A BRIEF HISTORY OF TRAIL TO LIFE CAMP

   In July 1957 Chester Weigle married Carol Morrow.  Their love and marriage is the beginning of Trail To Life Camp.  Chester ("Chet") grew up on a farm south of Greenwich, Ohio and Carol had grown up just north of Greenwich.  Her parents had leased their land to a local businessman who put in a sand and gravel operation.  Carol's dad, Herb Morrow, got to work for this business on his own property.  The sand and gravel business ceased operation not long after Chet and Carol were married and left behind a beautiful 12 acre lake where the sand and gravel had been extracted.   Chet had just completed 3 years at Ohio State majoring in vocational agriculture.  By the spring of 1957 he had come to a crisis of decision and was persuaded by his pastor's wife (Flo Collit) to train for ministry at Grace College and Seminary in Winona Lake, Indiana.  Flo and her husband Robert had been ministering at an independent church in Greenwich for 8 years and had discipled several young people.  By the fall of 1957 several of those young people, including Chet and Carol, were heading off to various Christian colleges.
   While at Grace College Chet and Carol and 2 other couples got the vision for a camp on Carol's parents' property at the north end of the 12 acre lake.   I first heard of this plan in the summer of 1958 when I was at Chet's parents' house in Greenwich.  They had just sold their farm and moved into town.  Chet and Carol were home for a few days from Indiana and Chet was sitting at a drawing board sketching the plans and the layout for the camp he envisioned.  The heart of that vision was to reach for Christ kids who could not afford to go to camp in the summer.  That was my introduction to what would become Trail To Life Camp.  The next summer (1959) Chet and Carol came home from college long enough to install two swimming pools near New London to raise money to begin the camp the following summer.   When camp first opened for two weeks in August 1960 there was a kitchen/dining hall that was adequate but not impressive.   The six cabins were made of slab wood with black plastic roofs.  The camp had been advertised by Chet taking a stagecoach pulled by horses to the local schools in the spring.  There was a week of junior camp followed by a week of senior camp.  The first three years of camp had a western/cowboy and Indian theme.  The camp operated entirely by donations and campers were only charged one dollar for insurance.  A Christian man from Elyria "just happened" to come by the camp in those early days.  This resulted in a large number of young people coming from that area in the years ahead.
   I began helping in the summer of 1961 when the number of campers required us to add 6 Indian style teepees to the six cabins.  That year was also the beginning of the Canadian canoe trip for the 10 or so top campers of senior week. In the fall of 1961 Mansfield Christian School opened.  Chet had by then graduated from Grace College and studied 2 years at Grace Seminary.  He agreed to become the first principal of the new Christian school in Mansfield.  This would involve many people, younger and older, from the Mansfield area in the camp in the years ahead.  There was no camp in the summer of 1963.  When camp reopened in 1964 the western theme had been replaced by the military theme which continued until the camp closed in the mid 1980's.  Beginning in '64 the camp was "boys only" for a few years until there were 4 weeks of camp - junior and senior boys; and junior and senior girls.  In 1966 we built better cabins and in 1967 we built the lodge/auditorium.  In the 70's a new and much better kitchen/dining hall and more modern restrooms were built.
   In the spring of 1970 I had a growing concern about the safety of the campers as they canoed and swam on the lake at camp.  It turned out that my concern was probably the Holy Spirit trying to tell me that danger was definitely ahead.  But it did not happen at camp, it happened on the Canadian trip that year.  The entire story is told in Duane Miller's book "Survivor".  This was the greatest tragedy in the 25 year history of the camp.
   Many of you who read this know that my wife Susan is Chet's sister.  We were heavily involved in the camp ministry until our first child was born in 1971.  After that our involvement was very limited.  After the tragedy of 1970 the Canadian trip was replaced with a Pennsylvania mountain trip for a few years.  The top girl campers had been given the Pennsylvania trip all along and that continued until the camp closed.  Eventually, the Canadian trip was resumed for the boys.  Now, everyone on that trip wore life jackets when in a canoe!   Since I had little involvement with the camp from '71 until it closed in the mid 80's I will pass over that era with few details.  Why did the camp close?  By the 80's Christian young people in college had to work all summer to afford college so many of them no longer had time to volunteer to help at the camp as many of us had done in the early days.  Also, even though a small charge was by then made for each camper, finances and inflation were a growing problem.
   Chet was hoping that Mansfield Christian School would take over the camp and operate it as an extension of the school's ministry.  When this did not happen, and no other group or individuals stepped forward to take over the camp as a ministry, the end had come.   In the middle of the school year of '86-'87 Chet resigned from Mansfield Christian School to care for his aging parents.  His mother died in May and in July he and Carol moved to South Carolina to be near Chet's 2 brothers and their families.  Chet's dad, my father-in-law, spent winters in South Carolina with Chet and Carol and lived with Susan and I each summer for six years, until he was unable to travel.  The camp property was sold to a lady who has since allowed it to grow up to weeds and trees.
   Many lives were changed for eternity at that place (and on the outbound trips) and the sacrifices made by Chet and Carol and many others are still bearing fruit for the glory of God.
  

