I confess, this is the post I've procrastinated on. Not because I didn't want to write it, per say, but because I wanted to do justice to a place that means so incredibly much to me for almost 30 years and for so many other amazing friends I'd probably not have been privileged to have in my tribe otherwise. I thought, maybe, if a little time passed that I'd be able to do it without tears. That doesn't appear to be the case, so here goes.
Camp has been broken into three separate parcels and sold. The last Saturday in August was the final day for anyone to come and visit it as camp and to select what they wanted from whatever was left behind. A lot of items had already been given to other camps or programs, and that's good, because useful things should be used and not just left behind. It was still a challenge to be there knowing it would be for the last time. It's been such a touchstone in my life, a great place to reconnect with people I love, and a phenomenal place to connect with our creator. I still can't wrap my head and heart around not being back there, ever.
I can't understate how much I value the friendships I've made there throughout the years. Many of the people in our wedding, including the pastor, are folks we met at camp. The bonds that you form while working with others who are also sunburned, mosquito bitten, tired, hungry, cold, and wet are real. I've never been in the service, but I can easily see how those other people can become like brothers simply because of what I've lived at camp. Many hands does make light work. Laughter makes memories. When people love each other and work together to show other people that love, it shows. I definitely would not be who I am today without the time I've spent at camp, as a camper and a staff member and a volunteer.
One more thing: out of respect to so many of those who didn't want to mar their wonderful camp memories with seeing its decline on this final day, I've tried to carefully choose photos that show beauty and God's faithfulness throughout. I did indeed take others, but these are the ones worth sharing. I regret very much not taking more pictures of the people.
Westminster Highlands was a Christian camp in the hills of western Pennsylvania. I'd been there a few times for retreats with my high school youth group as our church was part of one of the Presbyteries which supported the camp. It's a few minutes off of I-80 near Emlenton, which means it's not far at all from the Allegheny River, below. The Little Scrubgrass Creek runs through camp and joins the Allegheny. Some of our more adventurous weeks were built around time on the river, like Rocks, Rivers, and Ropes, where campers would canoe, rock climb, and participate on the ropes courses and their myriad of trust building games and activities. One of my favorite parts about camp was being in one of the Adirondack cabins, listening to thunderstorms roll down the river valley, crashing and flashing and dumping water all through the woods and making mud.
This is the sign welcoming you to camp. I'd love to know how many campers bounced with excitement in their seats as their vehicle turned off the paved road and proceeded under the sign. That would be a fabulous fun fact!
This is the pond where campers were taught to swamp and re-right their canoes before river trips, where cheerful yellow funbugs were ridden, and where we washed off the very worst of the mud from mud hikes before hitting the showers. I never failed to choose a funbug that would behave perfectly on my way away from shore but then would become completely demented and paddle in circles once I was in the middle of the pond. Some of you are smiling and musing, "user error." I maintain possession.
Off to the left of the photo, out of sight here, was a fire pit with log benches where many a Vespers service was held, singing along to guitars, sharing life experiences, learning that the stories in the Bible involved real people just like us and that as God used them, He can use us. Many s'mores were also roasted and consumed...
Okay, this one specifically is for Dave Kinman. He once informed us something along the lines of he'd never ask us as our boss to do something that wasn't in the Bible. We received instructions at one point to "pull weeds in front of the store. ~Hezekiah 22:12"
Some of you are thinking, "hmm. There is a Hezekiah in the Bible. He was a king, but I don't recall him having his own book." You'd be right. Except that nugget formed a lot of "instructions" given over the years in my life, in my husband's life, now in our kids' lives. Hezekiah has become our "you should do it because I said so" without saying it that way. Is there something that needs done and someone who needs to do it? Give them a verse from Hezekiah. It's much more fun than saying, "because I said so," which tends to sound like your mother and her mother before her and her mother before her, should any of us been sassy enough to talk back and question an instruction in the first place. Throw some "thou shalts" in there too to make it more fun. I believe that was the original: thou shalt pull weeds in front of the store.
