Posted December 14, 2016 in Around the Synod

At the Nov. 15 Presbytery of Donegal gathering, the presbytery approved a plan for a new future with Camp Donegal and elected a Camp Interim Management Team. The two major developments include:

  1. The presbytery recognizes that it cannot continue to operate Camp DonegaCamp Donegall by itself as the Presbytery of Donegal. Beginning in 2017, Camp Donegal and Krislund Camp and Conference Center will enter a partnership for shared summer camp ministry. Krislund will provide the staff and program for a four-week summer camp season. This will include a new focus on day camp with pickup and dropoff for families looking for quality summer day care. The presbytery will be sending out much more information on this new adventure in the near future.
  2. Due to these changes and financial realities, the Administration Committee has eliminated the position of Camp Director. A part-time site coordinator will be selected in 2017.

Ruling Elder Amy Wade has been the Camp Director for 20 years. Amy has served with grace, determination, creativity and absolute commitment to the ministry of Camp Donegal. She is a living example of the ordination vow to serve with “energy, intelligence, imagination and love.”

In order to show your appreciation for Amy and her ministry, the Camp Interim Management Team invites the sending of cards and letters. All are welcome to send them to Kristen York Gerling, Chair of the Administration Committee and the Interim Team, at 44 Longview Road, Coatesville, PA 19320 for inclusion in a scrapbook. Email greetings for Amy may be sent to Kris’s e-mail, kristen.gerling@gmail.com, for inclusion in the scrapbook as well.

The presbytery is inviting your contribution to a love offering for the Wade Family, which may be sent to Kris Gerling.

Please share your happiest memories of the camp!

This is the history Amy provided for the presbytery of her ministry, and it is shared with you:

I was introduced to Camp Donegal in the mid 1970s. For four summers I spent a week at Camp Donegal as a camper. In 1980 I went back for a week as a counselor. I was there for three summers as the cook during my college years and returned in 1994 as a mission trip leader for a group of senior high youth to Ghana, West Africa. In 1995, while laid off from a job in commercial printing, I returned as the summer camp cook for the summer. In 1996, I was hired as the camp director, a position I have held ever since. That means that I have participated in 31 of the camp’s 58 summers. It would be an accurate statement to say that I love and value the ministry of Camp Donegal. It is at Camp Donegal that I have nurtured and developed my identity in and relationship with Christ, and through Christ have developed relationships with others.

  The details of those years are as follows:

  • Camper for four summers (in the 1970s with Uncle Steve Getty as my first chaplain)
  • Volunteer counselor in 1980 as a high school student 
  • Camp cook for three summers during college (1982-1984), one of those summers as head of staff
  • Mission trip leader in 1994 taking youth from CD to Ghana, West Africa
  • Camp Cook in 1995
  • Camp Director 1996 through 2016
  • Four summers camper, two summers volunteer, 25 summers staff, totaling 31 summers/years of camp — remarkable in that I am only 23.

Over the past 21 summers as Camp Director, Amy has worked with:

  • 400 Summer Staff (27 International Staff)
  • 500 Summer Volunteers
  • 7,000 Summer Campers

The Presbytery of Donegal invites everyone to join with it in giving thanks for the ministry of Amy Wade. Together we pray for her as God’s Call for the next phase of her life and ministry comes to her. And we ask you to join us in prayer for the next phase of God’s call to ministry at Camp Donegal develops as well.