HEALING; FROM A TO Z

   He seemed nervous and slightly agitated.  Then I realized this young Amish father was probably afraid that his church leaders would find out that I, an "English" person, had prayed for his child who was facing surgery.  The "A" in our title stands for Amish.  Many of them believe it is wrong to pray for healing.  The word fatalistic comes close to describing them.  They believe it is a sin to presume upon God.  When Susan and I gave God the credit for a successful morning deer hunting an Amish bishop pointed his finger in my face and said: "don't you be presumptuous!"  When I saw him again seven years later his attitude toward me had softened considerably.  Seven years after that he asked me to pray for safe travel for him and his wife!"  But, nevertheless, the Amish aversion to praying for healing represents one extreme.

   Standing on the opposite extreme is the teaching that quotes "by His wounds I have been healed" and maintains that failure to receive healing is none other that failure to believe and claim this truth.  The "Z" in our title would then stand for zealous.  In some instances these folks may be correct.  There are probably more times than we can count that God stands willing to do for the believer much more than the believer is willing to believe!  It is the attempt to make a universal application of this that is impossible to square with the whole testimony of Scripture. 

   It is at this point that you, the reader, probably think that that I am going to say that the truth lies in the middle of these two extremes.  But I am very reluctant to come across that way.  That could easily sound very arrogant on my part.  The total Scriptural witness on the matter of healing is difficult to place in rigid categories.  There might conceivably be times when it would be wrong to ask for healing.  So the Amish attitude might not always be wrong even if it normally is.  And there are certainly some times when failure to believe God prevents a miracle of healing from taking place.  So the zealous are not always wrong.  We could stop right here and say that we have just seem how utterly dependent we are upon the Holy Spirit to know which Scripture applies to our situation.

   Many thousands of Christians pray for healing with the words "If it be Your Will".  But certainly sometimes that could easily be a pious cover for unbelief or not actually seeking the will of God on how to pray.  Just about any position on healing that a Christian may take can be supported by quoting some passage of Scripture isolated from other passages that bear on the issue.  I started out on this journey by witnessing a group of elders anoint and pray for a young woman who was going blind.  Within a short time she was reading without glasses.  I was only 17 years of age at that time and had never witnessed anything like this.  I had grown up among those who sometime prayed for the sick but with little expectation of anything happening.  Some would build their entire beliefs about healing on one experience like I witnessed.  Others would simply dismiss it as rare and remain unconvinced.  Eventually I drifted into what is known in theology as a cessationist position which is all too common.  This is the belief that miracles and miraculous gifts of the Holy Spirit were only for the Apostles and have ceased to exist.  I came to repent of that attitude, but only very, very slowly.

   When our three children were still very small Susan developed a condition for which she was referred to an orthopedic surgeon who happened to be a Christian.  While we were in his office he called in another surgeon who was also a Christian.  After thoroughly examining Susan they said, "We have done this surgery successfully on a number of persons but we believe that God wants to heal you."  They joined hands with Susan and I and prayed for us.  Within weeks Susan was completely healed of that problem.  In retrospect I cannot understand why my attitude toward healing did not soften and change right then.  But in some inexplicable hardness of the human heart I continued in a generally cessationist mentality for several years. 

   Where do I stand now?  I take seriously the passage in James 5 about anointing and prayer for the sick.  I do not explain it away as many cessationists do.  But I have come to see that the most important factor in that passage is "confess your sins one to another that you may be healed".  I believe that there is an ebb and flow to miracles in history and in locations.  I believe that the most persecuted and impoverished believers are the ones most likely to see miracles, but certainly not the only ones.  I do not believe that the absence of a healing miracle is necessarily a sign of unbelief.  The great Apostle Paul, in his last letter, said "Trophimus have I left at Miletus sick".  He did not agonize over why Trophimus was still sick, he just mentioned it as a fact of life without assigning some great doctrinal significance to it.  I believe that you should be very suspicious of people who urge you to quit receiving a certain medical treatment and "trust God for your healing".  Unless you clearly discern the Holy Spirit telling you to break off a certain medical treatment then you should follow the words of Jesus, "Those who are sick need a physician".  (I have intentionally avoided giving Scripture references in the belief that those who want to seriously pursue this matter will look them up.)

   I believe in praying about sickness in myself and others with thanksgiving.  I thank God that this illness or injury did not take Him by surprise; that He knew it before the world was created; that he permitted it for purposes that will ultimately work for my or your good.  I thank Him that He will give wisdom on what to do about this condition; that I and you do not have to walk in darkness but can have the light of life each step of the way.  I thank Him when I live through a day without any illness or injury.  I pray for people He brings to my mind with a prayer that may go something like this:  "Father, if there is one cancer cell beginning in that person's body please destroy it.  If there is a congenital condition unknown to them, please heal it.  If they are about to be injured, please prevent it."  These are a few examples of how I talk to our Father.

   Some of you reading this know that Susan was diagnosed with malignant lymphoma in December 1988.  Was she miraculously delivered?  Or, was she treated successfully with appropriate therapy?  The answers are "yes" and "yes".  Many, many people have not survived what she had.  She had four reoccurrences of this condition.  It has been five years the last occurrence.  God has taught us much over the last 28 years.  We see clearly how fragile life is.  We are well aware that what James called the "powerful and effective prayers of righteous persons" ascended to heaven on our behalf.  We are more aware than ever that there is no hard and fast doctrine about healing that can replace our total dependence upon the Holy Spirit to show us each step to take and which Scripture most applies to our situation.  (Please feel free to send me a message through social media about this topic or of a need to pray for you.)