Camp Sychar

Two weeks ago, after Mildred's memorial service, Aunt Sandy took me by Camp Sychar, the church camp that she and Uncle Don and at one ponit Grandma and Grandpa had been going to for years. It was just a mile and a half northeast of downtown Mt Vernon, where the memorial service, and on the way into town from the gas station, hospital, and motel where we'd spent time in December and the nursing home where Mildred and Warren had lived. I had stopped by there once when I lived with Grandma and Grandpa when they were up there - where they went for several days or a week each summer. This is an old-fashioned camp meeting/church camp, with cute old cabins, a big sanctuary (apparently somewhat modern - we didn't get to pick inside), that runs for a week. Gradually Sandy has gotten her daughters involved - plus many of her children through Don are involved. One part of the history I knew: it was in protest against a proposed move from a rival Holiness/Methodist camp south of Columbus - Stoutsville, where Stephanie went growing up, to Sychar - that got Stephanie briefly on the Washington Avenue administrative board (like the Presbyterian session). But Sandy told me more: she and her sisters started coming to Sychar when Sandy was eight - this was a Christian oasis - and apparently Grandma also came - but not regularly until she married Grandpa. It's a very old (150 years old, in fact) church camp, and the master early 20th-century preacher Billy Sunday, has preached in the tabernacle. Sandy and Uncle Don in fact met - in between key visits by me to central Ohio - at Sychar. They now run the book store among other things. Sandy also pointed out to me the place where Sandy and Don were lifting stuff and she hurt her back/neck badly. Little cabins at Sychar cost like $10,000 - plus sweat equity - and you can pass them down to family members. I guess both of Sandy's daughters and their families have cabins there (?) - but old kids stay in big group kids-only dorms. At least on a cool early August day, the place did have a peaceful feeling - holy ground, as Sandy said. June left soon, but Don and Grandpa waited as Sandy showed me around. The camp is now across the street from a city water park, but it is less high-tech. I think that's one side of the bookstore pictured below, but Sandy showed me that later.



Below is one of the little road that leads past the cabins and other buildings.

Sandy showed me Don and Sandy's house. Lots of wood paneling thoughout most of the houses - just like up in Vincent's room in St. Matthews.

The houses have "front" doors on both sides - I believe this is one to their house (below).

We walked up the hill.

I think this is Robin's house that Stan (her soon to ex) and Don's sons helped finish (below).

Below, I took a picture through the window of the big boys' dorm room. Notice it's not a conventional dorm room in that no one has their own rooms. Some of these big dorms reminded me a ski dorm that Darra and I and some of her friends stayed in in the Adirondacks one winter night before going out cross-country skiing.

Below is another big building with some dorm space and some rooms for single adults

Sandy's daughter Lori and Robin, it turns out, are very involved in the children's ministries - kind of like Children's Fellowship (which Stephanie and I may just help out with this year) - but for two whole weeks - and Lori is also an artist as she painted the walls of rooms in this relatively new space for children (below).

Below is Sandy in the bookstore, for which she helps do the books, ordering, inventory control, marketing, etc. She gave me a Camp Sychar mug. (Next door was a buildilng with something linking it to the Oriental Missionary Society, which figured prominently in my stewardship talk last fall.) She obviously hoped I might come back, even for a while, some summer. I believe that I ate lunch (or dinner?) with Grandpa (and Grandma? - maybe 10 years ago - on the day I came up - and sat in their cabin. I don't think I went to a service or Bible study class. But I may have been there for only a couple of hours. Sychar is obviously a very important part of Sandy and Don's lives, and has an interesting history - intertwined with that of my family - and I was happy that she shared it with me - even though I didn't get on the road (for more meandering then) out of Mt. Vernon until almost 5 p.m. (after getting gas). More on the meandering later.

-- Perry