God is at work, and lives are changed for Him and forever transformed.

How has God used Men-O-Lan to transform your life?

As God continues to be the same mighty  God of the Bible, we are blessed to know how He is working, so others may be encouraged by how He has worked in the lives of His own.

Posted Feb. 4, 2009 

Whenever I feel “lost” in my walk with the Lord I try to take time to slow down and remember what I call “God things”. Those moments in life that you can look back on and say that it all happened because of God. It had His fingerprints all over it. I have had several “God things” in my life, starting at the moment of my birth. One significant “God thing” that ranks near the top of my list is Camp Men-O-Lan. Men-O-Lan as many like to call it became a “God thing” for me beginning in the Summer of 1998. 
It was a rainy April Saturday in ’98 when I found myself driving north from where I live to a place in Quakertown, Bucks County, to interview for a position to be on summer staff at Men-O-Lan. I had heard of Quakertown, Bucks County but I had never heard of Camp Men-O-Lan. I still don’t know even today how I got the phone number to camp but somehow I did. Just a week before my Saturday day trip I had called the camp to ask about a position, thinking that there probably weren’t any openings. To my surprise there were, and the director at the time invited me to come and interview. After the interview I remember thinking that I probably would not be hired, I had no real reason why, other than it was my frame of mind at that point in life to think the worse. To my surprise and according to God’s will I was hired!
To understand my reasons for not expecting anything I have to tell you my back-story. Before coming to Men-O-Lan I had spent a year and a half looking for a job with no success. I had graduated from college with a teaching degree and was not having any luck landing a job. I had also spent part of the summer before, working on the mission field in Mexico but did not feel that I was to go back. In addition there were several other disappointments in my life at the time. So I had come to the point in my walk where I believed in God but I questioned how much he cared about the details of my life.  My choice to work at a summer camp originally was out of pure selfish motives. I had grown up going to summer camp (not Men-O-Lan) and I had always known it to be a place for me where “things made sense”. So in the spring of ’98 I started looking for a summer camp to work in, thinking it would be a “safe” place to work and possibly, hopefully, figure some things out. 
Camp Men-O-Lan ended up not only becoming a “safe” place for me spiritually as I wrestled through many questions but it became my second home. After showing up late for the first day of staff orientation (a tornado struck the school that I was subbing in) and feeling so out of place because everyone seemed to know each other, God took hold of my hand and began the slow process to recapture my heart for His glory. The first summer I worked as Craft Director and when I wasn’t teaching a class or helping in some other way I spent my time just observing and listening and watching how real the Lord was in the lives of those I was working with. I wrestled with a lot of questions in regards to if what I was witnessing was real or not; genuine or fake. Like I said I had just spent several months slipping into a mindset of unbelievable doubt and mediocrity. So, during the days of my first summer at Men-O-Lan I became a background observer. I blended in, didn’t make much of anything, yet I took in everything. Every morning I would take walks through the woods or sit at the lake.  I would talk to the Lord (and many times cry) just trying to figure out how what I had come from fits into what I was experiencing. And every morning God faithfully met with me and gently showed me that I needed to let go of the past year and a half, allow his blood to wash it clean, and look ahead to what was real – HIM. It was like I was a child who was holding a broken toy, crying for God to fix it. Instead, the Lord came and unwrapped my hands, took the brokenness and he didn’t just fix it, he replaced it with life that was better than anything I had ever experienced! 
The summer of 1998 ended and so I thought my experience of camp was over too. However, in God’s sovereignty, it was just the beginning. He called me back to work at Men-O-Lan for another seven summers. Each summer built on the first. Each year I could see myself grow and gain understanding in ways that were/are amazing. Each summer I have grown to know the voice of the Lord so intimately and yet I still don’t know much of anything. There are many, many, times when I am working in my classroom (Yes, I eventually did get a teaching job) that I am instantly taken back to camp in my mind and reminded of a lesson learned, a truth gained, a longing fulfilled, and I simply thank my Father in Heaven. The ministry of Men-O-Lan is with me everyday!
 The summer of 2005 was my last summer to be on actual staff but as those who have been to camp know “its in the blood” and I can’t keep myself away completely.  You will still see me visiting or volunteering from time to time. And just about everyday you will see me walking the trails of camp if not physically, than in my mind’s eye, talking to the Lord having Him show me one more time how real He is in a world that many times does not make sense. This real walk I have with the Lord is all because of “A Place Where People Meet the Master” allowing me to declare “…That I may KNOW HIM” (Phil 3:10). Amen.

-Mary

This post will be designated to testimonies from camp alumni on how God has used camp to change their life.

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 31st, 2008 at 6:40 pm and is filed under Welcome. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.