Well, nobody has weeded for awhile. But it's a good lesson in first impressions. Registration happened in a myriad of different locations and processes over the years, and the store was often, if not always, open during registration. A tidy storefront reassured parents that, since we took care of our grounds, we could be trusted to look after their children for a week. Metal trash cans with tight-fitting lids kept out critters and limited their ability to strew wrappers and litter everywhere. Plus, if you had a buddy during weed pulling, you ended up working faster and learning more about each other, leading to closer friendships. Large group games such as camper bowling (yes, we used to bowl for campers with an Earth ball back in the day), Sharks and Minnows, Heaven and Tragedy and many others were played in front of the store, and it served as a stage during skit night. It also sold snacks, drinks, camp merchandise, and the all important ice cream treats from Steese's: mint bars and orange buddies come to mind, along with their cult followings.
One of my very favorite parts of camp are the trees. I'll try to suppress my inner Lorax and not go on and on, but the trees. Every season is beautiful at camp. Winter retreats with freezy trees and tons of snow everywhere, high summer with the cicadas singing and everything growing in countless different shades of green, the beauty of moss on rocks deposited by glaciers contrasting with colorful fall leaves, the vibrance of shining leaves after a soaking rain.
Many of you will instantly recognize this trailhead despite it being a bit overgrown. If you cross that bridge and follow the red trail, you come to one of many huge rock formations around camp, which is called Chapel Rock. Wooden benches forming an amphitheater of sorts face an enormous rock face, and a beautiful wooden cross had been erected there as well. Here again Vespers services were held, even in the dark of night during our Owl Patrol weeks where the campers get to experience camp activities at night like night hikes, night swims, cooking over a fire in the dark, star gazing, flashlight tag, and so forth. It's the perfect place to reflect on the unchanging nature of God, how he is our Rock, and how he is the same yesterday, today, and forever.
Sadly, that parcel of camp had already been sold and we were asked to not hike out to say goodbye, hence the lack of pictures. It was hard to be somewhere I knew so well and not be allowed to tramp every trail to all of my favorite spots. I can't be the only one feeling depressed about that aspect, but I can envision Chapel Rock, with its benches perhaps needing some love, the trees crowding in a bit, but the Rock being solid and cool to the touch and unmoving. It's a good anchor. *Insert cloudburst of tears here*
This man, this blessing, (scroll down for picture then come back up, I'll wait) to me is proof that there is no circumstance that God can't and won't use for the good despite the enemy's best efforts to attack us. I'll try to condense, but I'll have to back up.
I've had a BFF since we were both six. Her name is Lisa and she's one of the most wonderful creations God ever made. Of course I'm biased! Anyway, I dragged her along to the sister camp of Westminster Highlands, Camp Lambec, when we were not quite junior high students. It's where I'd fallen in love with camp initially, thanks to my friend Anne who took me when we were old enough in third grade. I never looked back. The dream for Lisa and I was to keep growing up, going to camp every year, and then work there together.
Life being what it is made things a little tougher. We were inseparable, until we weren't. We had a huge fight our senior year. We weren't speaking at prom. We weren't speaking at graduation. Interviews for working at camp were scheduled and I cried in front of my future boss, knowing that if we both worked at Lambec that there'd be no body of Christ while we were harboring so much resentment.
She asked me if I wanted to work at Westminster Highlands. I'd only been there for retreats at that point, and one wild week in the summer of 1993 as a counselor in training for Owl Patrol. During that week, I met Kelly, who would end up being my brother in law. I'd had a good time, a great time, actually, but the dream had been to work at Lambec. It was a tough decision made a little less tough by my options: stay at home and work at Wendy's (which is not bad, I loved that as well, but it certainly wasn't the dream, you see) or go to the Highlands.
I picked the Highlands. I have never regretted it.
