To close on the property in late 2010, the camp also borrowed $200,000.  (The total purchase price was $534,000.)  Our board of directors knew that we could not afford such a mortgage but since the timber on the property had been appraised at $202,000 we borrowed the money. They thought if we cannot raise the money through donations we could have a timber sale and pay off the loan.   Just before we closed, an anonymous donor (even unknown to me) through a fund at the Community Foundation of St. Joseph County made a $100,000 challenge grant for the new land.  I am told the donor made it an all or nothing challenge because, like us, they want to see the property left in its natural state.  In addition to losing the natural beauty that the trees add to the property, we hate the idea of leaving a $100,000 challenge grant on the table.  If we match these funds we will be able to pay off the entire mortgage.  We have until December 31 of this year to do so.

So far $42,000 has been given or pledged toward the challenge. We need your help to do this.  Will you consider a gift to keep this land as it is—trees and all —both for the sake of our kids and ultimately the glory of God?

For more information including pictures of the new land, or if you would like to make a donation, please visit www.raybird.org/land.

Our goal is to use Jesus’ ministry as a model.  He certainly had a ministry to large crowds, the Sermon on the Mount, the feeding of the 5,000, etc.  But He also spent a large amount of time with just the twelve and sometimes only with Peter, James, and John.  After a lot of thinking, reading and praying, we decided to make Winter and Spring Mini Camps by invitation only.  As a result Winter Mini Camp on February 3-5 was much smaller with only 44 campers and it was our best Mini Camp ever.  The kids we invited (after carefully assessing each camper at Fall Mini Camp) were serious about wanting to follow Christ. Almost all of them are at least semi-regularly attending church on their own.  We consider the weekend a huge success and are looking forward to Spring Mini Camp.

This was a very hard decision for us.  At a board meeting we discussed the idea that many of our campers just need time.  They often have a lot of challenges and a lot of hurts and we want to be there for them.  I assured our board of directors that we always will.  Any child will always be able to attend summer camp and any who do their Snail Mail Bible lessons will be able to attend Fall Mini Camp.  After that we will be more selective so that we can teach, encourage, and challenge those who are the most serious about learning to follow Jesus.

The other week I got to talking with a gentleman in his late fifties named Jerry.  I mentioned that I worked at Camp Ray Bird and he smiled.  Turns out he was a camper back in the days of “Uncle George” and “Aunt Pat.”.  I asked him what impact Camp Ray Bird had on him spiritually.  “Profound, “ he paused.  “It had a profound impact on me.”  He went on to tell me about the hurts of his early years that led him to Family and Children’s Center.  He said his relationship with God, spurred on by a local church and Camp Ray Bird, is what has made the difference in his life.  It hasn’t been easy for him.  For a long time he tried to medicate the pain in his life with alcohol.  But for the last 6 years Gerry has been sober and he gives all the credit to the One who saved him, Jesus.

Last month I bumped into a girl who I’ll call April who used to attend camp. I hadn’t seen her for a couple of years and I sometimes wondered what happened to her.  April had a very sweet personality and an unforgettable smile. I do not know the details of her biological family but it was such that she wound up in foster care. She was mistreated by her foster family but by the grace of God has been taken in by her relatives who know Christ and attend a local church.  April has had some behavioral problems while staying with her relatives and was on the verge of getting into some pretty serious trouble. A mutual friend told me that running into me has caused April to remember her time at Camp Ray Bird and therefore ponder her relationship with God.  And now it seems she is starting to make some better choices. Below I have included a poem that she wrote a couple of years ago and mailed in with her Snail Mail Bible correspondence lesson.  I saved it because it revealed that His truth was in her head and His love in her heart.

Of course the stories are not always good.  Many times they are heartbreaking.  Sometimes they are very neutral.  I see a former camper who I’ll call AJ working at a fast food restaurant from time to time .  AJ came to camp for eight summers until he was too old. He and his brother were a handful; it seemed that they were always getting in trouble.  He came by it honestly though.  His dad has been incarcerated the entire time I’ve know him.  A few years ago his mom was shot.  Thankfully she survived.  When I talked with him a few minutes this past fall he was smiling from ear to ear.  He was genuinely glad to see me and I was surprised by that since the trouble he got himself into at camp had often earned him a trip to my office.  When I asked him what was new he said that he recently became a father.  He is only 18 or 19 and not married so I cringed on the inside as I pondered the difficulties that his daughter would likely face growing up.  But I wanted to be positive so I asked him if he was going to stay involved in her life.  He responded, “I’m stepping up. That’s why I got this job.”  So while AJ has already got himself into a challenging situation, I was very encouraged to hear that he at least has a desire to be there for his daughter.  I know on a couple of occasions at camp he learned about God’s plan for the way family is supposed to work.  And maybe—just maybe—AJ has taken some of it to heart.

