Forgiving Debts: 2025 Woodcutting Season

When Jesus taught his disciples to pray (Mt 6:9-15), he described two big realities where “thy Kingdom Come, thy will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven” are realized in the human world: First, he said “give us this day our daily bread”, acknowledging that God’s provision for human need is a central way the Kingdom comes. Second, in the realm of relationships, he showed his followers to pray, “forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors” — this is the essential way the redemption of the Kingdom can impact relationships. Prayer without application is like faith without action. It’s the roll of followers of Jesus to find ways to live out this powerful and vital prayer.

The 2025 Woodcutting Season gave us opportunity to receive “daily bread” while “forgiving debts”. Let’s start with the “daily bread”: Heating is a significant necessity, especially for a facility on a windy mountain in the North East. Our volunteer-driven firewood harvest program is a vital provision for our Camp. We burn up to 40 cords of firewood a season to heat several of the buildings here, and the market value of that wood is about $10,000 (based on local pricing). If we purchased an equivalent amount of propane — the main fossil fuel now used at Camp — it would cost us between $26,000-40,000. Due to the generosity of our volunteers, Camp’s cost for firewood is zero — especially since several of the groups of youth and young adults make a donation to cover food and lodging while they are here. Praise God for this amazing gift to the youth, families, and churches of NYC and the thousands of souls who will meet Jesus in this place!

Over the past few seasons our woodcutting has also been an opportunity to “forgive debts” — specifically ecological debts. Whenever we get a benefit and have to address the cost later — this is a debt. When we get a benefit and leave our neighbors, strangers, or future generations to pay the cost — we create the type of sin-debt Jesus is talking about. Sometimes we do this out of intentional selfishness. Sometimes we do this in ignorance of the consequences. While forgiveness can be a spiritual and emotion reality, it has its practical side too. Just as repayment of a financial debt leads to forgiveness — forgiveness of a sin-debt often involves loving repayment in some way.

In the 2023-2024 woodcutting season, the vest majority of the wood harvested was White Ash. The White Ash is subject to a massive die-off due to the Emerald Ash Borer — an invasive beetle likely introduced from China in wooden shipping pallets during the massive globalization of manufacturing during the 1990s. Camp has lost all but three of our Ash trees — with more than 200 harvested for firewood.

This year, we began harvesting different species of trees also killed by an invasive: oak trees from the white oak family. Since 2021, these trees have been under attack from the Spongy Moth (formerly known as Gypsy Moth) with near total defoliation happening in June over the last 3 years. This year, after loosing their leaves and with complications from the summer drought, many thousands of our oak trees died. Again, the Spongy Moth is not native — it was introduced from Asia in the 1869 by Étienne Léopold Trouvelot in an attempt to found a silk-making business in New England — when it failed he release the moths into the wild.

Both of these invasive insects are part of a huge ecological debt against native biodiversity in North America. Hundreds of damaging invasive species impact Camp, and we’re loosing many oaks, spruce, hemlocks, and ash due to these attacks. They represent billions of dollars of lost value in natural resources and damage to lands. They mean future generations will not have the possibility of seeing God’s glory revealed in species driven to extinction by human activity. They are impacting the health of our ecosystems from which our air, food, and water come.

But our woodcutting program pays a little bit back from what these mistakes have taken. As part of our Forestry Stewardship program, we’re working to remove these dead trees — converting them to valuable firewood and useful construction materials — and clearing space for growth of new seedlings and nearby trees. This increases the value of the nearby timber that can later be harvested sustainably to provide resources for future generations of Camp users. As part of our management strategy, we’re carefully monitoring and working to preserve and restore biodiversity in our forest. While many debate the role of firewood in the carbon economy, firewood from a properly managed woodlot like ours can be carbon neutral — though this might not be true of larger wood-fired powerplants. Saving carbon while caring for the forest is a great way to impact the quality of air, water, and soil and the health of humans.

When people come to Camp, we want them to experience Peace through the serenity of God’s creation. When we look at nature, we can see the Kingdom and will of God displayed in the his beautiful and wondrous designs. We can also see the signs of human sin, weakness, and ignorance. Because we are a Community of Christ, we have a role to play in the story of redemption where God’s will meets human sin and pays all our debts.

Special thanks this year to Mercersburg Mennonite Youth and Young Adults who helped us harvest, split, and stack over 24 cords of firewood! Also, returning for the second year was a local team specializing in removing hazard trees in difficult ares — this year led by Connor McNeil. Connor is a Camp staff alumni who first worked trees as part of the logging operations for the “A Time To Build” cabin construction project. Now, Connor owns his own tree trimming business and he hopes soon to grow into a full logging and land development operation. Connor’s crew is an opportunity open to young adults who live around Camp. Over Christmas weekend, we’re expecting Conestoga Mennonite Church to complete our woodcutting year. They have made their annual wood cutting a wintry tradition, often spending a day near New Years in our frosty woods!