It was April 1st, at about 2:30 AM, when we drove up the Camp Fireside driveway, and to our new home....the Infirmary!! "Welcome Home", Dad had said....You've Got to be kidding! We all stumbled out of the car, along with our 2 dogs, and into the Infirmary. Back then there were wood floors made out of who knows what, but it was splinter city, there was no furniture except for 3 wooden chairs in the kitchen around this little table, there were 3 bedrooms, none had doors, just curtain type doors, the beds were huge antique hospital beds, which eventually turned out to be rather cool once we figured out how to crank them up and down, and there was only one bathroom that worked with a little shower....April Fool's right??? Wrong! It was real, we were staying here, this was going to be "home", for who knows how long! We had barely anything, a single suitcase each for personal belongings and clothes, and that was it, not much money, not really any food... I remember going to bed that night thinking at the ripe old age of 9yrs old, "Why are we here?" It turned out that we would stay there for 6 years, the BEST 6 years of my life! The stories I could tell you, the memories, the staff we had that became my "family", camp became my "home", actually it became my "life"! I loved it!
In July of 1994, my family and I headed up to camp for the last time to say goodbye to the staff, our "family" for the past 6 yrs, but the new director wouldn't even stop the staff meeting for us to say goodbye to anyone! So we left, never to see any of them again, without saying goodbye, there was no closure, just hurt that after 6yrs it ended like that. I didn't really keep in touch with many that I left behind in New England, but wondered how they were, when memories would pop into my head in the months and years that followed.
Sometimes God brings your life full-circle, which is really weird I might add! Just over 10 yrs later, in 2004, God brought me back to Fireside for the summer. I had no idea why really, besides the fact that jobs in BC were scarce and we really had no other place to live! I remember the first night I was back, and walking around the prperty, it pretty much looked the same as it did when I left so long ago, but everything else had changed dramatically, and it broke my heart! I remember sitting in the field that night looking up at the stars, and I just cried! I had never felt more alone then I did that night! There was nobody on staff that I knew, but there were people on the Board that I knew from years ago...that was crazy seeing them again. It was a difficult summer for me in alot of ways, challenging, heatbreaking, but a good one as well. But throughtout it, I kept wondering "God, why have you brought me back, if this is how it's going to be?" It was the day before I was to leave and head back to Canada, and I was walking through the woods, on the paths I'd walked so many times as a kid. I knew them like the back of my hand. They were where I had used to go to be alone. I remember that day walking up to the bluffs, and sitting there for what seemed like hours, then walking back and sitting down by the firebowl, listening to the water, the wind in the trees, remembering the past, the memories of this place, how I grew up here, the people I met, the friends I had, and I began to cry. I realized that this was it, the time had come to close this chapter of my life now, and move on. That was a hard day, but it felt like what I needed to do.
Will I forget anything of those years spent there? Not a Chance! In a sense I became the person I am because of that place! I found there my love for people, for ministry, friendships that will last a lifetime (thanks to Facebook I have reconnected with alot of them!)! So you see, what I, along with my other family members, thought was an "April Fools Gag"....turned out to be the biggest blessing anyone could have given me!