And that’s what we do.  We show them that there is way to be right with God through faith in Christ.  We also show them that Christ has a way for us to live.  Not because He is trying to take away our fun but because He made us and He knows what’s best for us.  We work hard to love them and show them the Way, all the while thinking about ways we can better do so.  We also pray hard knowing that He is the One who does the real work.

I look for fruit in the lives of our campers too. The last several summer seasons, I have looked forward to our final week of the summer: discipleship week. These kids—33 boys and 41 girls—were invited back by their counselors because they seemed sincere about wanting to follow Jesus. I spent a good amount of time with the boys that week and they were the best group we’ve had since we started doing this special week in 2008. Over the course of the week it became clear that they understood the good news of Jesus Christ in their minds and for some it was obvious in their hearts that they wanted to follow him.

One boy who I’ll call Charles started reading the Bible on his own that week during the mandatory afternoon “horizontal hour.” Since he went home he’s been going to church almost every Sunday.

Another boy who I’ll call Javonte came to discipleship week for the first time even though he has been a camper most summers since he was seven. I remember this because I personally kicked him out that year…and the next… and apologized on his behalf to a volunteer at whose car he had thrown rocks. But this year, he was really different. I bumped into Javonte, currently a foster child, one night after campfire where he learned about some of the ugliness and dysfunction in the lineage of Christ (e.g. Judah, David, Ahaz, Manasseh, Amon) he said, “I have a lot of family problems. But that’s OK because God understands my messed up family.” And the way he said it I was left thinking that God is going to do something with this 12 year old boy.

I wish I could tell you these two campers represent what happens in all 807 campers we see over the summer or at least all of the discipleship week kids. But it isn’t. We will keep working hard, praying hard, and looking for more, but I guess sometimes you just have to be content with the three pears you know about while resting in the knowledge that God is doing things that you don’t know anything about.

I had intended to conclude this article with the above sentence but I was told it was depressing and it was suggested that I share a little more. The past summer and the off season thus far have already been some of our most productive time ever. This fall we have visited most of the campers who attended our discipleship week and have had the privilege to talk with several campers who remain resolved to follow Jesus. We are reminded of His words that the kingdom of God will grow little by little. During the summer we are aware of at least 34 campers who visited a church—some even attended with a parent. A couple of weeks ago I had a chance to speak a mother who has sent all of her kids (those old enough at least!) to Camp Ray Bird. Over the years we’ve had the chance to say hello to her in the registration line and have seen her when we have visited her children at their home. And over the years God has been drawing her. She visited a good church in the city where she felt at home, where she knows her kids (all biracial) will be accepted and where I know she will be loved and taught truth. Her son was a boy who attended our discipleship week. I watch and wait in eager expectation to see what God will do with this woman and her family.

I was not alive in 1965 when Mr. Ray Bird retired at the age of seventy-five. According to my research, the City Rescue Mission, of which Ray Bird was the first director, closed around that time. The City Rescue Mission camp (later renamed Camp Ray Bird) remained open. It does not seem that Mr. Bird had any kind of plan to pass the baton, but thankfully a man by the name of George Phillips (a retired businessman and former Youth For Christ staff member) came along and wanted to run the camp. For a time the City Rescue Mission leased the property to Teen’s Inc. (the name of George Phillips’ organization) but eventually the two boards merged into one. Without George and Pat, Michiana might not have a place like Camp Ray Bird. (To learn more about the Phillips’ years, please visit www.raybird.org/who and watch part 2 of Camp Ray Bird’s historical documentary.)

Even if Mr. Bird did not have a plan to see the work continue, God did. Throughout the Scriptures we read that God’s heart is near the poor and needy. Certainly many of these kids are living in generationally poverty and may themselves continue that cycle. But right now they are just kids who through no fault of their own were born into tough families. God wanted there to be a camp for such kids so He started it through Ray and Ethel Bird and used George and Pat Phillips to continue it.

