Jerrie M.

"Camping has touched my life in so many ways over the years, but never more so than my first trip to camp.

I was eleven years old and was scared to death. See, we grew up with the song 'Hello Mother, Hello Father...here I am at Camp...somethin' or another.' I had heard older kids tell about the ghost of an indian princess who wandered around at night looking for her lost love. I heard the stories of the giant rattle snakes that inhabited the hatchery. And the leaders, they all had holes in their eyelids so they would know if you were out of bed in the middle of the night. Let's just say I went in fear and trepidation, knowing I would never again see civilization.

My experience was far different from my fears. I loved swimming, evening programs, the campfire devotions, food, friends and Bible class. The most amazing thing was the people I met there. The one memory that is most real in my mind, some forty years later is seeing the camp leader (who seemed ancient in his mid-thirties) walking across the yard holding his wife's hand. Up to that time I had never seen a man cherish a woman.

My dad left our home for good when I was nine, never contacting us again until we were grown with children of our own. Before he left, there were many loud and physical confrontations between him and my mother.

It was an incredibly freeing thing to realize it was possible for a man to love a woman so much. At that moment I realized this was they way God intended marriage to be - a partnership where two peopel walk side-by-side, in total commitment.

It was increcibly freeing for me, and a moment I reflect on often."