Abraham, Moses, Betty Crocker, and My Grandma

My grandma collected Betty Crocker points and traded them in for spoons. Abraham and Moses would have done the same thing.  She started out doing it for her granddaughters, and then she did it for camp. She was also a sinner—just like Abraham and Moses, and probably Betty Crocker. Many people don’t know it, but she was one of the driving forces behind camp—especially the search for our own camp facility. We had more than one conversation about the promised land, not having our own home, and having to clear everything out on the weekends between weeks of camp. She bought a plaque for a wall at our house that said, “faith is not knowing that the Lord can, it is knowing that he will.” I didn’t argue with her. She never stopped thinking about camp. She scoured the newspapers for real estate listings about land or camps and cut them out and stuck them in her magazine table by her chair—along with the recipes she was going to try out on us before serving them at camp in the summer and the Betty Crocker points. Actually, there were a lot of things in her magazine table. It was like my pockets when I was a kid. We all miss her very much. She didn’t get to see the building of the camp, but she always looked forward to the day it would happen. We were moving some things around in the storage shed and we found her spoons, along with the rest of the flatware she got for when we had our own camp, big boxes of them still wrapped in cellophane.

Hebrews 11:13 All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance…

“Epic.”  
I normally can’t say it without cringing at its overuse. But the cliché fades away as the beauty and scale of the camp building project is allowed to soak in—wave after pounding wave.

Ephesians 3:20
Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen. 

We run a camp for children. By we I mean many of you, by God’s grace, who have served and supported the ministry in years gone by. Do you remember how this all started? The full account starting at the beginning must be written later; my heart is pounding too hard; I cannot calm myself enough to tell you the entire story. I offer a summary that will allow you to understand the 
context and so share in our joy. 

In 1989 we moved to Timber Bay. It was, by far, more beautiful than any other facility we had rented. There were not nearly as many bats in the cabins, they didn’t smell like old skunk, and they had bathrooms and running water! Some of the trails were lit, and the swimming beach did not occur at the bottom of a treacherous hill but was well defined in its own private bay. LWBC ministry thrived in that environment. Children who were not brave enough to walk to the bathroom after dark (or maybe it was their parents) decided this new facility would be an acceptable place to spend a week. Critics said it wasn’t rough enough to be called camp, but our ministry, our calling, and our heart, was for the gospel of Jesus to go forward into the hearts of children. More children came. They loved it, they listened to the gospel, and they told their friends. 


Before long even two weeks was not sufficient to fit the children who were applying. We were limited to about 55 campers and about 20 staff. Two weeks bled into 3 weeks, and still the wait list was growing. After some years of renting Timber Bay they added a lodge. It was big and beautiful, and it accomplished two unforeseen tangible benefits. The children’s general behavior improved significantly. Part of it was because of the extra physical space during gospel meeting and Bible story time. And part of it was the beauty. During the day, after many kids were tired from games and swimming, they would gather in the lodge to talk to counselors and staff. The space was conducive to quiet conversations and sincere questions from timid hearts. The second tangible benefit was the improved quality of counselors. We’ve never had paid staff. All of our staff volunteers a week or more of their summer to come to camp and serve as lifeguards, janitors, cooks, nurses, and every other role in camp life and ministry. With more family friendly spaces, and temporarily, more sleeping quarters, good staff weren’t forced to sacrifice half of their annual vacation time away from their families in order to serve. 

The ministry exploded. We went to 80 campers and 40 staff per week, but the waiting list was outpacing our ability to increase slots. We went to 4 weeks, and Timber Bay informed us that we were maxed out. After all, it was their camp facility, and they had their own programs to run. Made sense. We started replacing young families with younger unmarried staff because we couldn’t spare the space. It was a hard decision. Stories about families who had been trying to get their kids into camp and families who couldn’t afford other camps kept pouring in. We started looking for camp property to buy. Actually, we had anticipated the situation for years, and had continued looking for our own facility after arriving at Timber Bay, but then we really stepped up the game. We looked everywhere—all the while listening to counselors about the features they thought would improve the ministry. Most camps that were for sale were in shambles. The buildings would have to be torn down and rebuilt, but the price tag didn’t reflect that. Few had swimming places that kids would tolerate, let-­‐alone desire. Many of the camps had

neighbors packed in on both sides—not offering the feeling of wilderness that emphasizes the wonder of creation. We heard from a log-­‐home-­‐builder that there might be some land coming to market soon on Deer Lake in Itasca County, Minnesota. We were skeptical because we knew Deer Lake had excellent natural beaches and beautiful water—a feature that usually meant we could never afford it—even though we knew the children would absolutely love it. The realtor arranged a showing. It was 280 acres (actually 250+ depending on the method of surveying). We thought, “there’s no way this will work out,” but we were praying. Many of you were praying too. 