Many years later the camp still welcomes hundreds of kids each summer. Many have deep hurts and not many reasons to be optimistic about life. When they come they get to enjoy a fun and exciting week. They get three square meals a day. Most of the kids live in cabins in the woods and if they didn’t pay attention well on the drive here they think they are a long way from home. During their week they learn about a God who made them and loves them. They learn about Jesus who came, died, and rose to make right everything that went so wrong in the garden of Eden. The learn about and experience, by watching their counselors and the staff, a different way of living. I would love to tell you that camp forever changes every child who comes through our entrance, but it doesn’t. I do know that for many kids it is an unforgettable experience. I pray that in God’s time they will be able fully process that Camp Ray Bird and all its “Uncle Georges” and “Aunt Pats” were here to point them to Him.

My first call was to a certain person at a bank in town. This bank administers a family foundation that has been very generous to Camp Ray Bird for decades. I was shocked to find out the person, who over the years had become a friend of mine, was no longer working for the bank. My heart sank. Surely we would need the help of this foundation to even have a chance of buying this land. In my mind the contact who had intermediated so many generous donations would also be essential. But I remember thinking of Proverbs 20:7: “Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the LORD our God.” Even though my chariot was no longer employed at the bank, I believed that God could work all this out and moved forward in trust.

I wrote a request to the new contact at the bank, a person whom I have still never met, requesting that she ask the foundation for a gift of $350,000. Sure this foundation had been very generous to Camp Ray Bird in the past, but we had never asked for a gift this large. Unfortunately by this time it was already late July and most of the funds from the foundation had already been dispersed for the year. But the woman at the bank said that she would ask the family to make a personal gift above and beyond their foundation. I was shocked that she was willing to do this. We prayed many times that God would put it on the hearts of these people to give generously.

I did not hear anything from the bank or this family for months, and I did not feel comfortable calling to ask what was happening. In late October I did receive an email from the bank in which our contact wrote: “I am hopeful that I will be able to give you good news.” We continued to pray. Sometimes I would sit on the yurt deck and pray with my hands outstretched east towards the new land. I embarked on many prayer walks and jogs along the property line (along the lines of Joshua and Jericho) in hopes that God would work a miracle through the generosity of this foundation. In the meantime, another foundation awarded us a $100,000 grant towards the land purchase. Needless to say I was crushed when just days before the November 15th deadline, the bank representative said that the foundation would be giving us zip, zero, zilch, nothing toward this endeavor. When I heard this news on my voicemail I felt sick to my stomach and wanted to cry. The dream had died.

After sitting in my office with my head in my hands for several minutes, I called the sellers and told them we would not be able to buy their land. The hope I had been holding onto for all these years was gone. It was hard to think about anything else over the weekend.

On Sunday evening that same weekend, I received a call from one of the sellers requesting that we meet to talk the next day. In my mind I was shouting, “There ain’t no point!” but with my mouth I politely agreed. By Monday someone had stepped forward and pledged $90,000. So in our meeting the sellers asked, “Do you think you can get the rest of the money by December 15th (the deadline for closing according to our purchase agreement)?” I think I responded, “I’ll kill myself trying.”

The scary thing now was that we needed another $90,000 to close assuming we took out a $200,000 mortgage. So I wrote some letters, laid hands over them in prayer, and mailed them out just before Thanksgiving. The first week of December I had to do what I hate most: call up these donors who had received letters and ask if they intended to give. Almost everyone I spoke with was supportive. Many sacrificial gifts were made including $400 from a person whose car had recently died. When I asked if he really wanted to make the gift, being that he needed to buy a another car, he responded, “There’s always public transportation.” After all the calls were done, it seemed we would be about $15,000 short. But remember the family foundation that decided not to give? Well, they sent us an unexpected check for $17,500 with no explanation. And really, none was needed. I knew exactly what do with it.

There were still many things that had to come together. There were problems with the bank we were planning to borrow money from (even though we had been talking for months). As December 15th drew near this bank informed me that it was not likely that we would be able to get final approval on the loan until after Christmas. This presented a huge problem. The sellers were very clear that if we were not able to close by December 15th the deal might very well be off for several complicated reasons that I did not fully understand. But God moved again and two friends of the Camp offered to loan all $200,000. An attorney friend of the camp had notes and mortgages drafted for our lenders in an incredibly short time (and at no cost!) so that the we would be able to meet the closing deadline.

