Why blog?

Why a camp blog?  We are treating it like an online public diary, and this is our first offering.

Our title, Camp Happens, comes from Connie Wolfe, who brought the phrase to us.  Connie was the Director at El Camino Pines for long enough to know that Camp does Happen!  It happened when she was a child watching the camp get built, it happened a decade ago, it still happens today.

Camp Happens when a camper, all at once realizes that God’s love is real, and profoundly personal.  Camp Happens when 30 inches of snow falls in 24 hours.  Camp Happens when a stranger calls, offering to anonymously pay for summer camp for two kids from her church.  Camp Happens when cash flow is short, and an unexpected donation ’appears’ just in time to meet payroll.  Camp Happens when a bear empties the dumpster three nights in a row.

These are the stories that root us deeper in our faith,

and remind us that regardless of the bazillion things going wrong…

God is working ALL things together for GOOD. 

Camp Happens because God makes our journey into an adventure.  The hours are long, the facilities are old, the forest is wild, the weather is unpredictable…  but it all works together for GOODNESS.  God makes it this way.

Recently, a camper opined that camp was probably better than heaven.  Obviously, he had a great experience, but the staff was amused, because it was one of those weeks where everything that could go wrong, did go wrong.  The toilets acted up.  The furnace kept shutting off.  Three vehicles went to the shop.  All the while, the campers were experiencing the Mountain Top.  And it made me wonder… maybe heaven is not a perfect place… where everything works all the time.  Maybe heaven is a place where everyone agrees to work together, for the sake of GOODNESS, because that’s what God does.

Camp Happens because God is happening…  working all things together for GOOD.  In and of themselves, all things are not GOOD.  But God can work all things together for good.  This online public diary will be filled with stories that testify to the great Christian truth, that God is working, in each of us, simultaneously, for GOOD.  Everything else is just a distraction.

- Pastor Glen Egertson

Lutheran Pastor in the ELCA

Executive Director of Lutheran Retreats, Camps and Conferences (LRCC) of Southern California

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