Some Episcopalians may spend their summer vacations rocking on the porch reading murder mysteries while teenagers alternate between MTV and the nearest basketball court. But many engage in very vigorous activities, often in aid of those less fortunate and able, or in intense learning situations, always, of course, interspersed with fun.

Summer seems to be a time of building and rebuilding. Many youth groups participate in Habitat for Humanity and similar projects, often in distant parts of the country. Twenty middle and high schoolers from the Diocese of Indianapolis drove to Houston, Texas, to spend a week refurbishing houses in an impoverished area. "We rebuilt porches and ramps, we scraped and painted," said diocesan youth coordinator Coral Hamlin. "One home-owner, Marie, is 100 years old. We rebuilt her porch."

Even though the kids may see similar conditions in their home town, she said it was "quite an eye-opener" in a new environment. After finishing the mornings' work, the group visited various ministries - a food bank where they helped sort groceries; the House of Tiny Treasures, a daycare center for homeless families.

The Rev. Christian Pierce, youth pastor at St. Paul's Cathedral, Peoria, in the Diocese of Quincy, has been taking work parties to Yonges Island off Charleston, S.C., for eight years, as part of his Youth Mission Organization. This year a group from Oklahoma joined the Illinoisans.

The 31 young people built one new house and rehabed another, cared for a lonely puppy, and cheerfully weathered a middle-of-the-night bus breakdown. Fr. Pierce said it takes a year for boys and girls to qualify for the summer excursion, by donating local mission hours.

"They tutor inner-city kids and attend youth worship every week," he said. The islands are "a cluster of seven, connected by bridges. It's a different world for Midwest kids - the climate, the religion. Voodoo and Christianity exist side by side."

Craig Sweeney accompanied a group of six teenagers, including his daughter, from St. David's, Topeka, Kan., on a work mission to the Pine Ridge Lakota reservation in South Dakota. He wrote, "I am ashamed to say I dreaded this trip ... I love kids one-on-one [but] they make me anxious in groups. It seems like I'm at a point in my life where I am seeking calm and stillness and groups of teenagers basically like to make a lot of noise ... Each person at the camp was assigned to a work crew where no one knew anyone else. The crews were assigned a work site and then organized themselves by choosing up different jobs.

"What surprised me most, I think, was how wonderful an experience it was for me ... to be 'at camp' again, like one of the kids ... It was great to be just one of the crew members: the adults were not in charge at the work site. This work camp gave these wonderful kids the knowledge that they do have skills and talents, that they are appreciated and loved and that the Christian enterprise is all about these things - acceptance, service and love."

In North Dakota they go "Biking with the Bishop" in June, July and August. Bishop Andrew Fairfield, and sometimes his wife, Sally, leads groups of adults and children on weekend bicycle camping trips in different parts of the state. His travel log describes camaraderie and coyotes, church suppers, "crackling lightning, heavy rain, and winds that must have been around 50 miles per hour."

For a week in August, Brian Taylor invites all the children in to sing all day long. The organist/choirmaster of St. Mary's Cathedral, Memphis, this year had 38 kindergarten-sixth graders in his second annual Cathedral Vacation Choir School. "We did real music," he said. "With the older children, music from the classical English tradition."

Students also played instruments, recorders for the older ones, Orff instruments for the younger, studied Bible readings and went on field trips. They sang daily Morning and Evening Prayer, and on Friday, a grand Choral Evensong. "It's amazing to see the improvement in a week," Mr. Taylor said. "Especially in tone quality - I have a private voice teacher work with individuals, too. And they learn to pray every day, the rhythm of the day. I always wanted to offer a choir camp - we just have it inside the cathedral."

The summer choir brings in kids from other Episcopal churches and other denominations, or none at all. The more experienced choristers work with newer singers. "We had seven home-schoolers this year. It fulfills their music requirement."

Calvary Episcopal cemetery, Okreek, S.D., was the focus of a public service project by eighth graders from a local middle school. Vandalized markers were restored to their places. Unmarked graves received new white crosses made from lumber donated by the Rosebud Sioux tribe. Students constructed simple crosses, painted names and dates researched by one of their teachers, and placed them on graves just before the traditional Memorial Day family visits.

Nineteen middle and high school students in the Franklin-Hampshire deanery of the Diocese of Western Massachusetts legally skipped the last week of school in June to study on the spot historical sites in Washington, D.C. The National Holocaust Museum was the emotional highlight for many of the young people and their adult escorts, eliciting, one boy wrote, "tears and fears."

Deanery president Peggy Baxter said, "The kids were very insightful." After the visit, she said, a planned 15-minute recap turned into a two-hour debriefing and personal goal-setting. One boy said he would not listen to racial jokes. Another said he was struck by the courage shown by those who resisted. "It was an academic issue until they saw pictures of children. Then they realized they were fortunate to be born in the United States."

One of the "fun" things the kids described was bunking in their host church without electricity for two days, in the aftermath of a tornado.

At least one group of teen travelers experienced a political awakening. A youth delegation from the Diocese of Olympia was invited to attend a youth conference in their companion Diocese of Jerusalem. Nine young people, from late teens through early 20s, spent two weeks in the Holy Land, the first week with Holy Family Episcopal Church in Raineh, near Nazareth, and the second at St. George's Cathedral, Jerusalem.

College freshman Erin Wigger is passionate in her empathy for the Palestinians she met. "The real holiness was the people," she said. "They are generous, kind, angry but not bitter. Palestinian Christians are a shrinking minority. Many go to the United States for education, and stay there. But religion is their identity, not just for Sunday!"

During the time the group was in Jerusalem, she said, "We never felt threatened. I'd like to go study there."

Of the many biblical sites the Americans visited, her special place was "the Mount of the Beatitudes. It's gorgeous. Many of the others are pretty commercial. It overlooks the Sea of Galilee. I felt Jesus was really there."