I've posted previously about how Kelly was on staff again that summer, waaaay back in 1994, haha, and how one of our staff guys was getting married that summer. We would need to find another guy to take his spot after he went off to live with his new bride. Kelly called back home, week after week, cajoling his next younger brother, Scott, to come work at camp. "I'm not wasting my summer at camp," was the refrain he heard for multiple weeks, and is a line often tossed about to tease him with now.
Eventually, God used Kelly to break Scott down to where he resigned, "fine, I'll come for one week. But that's it!"
He stayed the rest of the summer.
Then he returned in 95, 96, and 97.
We started officially dating in 1997, got engaged that October, and got married first thing in 1999.
During those years, God softened other hearts and used both camps to play a part, which I chuckle about now. Of course he used camp- nothing better to get our attention. A new week was created called Double Exposure. It was to show off, if you will, the best aspects of both camps. Campers would start at one on Sunday, take a bus ride to the other Wednesday where they'd finish the week and get picked up along with all their stuff on Saturday. The Highlands was very rustic and woodsy. Lambec is right on Lake Erie with a beach, a pond, beautiful indoor and outdoor Chapels, and (if I were writing a tourism brochure) quaint cabins. (They're grey now, and have been for years, a fact I'm still salty about as they were dark green where I started going in third grade and I maintain that there are days when the Lake is gray and the sky is gray and if the cabins are gray you're not going to be able to find them, haha. Oh well. I am not in charge of the world.)
Lisa did work at Lambec, also from 94-97. I went with the Double Exposure campers and got to have some tentative conversations with her at Lambec that week. We wrote letters to each other from our separate colleges.
Eventually our relationship was restored to where Lisa was in our wedding and is a wonderful, vital part of my life. I would not be the person I am without her influence on my life. She is one of the best listeners I know, something I need to work on.
So, as Inigo Montoya says, "let me sum up." Had Lisa and I not fought and had ended up both working the dream at Lambec, it's safe to say I would not have met Scott at least until 95 when the staffs from both camps got together for some training. That was only a few days, so likely meeting would have been all that happened. God used what until that point had been the most heart wrenching experience of my life to introduce me to the man who would stand by my side through many moves through four states, three kids, a breast cancer diagnosis and treatment, and all the details of our "real life" these past 21 years.
And our staff guy who got married, "Mot" because there were three Toms on staff that summer, raised a family with his beautiful bride who became a resource for me during my breast cancer journey before she succumbed to another round herself. God, like Gibbs on NCIS ("y'don't waste good"), doesn't waste anything!
I love you, babe. I'm so thankful for you. And I'm glad we could come to "the end of all things (camp)" together.
Robin A, one of the Adirondacks in the Knox side of camp, was the perfect spot for the youngest campers as it was closest to the bathhouse and the dining hall. Each Adirondack was one of a pair, A and B, haha, and they were named for birds: Robin, Lark, Wren, Blue Jay, Eagle, Cardinal. Some weeks of camp packed them all out. That's a lot of kids!
When I started there, that front wall with the screen and the door wasn't there; we had heavy, green, tarp-like curtains that we dragged across at night. It also meant that the campers really needed to heed the rules about no food in the cabin, because there wasn't much between their snacks and a determined raccoon.
I've mentioned the glacier rocks that are prevalent throughout camp. This one is for Leslie, Wren Rock. I always think of her when I think about Wren Rock, though I don't have a concrete reason why. There must have been something she said about it, because I hear it in her voice. Either way, I wish I'd spent more time on it, enjoying the sunlight on the moss and the sun streaming through the trees around it. Such a peaceful spot.
Again with the trees and the leaves on the path. Sorry. I'm a Wood Elf at heart.
See the little yellow tree peeking from down the way?
Having spent an awful lot of time telling campers to stay on the path, I felt a little guilty bajaing around, but I kept hearing a line from "Into the Woods" in my head. A nervous Red Riding Hood frets, "Mother told me to never stray from the path," to which the baker flatly states, "the path has strayed from you."
