Volunteering at Camp
Charlie and Joyce Martin first learned about Camp Deerpark through their daughter, who volunteered as part of a Sunday School group from Sandy Hill Church when she was about 14 years old. This was in 1969, shortly after camp was purchased. But it wasn’t until several years later, around 1978, when Charlie and Joyce became youth sponsors at Conestoga Mennonite Church in Morgantown, Pennsylvania, that they thought of their daughter’s experience at the camp and decided to take the youth group for a work weekend.
Mercersburg Mennonite churches have sent youth groups for more than 30 years to cut firewood at camp. Hopewell Mennonite youth pose in front of a full wood shed. Charlie is top left and Joyce top right, c. 1986.
When they arrived at camp, Joyce remembered how the youth disappeared into the main house. “The kids were going upstairs, and I didn’t ever see them come down,” Joyce said. “When I asked them later on what was so interesting about it, they answered, ‘Oh, you should see upstairs; there’s all kinds of stairways and stuff!’”
In 1981, Charlie and Joyce began to bring youth from Hopewell Mennonite Church to camp. They had begun attending Hopewell, and thought the new youth group would also enjoy the experience.
The youth groups that Charlie and Joyce brought were always in charge of cutting wood, but the kids didn’t mind the repetition. Even though Charlie and Joyce no longer brought up the youth group from Conestoga Mennonite Church, the church continued to send volunteers to cut wood. (As of 2018, Conestoga Mennonite Church has been to camp to cut wood forc37 years.)
In 1981, Spruce Lodge converted to wood heat. “The kids were excited when they got to see the new furnace for the main house,” Joyce said. “This helped them realize how much wood it actually took to warm the building. The kids felt like, wow, this really made a difference.”
Joyce remembers a rivalry between the two church youth groups about who could cut the most wood. Jim Baer, who lived at camp, had a solution. “Well, I decide who wins,” Jim said. “I can help Hopewell win or I can help Conestoga. It’s easy. I just send one group farther into the woods, and then they don’t get as much done!”
Charlie and Joyce also kept returning to camp because of the connection with the staff and the ministry of camp. Charlie remembers how amazed he was at the year-round staff. “They had a lot of people that gave a tremendous amount of time and commitment, and they had a heart for what God was doing,” he said. “They would come up with ways to keep advancing the program with what little they had.”
“You would realize that some of the campers would come back and be leaders, which really says that camp had an effect on a number of kids and their lives,” Charlie said. “It just felt good to be a part of what was going on there.”
Charlie believes that camp is a relaxing space, even if most of their time at camp is for volunteer work. He worked at camp for a few years, after they stopped taking volunteer groups, as a builder for the staff housing and the new maintenance shed. “I was up long before anybody else,” he said, “and I would see the sun rising and the birds singing. The way that you could sit on the big porch and look down and watch the deer and you could see the sun coming up—compared to the city, it’s such a quiet, peaceful environment.”
Charlie and Joyce got to watch camp grow, both in the number of people served and in the facilities available to guests. They hope that the ministry of camp will continue to be transformative and integrative.
“I think that at Camp Deerpark they really taught you that you can be committed in your faith and walk with the Lord but also can get committed in your lifestyle and how it relates to those around you in a positive way,” Joyce said. The Martins also learned that being able to put your complete trust in faith is a valuable tool.
Charlie added, “There was a time that I would say, ‘Well, Lord, why don’t you just bring a couple of rich guys in here and just pour money in here and let them build their camp!’ Then I realized that camp still needed to maintain a dependency on the Lord, or would they just think, well, finally we’ve arrived and they might lose some of their commitment. Camp should continue to embrace their vision and their trust in God because he’s been faithful in the past. He’ll meet the needs as he sees the need there.”
—Written by Dillon Hershey, Goshen College intern.
Charlie and Joyce Martin, volunteers for over 30 years, former members of the Lancaster banquet planning committee.