My grandpa Del moved to Wenatchee from Canada via horse drawn wagon. My grandma Autumn was the daughter of a fast shooting deputy and a southern beauty. And they had a dream…they just didn’t know what it was.
They raised their family and reached retirement and the world was wide open with possibilities. Del came to know the Lord in his fifties and both he and Autumn were burdened with the idea that they were supposed to do something specific with the property they owned up on Blewett Pass, something for God. So she talked to her youngest son (my Dad) who was a Bible collage student at the time, and they began to pray.
For three days they quietly stood before the Lord, seeking answers and a face for this invisible dream.
Del was a milkman. At work that day he was on his knees putting away merchandise. A man strolled by and said, “What are you praying about?” Del was struck by the question because while he was on his knees because he was working, he had also been praying. Specifically, about what to do about retirement and that property up on Blewett Pass. And there, on his knees at work, accused of praying on the job, he received an answer.
Autumn and Greg were still wondering what to do and praying. Del came home from work and he strolled up to Autumn and said: “You know what I’d really like to do with that property?” He did not know of her prayers on that very subject, and so she held her breath and wondered what he would say.
“I think we should start a Christian Youth Camp.”
And thus Camas Meadows Bible Camp was born.
The first camp was in the winter of 1973. They only had the small lodge which housed about 20-25 people and no electricity, plumbing, or running water. The campers prayed and sang and learned about their Lord by the light of kerosene lanterns. They had to use chilly winter outhouses and Del hauled in water from a nearby spring in big metal milk cans. But it was a beginning, and since the whole crazy thing was the Lord’s idea anyway they figured that He would shuffle out the details.
Now, our capacity is 85 campers. We have two lodges and three extra cabins. When you turn on the faucet actual water in both hot and cold temperatures comes out. Forty years after that first camp, God is still amazing us with His beautiful and ridiculous ways.
My grandparents didn’t get much of a retirement, but they obeyed. I only hope that upon looking back at my legacy, I will have been as faithful.
