Camp is a place that naturally immerses individuals into community with each other. 

Everything is shared. Bathrooms. Common space. Kitchen space. Dining space. Worship space. Simply put, you spend a lot of structured and unstructured time together. And then you add the spiritual bond you develop as you worship, commune, and sit in God’s Word together - needless to say, people can become very close in a short amount of time.

It’s now been almost 15 years since Beth and I met and started dating… at camp!

Here is part of our story (from my perspective, at least).

Beth and I met for the first time in 2003. I was part of a youth ministry team leading a youth event at her church. We remember having a conversation about marching band, even though neither of us remember each other.

We met for the second time at Camp Lutherhaven. ​

Beth had just completed her junior year studying abroad in France. Having travelled from Paris to Chicago and onward to Spokane in less than 72 hours, she was exhausted. I remember glancing over at her as she walked into the room and thinking, “she’s kind of cute”.

The next morning at breakfast, she was wearing a t-shirt from the lock-in. There was something that drew me to her to make the connection. As we were looking out of the Dining Hall window over Lake Coeur d’Alene on a clear sunny morning, we struck up a conversation about where she was from and our possible connection. I was really interested to learn more about who she was, but I didn’t really know if she was interested in me or not.

Neither of us had a whole lot of dating experience, so we didn't know how to “play the game”. We awkwardly and naively proceeded to spend time together. We made “excuses” to hang out when we could while cleaning bathrooms, debriefing the past day in staff meetings, playing music together (she brought her violin to camp and I had my guitar), or spending an hour off doing laundry.

It could have been a coincidence, but I am pretty sure that the rest of our leadership team knew that something was happening because Beth was suspiciously assigned to the program I was leading the second week of camp.

We decorated and hand-wrote letters back and forth to each other and placed them into each other’s camp mailboxes. (Yes, we still have them!).

Then, on one Saturday afternoon, I needed to run an errand to pick up Root Beer for the Camp Store (Trading Post). I asked her to go with me to pick up Thomas Kemper in Coeur d’Alene. We made a side stop for some ice cream on the boardwalk. This is actually a picture from that trip.