A Ribbon Cutting Event

If you have been following my journey you have probably noticed that I occasionally post what I have been doing, things like hobbies that I am relearning, or working on my house. That had been part of my recovery. Unfortunately, this isn’t that. It isn’t something that I have been working on, at least since my stroke. But still, I am going to call this something that I’ve been working on.  It sort of seems appropriate.

Last week I attended a ribbon cutting event for the Lodge at Camp Arev, the building that I was working on when my stroke happened.  Two years in the making, 18 months since my stroke, the Lodge at Camp Arev was dedicated to the Lord. 

It was pretty cool. The worship service, the ribbon cutting, the food, the people, yeah, the people. Most of them I didn’t know, but somehow, they knew of me. It was very encouraging and uplifting.  At the end of the ribbon cutting, they were setting up a photo with people that cut the ribbon. And there was a commotion of some sort behind me, I looked behind me to see someone who I didn’t know, pushing me ahead saying, you need to be in the picture. I tried to resist, to no avail. So, they stopped the photo and squeezed me in. I don’t know, it wasn’t a big deal, but it felt good, more than that, I felt loved.  And I ended up with a three-foot piece of the ribbon.

From top to bottom it was a beautiful day. And on top of that, I drove home. Whoo-hoo! That was the first time I was able to do that. Every time I went back to camp Arev, two hours each way, I had someone drive me. I was planning to drive up and have Suzanne drive me home, but I felt good and two hours later we were home.  Four hours of driving that day was a milestone of sorts. It was a good day.

George Phillips had asked me if I wanted to be a part of the service.  Instead, I decided to write this. It is going to be used in a newsletter. Here it is.

My Life Changing Experience at Camp

I want to tell you what happened to me at camp. It was a pretty big deal, on all accounts, it was a life-changing event. To this day, it is hard to fathom what actually happened to me, but it happened. It happened one day when as a ten-year-old kid, I responded to a call, and I asked Jesus into my heart. There in the mountains, at a little amphitheater, at a camp very similar to Camp Arev, my life changed. To this day, it is hard to fathom what happened to me, but my life changed. My life changed forever. I know that wasn’t what you were expecting.  

They say, if it bleeds it leads.  So, I guess I will tell you what happened to me while I was working at Arev as well. I had a massive stroke. My left cardioid artery is completely blocked. Thankfully it didn’t happen at camp.  It happened early one Sunday morning as I was asleep at home. I was rushed to the emergency room. When I woke up in the ICU, I couldn’t say my name, my left eye was blind, the right side of my body didn’t work very well, and yet, I felt peace. It had to be from God. I still have peace about what happened that day.  I spent a week at the hospital, and was to be discharged to Casa Colina rehab hospital, but because my physical recovery was better than expected they decided to send me home. Since then, I’ve been working on my recovery. One step at a time.

What happened with my stroke will affect me for the rest of my life. But what happened to me at that camp as a kid changed my life forever.  Not for the rest of my life, but forever.  

This is how I ended up working at Camp Arev. 

I was planning to end my building career working on camps. Actually, it wasn’t a plan, more like a desire, a desire of my heart. After a life of building beautiful houses, something that I loved to do, I wanted to do something more impactful, you know, something that matters for eternity. I wanted to go out doing something important. 

Christian camping has been part of my life for as long as I can recall. Currently, I am part of the board of Mile High Pines Camp. And we are planning to build a new camp for special needs campers on adjacent property. We were beginning to embark on a building project that would take a decade of my life, which was about how much time I figured I had in the tank. I wanted it to happen, I wanted to end my career by building a camp.  Unfortunately, some regulatory hurdles and the pandemic put the brakes on that project. 

At the time, I was wrapping up a beautiful house for a client, George Phillips. When we met, we would discuss the job, but usually we would end up talking about camp. George the newly elected chairman of the board of Camp Arev and me, a member of the board at Mile High Pine Camp. So, we talked shop, and we talked camp. It seemed appropriate when Geoge asked me to be involved with the remodel of the lodge. 

Honestly, I was not sure I wanted to be involved in the job, two hours each way from my house, actually three hours with traffic. But that desire in my heart to do something impactful won the day. It was agreed that I would supervise the building of the lodge, living in a cabin a couple of days a week at the camp. And another contractor named Kalem Kazarian would be the contractor. It wasn’t technically a partnership; I was working for Kalem as a subcontractor. But it felt like a partnership, and it was working well, at least from my perspective.

Then came February 7, 2021, and that partnership rather abruptly ended with the stroke.  It was four months before I felt good enough to make it up to the camp.  My tools were still there, my clothes were sitting in the dresser, my pillow was sitting on the bed. Everything had stopped for me. In the meantime, Kalem was left holding the bag.  And a lot of what was in the “bag” resided in my brain, or what was left of it. Since then, a lot has happened at camp. Kalem shouldered the burden I had hoped to share, and finished the job, something we are celebrating today. And a lot has happened to me as well. It has been an amazing journey.  A journey with God through a stroke. Actually, it is a journey that started 54 years ago at a camp. A camp like Arev.   

So, I guess the desires of my heart happened. My building career ended with the Lodge at Camp Arev. It was a good run, with a cherry on top.  

We are celebrating a ribbon cutting for a new building.  But it is more than that, it is a ribbon cutting celebration for hundreds of kids and adults whose lives will become new through the ministry of Camp Arev. It is so impactful. It matters so much. It is something worth celebrating.