Young Presbyterians who enjoy camping and love spending time with friends in their church youth group have an opportunity during 2019 to do both — and help people who are living in poverty while they’re at it.
When you hear about a congregation’s hospitality, you might picture people greeting one another after Sunday services. Or you might picture people chatting around a table in the fellowship hall during a church potluck. Chances are, you wouldn’t picture people delivering dog toys and dish towels to a camper parked in the church’s parking lot.
For diehard fans of acronyms—of which Presbyterians surely have more than their fair share—the Rev. David Gill has mined something of a GEM. Gill, who will retire on January 31 as executive director of Ferncliff Camp and Conference Center, says that throughout his 20-year tenure at the PC(USA)-related camp he has always “looked for things that can be financially self-sustaining for the long haul.”
As Christy Foster stood on a hillside overlooking the Guadalupe River at the Presbyterian Mo-Ranch Assembly, she remembered all at once just how much—and for how long—she had wanted to be in camp and conference ministry.
Rocking peacefully on a porch at Ferncliff Camp and Conference Center—a broad smile across his face—it is impossible to imagine Peter Newbury as the “angry kid” who says that he went to camp at his parents’ insistence against his will.
