THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, February 11, 1996 TAG: 9602090166
SECTION: CHESAPEAKE CLIPPER PAGE: 03 EDITION: FINAL
LENGTH: Medium: 79 lines
So how does Priscilla A. Morello, director of program ministries at St. Paul's United Methodist Church, get the church's youth interested in its teachings and ministries?
She lets them clown around.
We're not talking about letting the congregation's youngsters put whoopee cushions in the pews or throw pies during the sermon.
Morello literally teaches clowning to the congregation's fourth through sixth grade age children in a program called ``God's Kids.'' She said it's a way to teach Christian values to the kids while letting them have some fun and learn new performance skills.
The clowning is taught during special youth Bible study sessions at the Providence Road church, she said. And once a month, God's Kids present their inspirational and mirthful skills to the rest of the church.
``It's a youth clowning troupe,'' Morello said. ``We perform at the church and also at different nursing homes.''
Morello said she teaches clowning as an effective way to present the church's message. These clowns for God in turn present the message at various performances.
Does anyone at the church feel this type of ministry is irreverent?
``I don't think so,'' Morello said. ``The congregation has really taken to it.''
Another nice by-product of the program is that it instilled a love of drama in many of the young participants.
The church will present the comedy ``I'll Eat My Hat'' on Friday and Saturday at its annual dinner-theater presentation. The production, which will be directed by Morello, features a cast of 10 high school-age youngsters. She said the youthful actors were clamoring for a production that would feature their acting abilities. She delivered with ``I'll Eat My Hat.''
``A lot of kids in the play started out as God's Kids,'' she said. Gold digger
Some people have a hard time finding anything. You know the type: They are always losing their socks, their keys or their wallets.
And then there's people like Meril Dunn, field archaeologist with the R. Christopher Goodwin & Associates cultural resources company out of Frederick, Md.
Dunn was in Chesapeake for more than a month, working on an archaeological dig at the Naval Security Group Activity Northwest, Chesapeake's only military base.
Dunn's company was called in to dig at a site on the base that was soon to become part of the facility's new medical and dental complex, among other things.
While sifting through mud, muck, silt and dirt in rainy, snowy and cold weather, Dunn and his colleagues found scores of artifacts giving us a glimpse at Colonial life in Chesapeake during the late 18th and early 19th centuries.
One of Dunn's most amazing discoveries would have eluded any other untrained eye.
He found a few specks of gold filigree, that probably came off some local's expensive coat or dress. We're talking specks here, not huge deposits of gold. These were tiny traces of the shiny stuff, uncovered in gross mud and clay.
``I guess it's a kind of archaeological reflex,'' Dunn said in a matter-of-fact manner. ``We constantly keep our eyes open for whatever may pop up.''
Dunn said he was busy digging when he spotted a slight glint of gold in all the mucky gray and red clay.
``You develop a sense to notice unusual things like that, no matter how small,'' he said.
Not knowing exactly what it was and rather than risk damaging a potential important find, Dunn dug all around the gold trace and sent the mud/clay block to his company's lab in Maryland. After tests and carefully breaking the soil down, Dunn's find turned out to be a few bits of gold that was used to embellish some fancy Chesapeake colonist's garment.
``Every little bit like this helps us get a clearer picture as to how people lived and what they wore,'' Dunn said. ``No detail is too small.''
- Eric Feber by CNB