You Can Always Come Home

In the pursuit of mission, I’ve moved around a lot as an adult. To be perfectly honest, I haven’t found a place since Mom and Dad’s house that I felt was mine — a place I could call home.

If you find yourself longing for home, you’re in some pretty good company. It says in the Book of Hebrews that the Progenitors of our Faith were looking for a better country — a home with God — and “they only saw [it] and welcomed [it] from a distance, admitting that they were foreigners and strangers on earth” (Hebrews 11:13).

That’s what makes Camp’s Homecoming Festival so sweet to me. It’s the one time of the year that we welcome the whole family of Camp here at the same time. And from the first hug to the last car horn good-bye, we’re all home. That’s a precious thing to people called to be strangers and aliens wandering the world for the sake of Jesus.

This year, coming home was an awesome time: We’re still counting but we know at least 250 members of the Camp family came! Gifts are still coming in, but praise God that we raised about $50,000 with the $20k matching grant from a NYC donor! This is such a demonstration of the faith we have in God’s work among us and the belief we have in each other!

But for me, as great as these things are, the greatest thing that happened at Homecoming this year occurred as we honored Ken Bontrager for his 33 years of service. Every person who spoke talked about the impact of the whole Bontrager family and how their willingness to open their lives made us feel at home at Camp. As this was shared, the Bontragers — especially the kids, now grown — came to feel that Camp is a place they too can continue to call home.

This is huge. When someone puts their life’s work into something and then is called by God to walk away, they need to know wherever they wander, they can always come back and they will find the same warmth and welcome they have invested. Camp will be home for them — and for everyone who worked together to make this place that “better country” we’re all looking for.

Please join us in praising God for all he did at Homecoming! Join us in blessing the Bontrager family in their next adventures. Pray also that Camp will grow as a place that can be home to many because Jesus is here.

We’d also like to ask for your prayers for a very special matter: Though Camp has been a home to many, not everyone who has been here and invested deeply feel at home here today. Camp is not a perfect place and the people here are not yet perfected by Christ. In the next few months we’re going to make a special effort to seek reconciliation with some who have been hurt by Camp and no longer feel welcome. We want them to feel at home with us again. Please keep this in prayer. We need humility, compassion, and courage.