GFC Survivors' History

The summer my family arrived at the Farm, Robin Rothaar and Debbie Ankney (now Debbie McKee) began their first session of Kingdom Kampers. Robin and Debbie were long-time friends who taught physically handicapped children in the Mansfield City Schools. Kids who must use wheelchairs or crutches don't get to go to ordinary summer camps, and the two women wanted to give them the camping experience. Inside their non-cooperating bodies, these are still kids. That's difficult for outsiders to see, especially if the affliction interferes with their ability to communicate (cerebral palsy, for example), but the aim was to give them a dose of good outdoor camping fun just like other kids could have. They played games, did arts and crafts projects, went swimming, and had water balloon fights. Of course, all this activity needs a lot of volunteers to help with such things as pushing wheelchairs, and that is how my family got involved. Almost as soon as we were unpacked from the move, my wi...

I haven't given up on this project, even though it's been dormant for about a month. The last few weeks of an academic semester are very time-consuming for a teacher, and I've been grading papers and dealing with all the last-second emergencies that close out a term. I have several ideas for the near future, and one reader has pointed out that a lot of what I've written seems extremely gloomy, so here's a look at what I'm thinking. The 1980s was a very active and interesting time to be at Grace Haven, and looking back I was glad to be there. Because of the diffuse nature of the place, almost nobody got to have a finger in every pie, so my recollections will be very personal and very much conditioned by the fact that I was living on the Farm (and not in town) for most of it. Here are a few topics I hope to cover in the future: The Arts and Grace Haven Arkenstone and Commonlife magazines. Kingdom Kampers Later theological development of the Farm/Church