I was glad that I'd dodged around these flowers instead of brushing against them because of the pollen I figured was in them. I was immensely glad I'd given them a wider berth when I looked closer and saw the ginormous spider who was chilling underneath them! That would have taught me to stray from the path! I can just hear my Gramps laughing at me.
We stopped along the road to the archery hill and I saw a small rustle by my booted feet. I figured spider or small scurrying thing, but was delighted to find a salamander, just out and about doing his thing!
The ferns. Again, sorry, Wood Elf moment. The woods by where we live now don't have ferns, and thus the woods smell completely different than the woods at camp. I miss the ferns so much Scott bought me two for the front porch this year. I love the ferns at camp. Yes, I know they hog the sunlight and won't let other things grow, but man, they are so pretty and woodsy and lush and green. Mmmm. Love them.
Okay, anybody know where this is? *humming theme song to "Jeopardy"* Time's up. I am looking downhill from the left of the Calvin bathhouse, which means that somewhere down there, where the path has unquestionably strayed from us, is Spruce. Spruce was one of the hogans on the Calvin side that served as cabins in my early years at camp. Picture a green tent with metal ribs like a carport and stick a wooden pallet-ish base underneath it. Shove some canvas bunk beds in there and now you're all set. You will spend roughly an eighth of your time in a hogan attempting to fish dropped objects back out of the slats in the floor. Another eighth of your time will be opening and shutting the end flaps, praying for a breeze to rush through so you don't bake to death during FOB (Feet on bunk, flat on back, nap time, you get the idea). The hogans were named after trees: Laurel, Spruce, Oak, Elm, Hemlock. There may still be ribs and/or pallets around for them, but I didn't trip over any on this visit. At any rate, Spruce was the most remote, and I never got to stay there myself, though I have great memories of one of the staff guys bellowing, "SPRUUUUUUUUUUCE" as they scampered down the path to get there.
"All God's children got a place in the choir. Some sing low, some sing higher, some sing out loud on a telephone wire. Some just clap their hands, or paws, or anything they've got, now!"
I have no idea what this heart's story is. Did it drop off of a long ago craft? Did it jump out of someone's Bible? Was it intended to show appreciation to the kitchen staff? I found it outside the dining hall and it made me think of Dumbledore telling Harry how help will always come to those who ask for it. In this case, even though so many of us have cracks in our heart because we can never go back to ramble the trails we love so much, I know that He's got us and he will provide different places for us to teach others about how much he loves us. If he's not doing it through the Highlands anymore, He's just doing it somewhere else.
The other side of the Westminster Highlands sign is no less important. It reads, "to know Christ and to make Him known." That was our purpose in working there just as it's our purpose in life. If we truly know him in our hearts, there's no way his love won't spill out of us and get all over others. Let's get messy!
Yes, this one shows a little of the decay the buildings are experiencing in the Pennsylvania woods. I liked how right next to the decline we have growth. Beauty with the mess. Just like real life.
Part of all of ours hearts will always be here, whether we can be here physically or not. It makes me so sad that our kids can't experience God here the way that we did, but I know that it doesn't mean they won't at all; it will look different for them and that's okay. I'm thankful that I took a chance on something I was unsure about as the friendships and experiences I've had here will last my whole life and I am richer for spending my time in the woods with the bugs and the mud and other people's children. People who camp get it, even if this wasn't their camp. We are a special tribe unto ourselves and I'm thankful for those who have enriched my tribe over the years. Even those who are gone, Skink and Dawn, are not forgotten and played parts in who I am today.
So do your homework, find a reputable camp with its own amazing staff, and let your children experience what they can't get in the same way at home. Don't let them miss out on what can be such a pivotal time in their lives. I can't even tell you how many life skills I learned from camp that serve me well even today.
My last job at camp was kitchen staff, and I loved picking verses to write on the chalkboard on the back porch of the dining hall. I changed it one last time before we left.
No comments:
Post a Comment