Executive Director Don Johnson will occasionally post reflections as he travels to Lutheran Outdoor Ministry sites. Here is his latest entry from his travels on October 7, 2015:
Wednesday, October 7, dawned on an absolutely beautiful fall day in Northcentral Pennsylvania. What a beautiful day to drive through the rolling hills and farmlands on my way to Camp Mount Luther near Mifflinburg, PA.
It was a great day to be at Mount Luther. There were about 125 students from one of the local school districts who were there for a few days of environmental education. All of the buildings and grounds appeared to be in tip-top condition. The sun was shining bright and warm on this beautiful corner of the world.
The executive director is a person well known throughout the Lutheran outdoor ministry world. Chad Hershberger, in addition to everything he does at Mount Luther, also teaches communication at a local college, is a husband and parent of two pre-schoolers, and serves as the webmaster (one of four part-time contract positions) for LOM! Webmaster is a title, but in reality Chad does way more than the title might imply on behalf of all of us who are part of LOM.
So the visit to Mount Luther gave me an opportunity to share in some of the good feelings of this great outdoor ministry site, discuss some LOM business with Chad, meet Linda Aurand, the office manager, and Tom Watters, the site manager, and get some home-made cookies fresh out of the oven from the new hospitality manager at Mount Luther, Toni Gessner. It was a great way to start the day.
For my next stop, I headed south and for much of the drive it was along the Susquehanna River. I pulled into Camp Nawakwa in the early afternoon for my visit with Mike Youse, executive director of the Lutheran Camping Corporation of Central Pennsylvania. This organization owns and operates Camp Nawakwa, the site of my visit; Camp Kirchenwald; and the Wittel Farm, a small retreat house. Mike serves as the camp director at Kirchenwald in addition to being the executive director of the corporation, and the Nawakwa camp director is Marianne Brock, the corporation’s associate executive director. Marianne was busy leading a retreat group on this day, so I didn’t get an opportunity to see her, but I had a great extended conversation with Mike as we sat in rocking chairs on the office porch enjoying every one of the unseasonably warm 80 degrees on this October afternoon.
Both Mike and Marianne have been very involved in the Lutheran outdoor ministry network over the years. Marianne has been particularly well known throughout LOM because of her work on the Education Committee and this year serving as the co-dean (with Mary Stutz) of the upcoming Leadership Training Event.
My conversation with Mike served to remind me how powerfully the programs of Nawakwa and Kirchenwald impact on the lives of so many children and people of all ages, and this has been going on for almost 100 years now.
My final visit of the day was with Dr. Gil Waldkoenig at the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Gettysburg (LTSG). Gil is working on a course that he will offer as an intensive during the early part of January, 2017. It will be a three credit MDiv course, some of which will be done online and the intensive portion being done in the context of a 5-day retreat at Camp Nawakwa. This is going to be excellent exposure for LOM among those who are preparing for serving in the public ministry of the ELCA. I am grateful to Gil for inviting us into his time of planning for the course. It’s collaboration like this that I hope will continue to get stronger and more frequent as LOM continues to develop as a resource for the whole church.
Wednesday, October 7, dawned on an absolutely beautiful fall day in Northcentral Pennsylvania. What a beautiful day to drive through the rolling hills and farmlands on my way to Camp Mount Luther near Mifflinburg, PA.
It was a great day to be at Mount Luther. There were about 125 students from one of the local school districts who were there for a few days of environmental education. All of the buildings and grounds appeared to be in tip-top condition. The sun was shining bright and warm on this beautiful corner of the world.
The executive director is a person well known throughout the Lutheran outdoor ministry world. Chad Hershberger, in addition to everything he does at Mount Luther, also teaches communication at a local college, is a husband and parent of two pre-schoolers, and serves as the webmaster (one of four part-time contract positions) for LOM! Webmaster is a title, but in reality Chad does way more than the title might imply on behalf of all of us who are part of LOM.
So the visit to Mount Luther gave me an opportunity to share in some of the good feelings of this great outdoor ministry site, discuss some LOM business with Chad, meet Linda Aurand, the office manager, and Tom Watters, the site manager, and get some home-made cookies fresh out of the oven from the new hospitality manager at Mount Luther, Toni Gessner. It was a great way to start the day.
For my next stop, I headed south and for much of the drive it was along the Susquehanna River. I pulled into Camp Nawakwa in the early afternoon for my visit with Mike Youse, executive director of the Lutheran Camping Corporation of Central Pennsylvania. This organization owns and operates Camp Nawakwa, the site of my visit; Camp Kirchenwald; and the Wittel Farm, a small retreat house. Mike serves as the camp director at Kirchenwald in addition to being the executive director of the corporation, and the Nawakwa camp director is Marianne Brock, the corporation’s associate executive director. Marianne was busy leading a retreat group on this day, so I didn’t get an opportunity to see her, but I had a great extended conversation with Mike as we sat in rocking chairs on the office porch enjoying every one of the unseasonably warm 80 degrees on this October afternoon.
Both Mike and Marianne have been very involved in the Lutheran outdoor ministry network over the years. Marianne has been particularly well known throughout LOM because of her work on the Education Committee and this year serving as the co-dean (with Mary Stutz) of the upcoming Leadership Training Event.
My conversation with Mike served to remind me how powerfully the programs of Nawakwa and Kirchenwald impact on the lives of so many children and people of all ages, and this has been going on for almost 100 years now.
My final visit of the day was with Dr. Gil Waldkoenig at the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Gettysburg (LTSG). Gil is working on a course that he will offer as an intensive during the early part of January, 2017. It will be a three credit MDiv course, some of which will be done online and the intensive portion being done in the context of a 5-day retreat at Camp Nawakwa. This is going to be excellent exposure for LOM among those who are preparing for serving in the public ministry of the ELCA. I am grateful to Gil for inviting us into his time of planning for the course. It’s collaboration like this that I hope will continue to get stronger and more frequent as LOM continues to develop as a resource for the whole church.