Page 46 - Senior Link Magazine Winter 2017- Online Magazine
P. 46
HONORING SENIORS
The Church Camp
Connection
by Greg Layton
any of the boys to sleep due to the have some spending money through
excitement, not to mention the fact the week. They received check books
that the old truck bed didn’t have a for those accounts upon arrival,
soft spot ANYWHERE! They pulled along with instruction on how to
through the gates at Camp Christy use them. Don and his brother Bob
This is the account of two around noon the following day. each had $1.50 to spend at the camp
different summer church camps It was hot and dry, the grass was store, which was mostly exhausted
nearly eighty years apart. brown, and the ground was rocky on frozen candy bars!
One belongs to my Papaw, Don
Layton, and the other my daughter, The days at church
Madeline Layton. Don shared his camp were comprised of
memories with us this summer after afternoon crafts and sports
hearing about and seeing pictures activities, such as pick-up
of his great granddaughter’s church games of baseball. One
camp experience. It was the contrast of the baseball fields was
of these stories that created the pretty primitive, with third
inspiration for this article. base being a big flat rock.
There was also a small lake
The summer evening was hot, and nearby where the boys
there was excitement in the air as went swimming a few
Charlie Warren’s open-bed milk times during the week. The
truck bustled down the road. The boys looked forward to
roar of the engine was frequently the evening services which
interrupted by bursts of laughter, were taught by a variety
as a group of thirteen boys giggled, of pastors from the boys’
wrestled, and pillow fought in churches. The crowning
the back of the truck on their way point of the camp for Don
to Camp Christy, a Baptist Royal was when his own pastor,
Ambassador camp near Scott City, Reverend J.E. Dollar, was
Kansas. It was the summer of 1938, the main speaker. Each
and it was the highlight of that and dusty…but it was wonderful, night a couple of boys had come
year for most of these boys, as they because their adventure was forward and surrendered their lives
headed away from home on a great underway! to Jesus, but on the last night, when
adventure. Reverend Dollar spoke, 12 boys,
Each of the campers had to come including Don and Bob, responded
The 11-day experience began up with $8 in order to be able to to the altar call, as the congregation
following the evening service at make the trip. In those days, that sang “Have Thine Own Way.”
the Baptist church in Wellsville, was an enormous amount of money,
Kansas, because traveling at night especially for boys who lived in the On the final afternoon, all the
meant cooler temperatures. The old country, like Don and his brother Wellsville boys loaded back up in
truck bounced its rowdy cargo for Bob. The camp had made deposits the milk truck and headed east. In
14 hours, straight through the night. in an account for each boy with a spite of being tired, each boy wore
Don recalls how hard it was for portion of their camp dues, so they’d a grin that reflected the sheer joy
46 Lubbock Senior Link
