoring in Mathematics. He is a 2015 graduate of Duke Divinity School, Durham, North Carolina, where he received a Master of Divinity (MDiv) degree with a concentration in Anglican Studies. Arboleda is currently a Candidate for the Holy Order of Priesthood in the Diocese of Georgia. He married Kelly Steele in May 2014, describing her as "wonderful and talented." Arboleda is an avid reader of nerdy non-fiction (theology, philosophy, anthropology, etc.) and even more nerdy fiction (comic books, etc.). He enjoys cooking, eating, biking, watching movies, and long, meaningful conversations. He is thrilled to get to know Columba House and St. George's better and partner with this diocese in the grace-filled work of God's ministry.

The Rev. Deacon Daniel Shoemake has accepted a call to join the staff of Christ Episcopal Church, Valdosta as Associate Rector, officially beginning July 1, 2015. Shoemake just graduated with a Master of Divinity from Emory University, Anglican Studies track. He is an ordained deacon and will be ordained a priest next week in the Diocese of Minnesota. While assisting the rector, the Rev. Dave Johnson, with preaching, teaching, and pastoral care, his primary focus will be developing our ministry with college students (particularly at Valdosta State University), youth, and young adults/families-as part of joining all of us at Christ Church in our ministry of preaching the gospel, loving one another, and following the Holy Spirit. The father of two, Shoemake is engaged to Nicolette Emmelia.

Stewart Named Interim Youth Missioner

Beginning in the Fall of 2015, Rebekah Stewart, Diocesan Communications and Events Planning Specialist, will step in as Interim Youth Missioner for the Diocese of Georgia.

Rebekah served as Interim Canon for Youth and Young Adults for 2 years in the Diocese of Upper South Carolina during her graduate studies at the University of South Carolina. While in this role she facilitated the Diocesan Youth Leadership Committee and oversaw the planning and implementation of all Diocesan Youth Retreats and Events while preparing the youth and adults involved to accept a new full-time Canon for Youth and Young Adult Ministry.

Her role with the Diocese of Georgia will be similar. Bishop Benhase shares, "This will be a period of discernment and preparation as we begin our search for a new full time Youth Missioner. Rebekah will be serving in this capacity part-time to ensure that we maintain a healthy, forward motion with our youth programs. The youth in our diocese and the programs we provide for them are a priority and we want to maintain that throughout the search process."

The Diocesan staff and community are excited to bring Rebekah into this transitional role. For information or questions, please contact Canon Frank Logue [email protected]

Changes to Safeguarding God's Children

Those who work with children and youth and those who oversee them, must complete the Safeguarding God's Children training offered online. Praesidium, our Online Safeguard Training Provider, has moved to a new platform. If you have been experiencing issues logging into the website, this is why! The online safeguarding website has changed to www.safeguardingonline.org.

If you already have a profile, Your user name and password are the same as with the old website.When you login to the new website for the first time you will be asked to answer 3 security questions, much like you would for your online banking account. This will help aid in password retrieval. When you log into your account, please click on the "user profile" button and update your email.

If you are new to the site and need to create a profile, there is a self-enroll option. In order to self-enroll, please follow these steps

Go to www.SafeguardingOnline.org/enroll
Enter the registration code: dog611
Fill out the form and click the link to enroll. Be sure to select the correct organization or location in the organization drop down.
Print the page or write down your user login and password for future reference.
To begin taking training immediately, click the first link or follow the instructions to the right to login later.

One of the new features of this new platform is that general users can print their own safeguarding certificates. This can be done by clicking on the orange button at the top left of the screen that reads "print certificate."

Please direct all questions regarding SafeGuard Training to Rebekah Stewart at [email protected]

Countdown to the General Convention

The General Convention begins one week from today in Salt Lake City. Meeting from June 24th - July 3rd, this is the governing body of The Episcopal Church that meets every three years. Deputies and bishops representing each of 109 dioceses carry out the work of the Church at each Convention. You may see a list of the deputies and alternates of the Diocese of Georgia, find out about issues coming to the convention, and stay current on our deputation once convention is underway at gc2015.georgiaepiscopal.org

Bishop and Deputy Committee Assignments

Six of the eight deputies from the Diocese of Georgia have been appointed to serve on a convention committee, which is more than in recent conventions. The Bishop and Deputies committee assignments are:

Person	Committee	Role
Benhase, Bishop Scott	#17: Privilege and Courtesy	Chair
Clarkson, Ted	#21: Credentials	Member
Logue, Frank	#21: Program, Budget & Finance	Member
Grant, Jody	#21: Credentials	Member
Stevenson, Molly	#10: Evangelism & Communications	Vice Chair
Wilkinson Reyes, Sierra	#12: Formation and Education for Ministry	Assistant Secretary
Willoughby III, William	#15: Ecumenical and Interreligious Relations	Member

To contact your deputation during the General Convention, send an email to [email protected] which will forward your communication to the Bishop, Deputies, and Alternates.

Legislation from the Georgia Deputation

The Diocese of Georgia has one resolution which will come to the convention. This is the resolution on Deaconess Anna Alexander passed unanimously by our conventions in 2011 and 2014. This is now Resolution C035 and we will join others in testifying to this resolution as a part of our work in Utah.