When my parents were shown the property they were blown away by the beauty and fitness of the property for a camp. The asking price was significantly lower than we thought it would be—well below market value at the time—but still more than we thought we could afford. We put in an even lower offer, thinking it would just be flat rejected. They counter offered which gave us a 30-day window to pray more. We did, and the Lord provided the funds we needed. On September 30th, 2000 we closed on the property. We were speechless. It was impossible, but we now had a huge property with over one half mile of lakeshore on a pristine lake in northern Minnesota. Things were going amazingly well, but we were naïve regarding the posture of local politicians and the political climate we were about to encounter. 

We applied for all the permissions to build the camp, and at the first county meeting my parents showed up, bright eyed and bushytailed, ready to answer questions. Somebody in the zoning office had prepped them: “include your wildest dreams when you present what you want to do at the meeting.” Until that point we had mostly just thought of something like Timber Bay, except we were going to have more, and smaller units. They were going to be spread over about 15 acres. It was like a trap. They tore into us with accusations about the environment. A guy even wrote a letter in that said, “We are against any such plan 101%...most importantly they would be allowed to bring up poor disadvantaged inner city people. In other words, possible delinquents and people with criminal records.” Someone said they thought we were actually the Radisson Hotel posing as a children’s camp. They made so many accusations we couldn’t keep up. It spread like wildfire. 

That was the beginning of a 14 year battle for everything. 

We were in court all the time. It was hard. But slowly we began winning the contests. After countless county meetings and local court hearings, 8 trips to the Minnesota Court of Appeals and one trip to the Minnesota Supreme Court, we won. It was so long, and so unpopular . . . We were looking, and some of us were praying, for an exit strategy, but because of the political nature (not to mention spiritual, which is the topic of an entirely separate chapter) we could not talk about it. And anyway, there were none to be found that our conscience would allow. Many people didn’t and may not ever understand this. During the process we had ruthless enemies. They were working to make life difficult for everyone who would not join their cause. In the beginning they started by calling people at the school where my dad was a teacher—trying to dig up anything that could be used against him politically. They didn’t find anything. One commissioner, in particular, went out of her way to bring county employees under scrutiny and tried to force them out of their careers. The court finally censored her from the process. Many of these same people who were being attacked because they refused to pervert justice were praying for us. Many more local members of the community were praying for us, and they told us they were watching to see what the Lord would do. At no time did our family have peace about quitting—given the circumstances at the time and the testimony that was at stake—we knew it would be wrong. 

Waking up from war has been slow, but the Lord has not been quiet. In the past year much has been happening. It has been hard to tell you everything. For the first months we were a bit gun-­shy. We didn’t want to make too much public about what stages of building or planning we were at because we thought perhaps the opposition would try to find some way to interfere. Now the building is in full swing, and we cannot contain what the Lord is doing. If you want your heart to explode, let this soak in and come and stand under the timbers. See this work. It is real. If the Lord leads you, then become part of it. This work is the Lord’s. It is so far beyond us; it cannot be any other way. 

1Chronicles 16:8-­9 "Give thanks to the Lord, call on his name; make known among the nations what he has done. Sing to him, sing praise to him; tell of all his wonderful acts. 

P.S. My mom has one other addition. “Please continue to pray for me and Ron since we are both still suffering from PTSD...” she said with a chuckle. When I told her I included her chuckle she said, “it’s not funny.” Then I read that to her and she said, “you see, I can’t say anything without the danger of being quoted,” and she was laughing really hard along with everyone in the room. I didn’t tell her about that last part, but she’s going to find out soon. 

Sincerely, by God’s grace, Ryan E. Hunt 

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