For many children, a week at summer church camp meant a time away from parents. It was a space to be yourself, to connect with friends new and old, to spend a week in the outdoors, kayaking or splashing around in the pool. There might be some religion, like daily Scripture lessons or Wednesday night worship, but that was secondary to the games and crafts held throughout the week.
Today, Debra Hepler announced her retirement as the Executive Director of the Ghost Ranch Education and Retreat Center of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), effective February 1, 2019. Hepler has served as Ghost Ranch’s chief executive since April 2008.
The wildfires raging in parts of California are being described by some state officials as among the most destructive in the state’s history. More than 100,000 acres have been charred by the flames, including over 1,300 structures, mostly homes.
It’s one thing to see or read about the struggles of people living in poverty, stretching every nickel or dime. It’s another to get a true sense of what the daily struggle is like. First Presbyterian Church of Fort Worth, Texas, recently gave young people a small dose of what many low-income residents in their community deal with when it hosted a camp for students in fourth through eighth grades.
“What’s working now?” “What’s in the future?” If you’ve found yourself asking those questions, you’re in good company. Leaders from camp and conference ministries in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America recently grappled with those questions at the Heartland Center, a PC(USA) camp and conference center only 20 minutes north of Kansas City International Airport.
As the world tilts towards chaos and we stare down global uncertainty, it is not the mighty armies that make that make me feel safe. Nor does the knowledge coming out of universities bring me peace. Instead, I take solace in the fact that at this very moment, summer camps are preparing to open for business.
As of January 1, 2017, the Ghost Ranch Education & Retreat Center has transferred its operations from the Presbyterian Mission Agency (PMA) of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) to the National Ghost Ranch Foundation (NGRF). The NGRF, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit corporation established in 1972 exclusively to support Ghost Ranch as a ministry of the PC(USA), has been providing financial, operational and volunteer resources for Ghost Ranch.
If camps are famous as places for roughing it, the tablecloths were an unexpected amenity. “Because you are here at camp, there are tablecloths,” said Doug Walters, Camp Hanover’s executive director, to a dining hall filled with delighted laughter. “There are no tablecloths here in summer.”
When Rick and Kitty Ufford-Chase, co-directors of Stony Point Center—one of three national conference centers of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)—gave their Sept. 15 report to the Finance Committee of the Presbyterian Mission Agency Board (PMAB), their enthusiasm was both palpable and contagious.