A couple of days before the scheduled closing date, the seller’s attorney suggested that we close on December 16th instead. I asked him to put in writing that this was OK with the sellers, because too much work had been done to see this go awry. The attorney complied. The funny thing was that this extra day turned out to be essential. Remember the $100,000 grant we were awarded? Well, I didn’t actually receive the check until December 14th. I deposited it to our bank that same day, but it was not available for wire until the next day. I wired it on the 15th so that the funds would be available for the closing the next morning at 10:00 AM.

Even though everything was coming together nicely I struggled with borrowing $200,000. Would the Lord really want us to do that? Our board of directors was comfortable but I was not totally settled. There was a guaranteed way to pay it off; the timber on the land could be harvested and sold for a little over $200,000. But potentially we would have to sacrifice every mature tree on the property. That would be a huge loss. Especially since my plan was to use this land for hiking, rustic camping, and environmental education. Based on Romans 1:20 which states: “For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse,” I believed that such an experience would help in the presentation of the good news of Jesus to our campers. Through a challenge grant of $100,000 made by a donor associated with the Community Foundation of St. Joseph County, God showed me that this was an acceptable path. Because this gift was made prior to closing, I had complete peace as we signed the mortgages.

Last week I found out that the woman at the bank whom I worked with has left, so I will be working with a new person yet again. This would have troubled me eight months ago, but I believe, more than ever, that God is going to take care of this final $100,000. After all, I have learned that for Him it’s merely chump change.

I am ashamed to admit that at times I was faithless and doubted that it could happen. I know from the Bible that God can move mountains. But now I have seen it with my own eyes. I’m so thankful that He is faithful even when we are faithless.

If you feel God is leading you to play a part in this, there is still something you can do. $100,000 is still needed to match the $100,000 challenge grant we have been awarded. Also we would like to replace money borrowed from a fund that was set aside to remodel the lodge. Lastly, please remember that our mission is to share the gospel with our campers and your support is always need to assist us in that endeavor. Thank you to all who prayed and all who gave. Thanks for being part of God’s mountain moving.

.

Each fall we head out to various parts of the city to visit the campers who attended during the summer. We plot them all on a map and then knock on doors saying, “Hi! We’re the Camp Ray Bird people.” There are several reasons we do this which include: keeping in touch with the campers, learning about their home environments, finding out how we can pray for them, and lastly helping them see that following Jesus happens all year long not just at camp.

This fall we have been focusing on having longer visits with the campers that attended our discipleship week of camp. Their counselors had determined that these campers each had a personal relationship with Christ and were desiring to grow in their faith. We want to do all we can to help this process and have been praying for some time for God to show us how we can be more effective in this area.

On one of our first trips out, Mike and I rolled up to a house of a young gal who had been a camper for about 4 consecutive years. She had attended church with Shawn (my husband) and me for a couple months and then quit a few years back and had been inconsistent with her Snail Mail correspondence studies so we had not gotten to know her very well. But something clicked for her this summer. When we arrived on her doorstep (up 3 flights of rickety wooden outside stairs) she was excited to see us. She shared some of why camp had been different for her this summer, her struggle still to be consistent with her Snail Mail (she was behind in her lessons), and tearfully shared about her grandmother’s illness. We talked about why it was important for her to keep talking to and getting to know Jesus more during the year. Coincidentally she was also the first person to hear that Bekah (our long time cook and friend) had gone into labor and we were going to be heading next to the hospital!

The following week I got a note from her with her Snail Mail giving us a new address. Her family had moved the previous weekend. Over the next several weeks she worked to get caught up with her lessons so that she could attend our Fall Mini Camp. It came down to the last lesson on the last day and  if we used the normal mail routes she would not make it. So on Saturday I drove over to see her and her mom at their new place. Again I got a chance to sit and visit and tell her how proud I was that she had worked to get finished and that I really wanted her to be able to come to Fall Mini Camp.

She did finish and made it to the Mini Camp. On Sunday when the campers had gone home her counselor said “Destiny (not her real name) told me that she was very special to you guys. That you guys had come to see her and helped her finish her lessons so she could come for the weekend.” Truly, she is special to us, like many campers. It takes so many “touches” throughout the year to help the campers see that Jesus lives in their real world, that He wants to be involved with them daily. From our visits, counselors sending out birthday cards and notes, being able to come back for Mini Camps, as well as continuing to build relationships with their summer counselors and full time staff, we slowly see some campers taking hold of real faith.

So pray as we head out, knock on doors, and say, “Hi! We’re the Camp Ray Bird people,” that we would be able to encourage campers to take hold of their faith in a practical way and walk with Jesus.