Background

During my fifth year in college at Valparaiso University ('92-'93), I was struggling with the idea of what I wanted to do after I was done with college.  I really didn't have any concrete ideas of what I wanted to do.  I figured I'd just "go with the flow" and see what happened (much to the chagrin of my mother).

In the early part of 1993, I sent in an application to Lutheran Youth Encounter -- a music ministry of the Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod.  LYE consisted a several "teams" of people who toured the U.S. and the world doing concerts, leading church services, ministry, etc. for a period of about nine months to a year.  During my last year of school, five of us from Valparaiso University applied to be a part of LYE.
 

May 1993

Graduation came and went, and I still didn't know if I was going to be on an LYE team.  So I decided to move into my fraternity house until I could find out more news.

Living in my fraternity house was just fine.  I had enough money to keep me going for a while, but not so much that I could go on indefinitely without a job.

As the end of May approached, my money started to get a bit tighter, and I was getting anxious as to what I would be doing.  Every time I had called LYE in the previous couple months, I was told that they were really busy, and hadn't reached a decision yet on my application.
 

Friday, 28 May 1993

Needless to say, I was disappointed.  I had really wanted to go on an LYE team for a year -- not to mention I was the only person of the five from Valparaiso who applied that didn't get in.

So now I knew that I'd need to find a job for the summer and to get on with my life.  However, before I could do that, I had a wedding to go to that weekend.
 

Saturday, 29 May 1993

Many of the people at the wedding were from Valpo, and some of them knew about my LYE application.  I was at least able to tell them I wasn't going.  At that point I wasn't 100% sure if I was going to stay in Valpo for the summer.
 

Sunday, 30 May 1993

Well that got a ball rolling of sorts.  Sean had worked at a camp in IL for the past couple summers, but that summer he was going somewhere else that I hadn't heard of.  Sean said that he thought his old camp might need a couple of people, so he said he'd call up there, talk to one of the Valpo people that were there, and see what he could do.  I said sure... go ahead... let's see what happens -- not really thinking that anything would come of it.

I returned to Valpo on Sunday afternoon and started to come up with a game plan.  I figured since Monday was still a holiday (Memorial Day) I would start to go job hunting on Tuesday.
 

Monday, 31 May 1993

Monday nite I talked to Mark, a fellow fraternity brother and Valpo student, who was working at Sean's old camp in IL.  He wasn't sure if there were any positions available at his camp, but he said he would see what he could find out and call me back in a day or so. 

Still... I didn't have a lot of hope about it.  I knew that most camps would be starting their seasons soon, and it was a little unreal to expect something to happen.
 

Tuesday, 1 June 1993

After I woke up, got my shower, got dressed, etc., I wandered downstairs.  As I walked by the bulletin board by the house phone, I noticed a piece of paper there with a message for me.  The note read:

"Skip -- call Dean Nelson about a camp job. (419) 864-xxxx."

First off, it was hard to read the message because it was scribbled in blue marker, so I had a heck of a time just trying to decipher it.  Next -- "Dean Nelson"?  It sounded like something academic, like the dean of a college.  And that area code... 419?  Where the heck was that??

So I trotted back up to my trusty computer and fired up an area-code lookup program I had (please... no comments about using my computer to look up an area code... have you ever tried to find a phone book in a fraternity house?? I rest my case...).  I punched in "419" and the program came up with "Toledo; Sandusky; northwestern Ohio".  Hmmm...... Ohio..... Ohio..... why would a camp in Ohio be calling me?

I'm not sure how long it took, but at some point the Clue Train finally ran me over.  Ohio.... camp.... Ohio... camp... SEAN!  I finally remembered that Sean had gone to some camp in Ohio.  He must have given them my name and they had called me.

So I placed the call to Dean.

We talked on the phone for almost an hour.  Dean was the assistant director of Lutheran Memorial Camp, located just north of Columbus, OH.  He had been given my name by Sean.  They were in need of male counselors for the summer season, and he wanted to know if I was interested.  He asked a lot of things about my background, different experiences in my life, how I felt about working at a camp - it was basically a mini-interview via phone.

The big catch was that the training would be starting that Friday -- only three days away -- not much time to prepare.  Dean said he'd give me a day to think about it all, and that he'd call me back Wednesday morning.

My mind raced like crazy.  I couldn't believe this was happening, and from just one flippant remark I had made two days before!  There was so much to consider -- Where would I all put my stuff?  What would I need?  What about the plans I had made for the summer already?  How would I let people know?  Was I really qualified for this kind of job?  But I knew I wanted to do it.  It just felt right -- it HAD to be right.
 

Wednesday, 2 June 1993

So I gave Dean my answer of "yes!", and upped the ante a bit -- I would get there a day early (Thursday) so that I could fill out applications and stuff, and get familiar with the camp.  Dean said that would be great.  I asked him to have Sean call me because I had no idea how to prepare for a summer at camp.

Once I got Sean on the phone I had to harass him.  Jokingly of course.  I had never though he would take me at my word of wanting to work at a camp.  Sean gave me the run-down of the place, and advised me on the types of things I should bring to camp for the summer.

The rest of Wednesday turned into a day from hell.  I spent most of the day packing up and storing my stuff in the fraternity house, making a ton of phone calls, shopping for things I needed, and packing what I would need for the summer at camp.  It was a pretty crazy day, but I was excited about the whole prospect of being a camp counselor for the summer.

Later that nite, Mark finally called me back.  His camp had some available jobs, and he wanted to know if I was interested!  I had to laugh -- now I had TWO camps that wanted me.  Well, I had to turn Mark down.  He seemed kinda miffed, but I told him I really didn't have a choice.  LMC had called me and made a job offer already, and I couldn't wait to find out if Mark would have a job to offer me or not.
 

Thursday, 3 June 1993

Later that evening I arrived at LMC and thus began my adventure as a camp counselor.

Even more ironic -- while I had arrived at LMC "early" so that I could fill out paperwork and the like, I never completely filled out and turned in my application until the END of the summer.  It had become a running joke that I had never applied to work there, and it just kinda went from there.

To this day, I'm still amazed at this whole story and chain of events.  It led to one of the most exciting chapters in my life -- my two summers as a counselor at Lutheran Memorial Camp.