Additionally, Bishop Benhase and Canon Frank Logue each proposed resolutions to the House of Deputies and House of Bishops to direct existing budget funds to a test of Digital Evangelism.While the Bishop's resolution has yet to receive a number, the Deputy resolutions is D019: Conducting and Online Digital Evangelism Test Canon Logue about this resolution here: The Opportunity in Digital Evangelism

Additionally, Canon Logue worked with six other deputies from across the church to draft a Memorial and nine other resolutions. Information is found online here: http://www.episcopalresurrection.org/about/

Mission Team on the Ground in the DR

The twenty members of the mission team sponsored by Christ Church (Valdosta) arrived in the Dominican Republic on June 15th and are working steadily at the Episcopal camp and conference center near Jarabacoa. This center is the Dominican diocese's equivalent of our Honey Creek, and is located in the central highlands about four hours drive north of Santo Domingo. The team's projects include constructing a house for a village family; renovating an existing building to serve as a day care center; and teaching classes in knitting, crocheting, and sewing for the local handcrafters. The 20 mission team members are from the Dioceses of Atlanta, Central Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, plus the Diocese of the Dominican Republic. The team is scheduled to return home on June 22nd.

This is the fourth team from the Diocese of Georgia to work in the Dominican Republic in 2015. The other teams were sponsored by the Southeastern Convocation, St. Peter's (Savannah), and St. Anne's (Tifton). A fifth team of teenagers from across the Diocese of Georgia is scheduled to arrive on June 21st to conduct a VBS program in a church on the southern coast of the Dominican Republic. More information about our diocese's DR mission work is here: http://georgia.anglican.org/?page_id=19

Georgians Teaching Adults About Youth Work

Three Georgians took the lead at Kanuga's Adults Who Work With Youth Conference which met last week. Liz Williams, youth minister for St. Anne's, Tifton, served as the event coordinator, planning the presenters for the conference. The Revs. David Rose and Akridge joined Williams on the team for the event, presenting workshops on Monday.

The Adults Who Work With Youth Conference is part of a larger Youth Week at Kanuga. Teenagers are split into their own conferences - JYP (junior high) and SYP (senior high). The adults who attend AWWWY range from those who are paid, full time staff members of their parish, to those who are only chaperones for their church youth groups. The workshops are not only useful for the leaders to use as take home ideas for their own youth, but also ideas they are able to use in their daily life. This year the participants are learning about how to teach the Book of Common Prayer, how millennials worship, confirmation, spiritual direction, budgets and fundraising, spiritual journaling, art, and more.

Vacation Bible School is underway at Holy Comforter, Martinez.

Share VBS Photos with the Diocese

We want to share your Vacation Bible School with the Diocese in photo album collecting pictures of our kid-friendly catechesis taking place around the Diocese this summer. Send your congregation's photo to [email protected].

The photos will be added to a VBS album and used at the diocesan website. Seven congregations are already represented in the 25 photos in the Summer 2015 VBS Photo Album. Some of the photos will be shared here in From the Field. If you create a Facebook or other online album, you may also just send a link to that album to the address above we will copy a selection of photos to the diocesan album.

St. Anne's, Tifton.

Christ Church, Frederica.

The two photos above are from Camp St. Mark's held at Honey Creek by St. Mark's, Brunswick, together with St. Andrew's and St. Cyprian's, Darien.

St. John's, Bainbridge, has a new icon to inspire parishioners to see the holy in their daily work. "The House of Nazareth", which depicts Jesus, Mary, and Joseph at daily tasks, was given to the glory of God and in thanksgiving for the creative work in wood and in stained glass given by the three craftsmen in the photo. Charlie Murphy (at left), Chris Nelson and Wayne Lambert have given the parish many original works, including the small altar Lambert built that holds the icon. They are seen here assisting the Rev. Marcia McRae with the dedication that took place June 14.

Register for Summer Camp at Honey Creek

Summer Camp is now underway, but it is not too late to register for upcoming camp sessions.

Remaining Camp sessions
June 21-27 St. Joseph & Mary I Completed Grades 3-5
July 5-11 St. Peter I Completed Grades 6-8
July 12-18 St. Joseph & Mary II Completed Grade 3-5
July 19-25 St. Peter II Completed Grades 6-8

Tuition for regular session is $430 per camper.
For more information visit HoneyCreek.org.

Click here to register

New Camp for Children in grades K-2!
July 12- 14 Parent & Child II Completed Grades K-2 + Adult

The Parent & Child sessions run during the Camp St. Joseph & Mary sessions (Sunday through Tuesday). They serve as an introduction to camp culture for both the parent and the child (k-2nd grade). Parent and child are invited to participate fully in all camp activities as much (or as little) as they are comfortable. Tuition for each session Parent & Child session is $320 for one parent and one child ($85 for each additional child). Tuition covers room and board in a private lodge room, special activities, art supplies, camp photo and camp t-shirt.

Camp St. Mark's

Campers jump for joy on the beach as a part of Camp St. Mark's, held at Honey Creek and on Jekyll Island by St. Mark's, Brunswick; St. Andrew's, Darien; and St. Cyprian's, Darien.

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Sincerely,

Diocesan Staff

The Episcopal Diocese of Georgia