A little about me:

I first attended Faith Bible Camp as a seven year old while my parents were on furlough from their missionary work in Jos, Nigeria. We attended Checkrow Community Church, and I wanted to come to camp. Back then the age limit was nine years old. However, because I had already lived a year in boarding school and would not get homesick, the camp approved of me coming to camp early. (If I had waited until I was nine I would be back in Africa and unable to attend camp.)

As much as possible since then I have been a regular part of the ministry of Faith Bible Camp. Throughout high school I was a Junior Counselor; during college I was a Counselor; and after college I would take a week of vacation from work and direct the Junior I week of camp. On weekends I would often come down and volunteer with others in helping to winterize the camp and get it ready for going year around. It was a blessing for all of us when Sam and Robin came on staff as the new and first Camp family. When Sam and Robin moved to Indiana to start a new work there, I found it to be an easy decision to come back to Faith Bible Camp as the full time director.

After initially meeting with the camp board, I think we all felt that my background and goals for where I saw the camp going were quite similar. I had a bachelor's degree from Western Illinois University in Outdoor Recreation and Environmental Education, I had also gone back and received a master's degree from W.I.U. in Recreation and Park Administration with an emphasis in camp administration. I had worked at several camps around the midwest and knew the camping ministry pretty well. In college I had worked for the Rockford Park District's summer camping program. I had worked at Wheaton College's camp, Honey Rock Camp, in the northwoods of Wisconin. And I had been the program director at Spring Hill Camps in Michigan for a year when I first finished graduate school.

However, for the past 11 years I was working in Wheaton, Illinois for the DuPage County government. I initially worked for 8 years in the Human Services Department as the manager of the federally funded Weatherization Program. I then changed jobs to work in the Human Resources Department as a Personnel Analyst working with the 18th Judicial Circuit Court and the Department of Environmental Concerns. Just two months before coming down the Faith Bible Camp, I had just accepted a job in the Environmental Concerns Department working in facilities management. SoÉwith those experiences under my belt, both the camp board and I felt that I should be the next director out here at FBC.

What I see as the camp's ministry:

While working in Wheaton, I had the opportunity to change companies several times with other job offers. But, I felt that God had placed me in the county government there and that he was blessing my work there. One of the classes I taught to managers in the government was on goal setting and knowing what you really want when you end this life and how the job you do fits into that picture. Well, Faith Bible Camp is the heart and soul of what I would call my passion.

I have worked at two of the countries largest and most popular camps, but I didn't stay. I had a great job in Wheaton that most people would die for, but I didn't stay. What pulled me away from all of the "good stuff" I had in my life was what was the "better stuff" that was happening here at Faith Bible Camp.

My vision for Faith Bible Camp is that God will use the camp in the same way that he uses the local church in people's lives. My hope and prayer is that the members of your church and all of the other conference churches will use FBC as a ministry tool to reach our world for Christ and also for us to build each other up and grow closer to God ourselves.

Nice new facilities are great and are a blessing, but fixing up what we have and making them nice is good too. There is so much potential here with what we already have. My hearts desire is really to simply see this placed used much, much more than it already is. I would like to see this place be the meeting ground where the local church bodies from each of our congregations can build each other up and encourage one another in Christ's love.

As time progresses we will probably include some new facilities or program ideas, like the wonderful missions trip program to Romania. But, the heart and soul of FBC will forever and always be: learning to love God with all of our heart, body and soul and learning to love our neighbors as ourselves. That's what I see as the bottom line and all of my efforts will be geared towards that goal.