Impact Stories: God at work through the ministry of Fortune Lake

Holy Play

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Pr. Alex (right) leads Bible study during staff training.

Originally from Wisconsin, Pastor Alex LaChapelle first encountered outdoor ministry as an elementary kid at Camp LuWiSoMo in Wild Rose, WI. There he and his friends learned the songs, played the games, and encountered the college-age counselors each summer. As a young adult, Pr. Alex worked at several camps out West – from Idaho and Oregon to California – enjoying the different challenges and joys that came with each setting and each new role. When he took the call to Prince of Peace Lutheran in Marquette this past winter, he began looking for ways to connect with and support life-giving outdoor ministry once again. He found Fortune Lake, where he volunteered as Chaplain for staff training and helped teach the summer’s Bible study curriculum.

Pr. Alex admits that at first he questioned whether he had what it took to hang with the young adult staff: “Do I have the energy? Can I still do this?” But, within the first day, it all came back. Camp brought out something that bubbles in his spirit, the capacity for play. Camp is a safe place to let the inner child out, to play in creation, “to revert in a really beautiful way, and let the scales fall off.” Fortune Lake – as it does for so many – offered Pr. Alex a place of safety, joy, and renewal. “Camp’s going to make you more of who you are, part of creation,” he recalls.

Pr. Alex takes this posture of playfulness into his ministry at Prince of Peace. He thinks of children’s sermons as an opportunity for two minutes of camp right there in the middle of a Sunday service. He is convinced that adults can learn from this mini-camp experience too. He believes in camping ministry, for what it can do for the lives and spirits of campers, and for the leadership it fosters among its staff. He says, “Seminary made me aware theologically, but I think I’m the pastor I am because of camp.”

Pr. Alex believes Fortune Lake as having its own unique vibe, perhaps due to its smaller size, or perhaps just being in the UP. “Where else,” he asks, “do we say, ‘let’s do this old Finnish tradition and hop in the sauna?!” At Fortune Lake, where child-like faith and playfulness of spirit meet the U. P.’s laid-back vibe, kids, counselors, and pastors like Alex are renewed every day.

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New Connections, New Perspectives

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Sam (left) and a group of Summer 2022 Staff.

Sam Brink had never been to Fortune Lake before arriving for our Nurturing Wholeness: Young Adult Retreat, but soon found that the place would have a profound impact on his life. Amidst the busy life of a student, Sam was able to take the time to attend the retreat along with other students from his campus ministry group at Northern Michigan University. Throughout the weekend, Sam would find himself in a community of peers that was welcoming, uplifting, and supportive in more ways than one. 

As the weekend pressed on, Sam was enlightened on multiple occasions, an impact that has stayed with him since he left Fortune Lake. He experienced unmitigated and unfiltered joy in the form of favorite camp activities, learned more about the spiritual practice of meditation that has stuck with him into his home life, and was able to see God easily through the people around him, the content of the retreat, and the natural beauty of Fortune Lake. 

Despite knowing folks from his campus ministry group at NMU, the group’s stay at camp was an opportunity to build stronger connections and get to know each other in a more authentic way. Not only that, but he was able to meet and form relationships with others who he had not met before, a particularly gratifying experience given the past few years of global pandemic. After participating in an exercise during closing worship, Sam felt called to extend a hand to and invite conversation with the people in his life he had lost touch with. At camp, he saw the value in vulnerability and opening up to others. Despite apprehensions, any anxieties or doubts that Sam shared during the weekend were met with ungirding faith and support. In his words, the experience reoriented his perspective on relationships, and it has prompted changes in his life since returning home. 

The retreat that Sam attended was our first young adult retreat, and we are happy to say that it continues each winter with the hope of welcoming in and supporting more young adults like Sam. His weekend stay at camp has prompted a continued relationship with this ministry, and we are so grateful for him and his gifts. Fortune Lake offers different blessings to every person who visits. For Sam, it served as an affirmation of his sense of self, his wholeness, and the divine image that we all bear in our daily lives. As we continue to support the mission of Fortune Lake, may that ring true for all who come here. 

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Joyful Immersion

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Isaac Iverson experiences the waters of Fortune Lake for the first time.

A few summers ago, Pr. Joe Iverson watched his then one year-old son Isaac experience a lake for the first time.  Isaac crawled through the wet sand to reach the water’s edge and then relentlessly splashed and sputtered, seemingly fearless, giggling the whole while.  His family was nearby, soaking up Isaac’s pure joy.  Had they not made the commitment to set aside a week of their summer to be at camp, they would have missed this opportunity for renewal through immersion in the faith community – and the waters – of Fortune Lake.

Although Joe’s wife Brianna had attended intergenerational programs with their children for many years, this was the first time Joe was able to come along as a camper.  Like many young families, the Iversons lead a very full life.  Joe serves as a pastor at Zion Lutheran Church in Galesville, WI.  Brianna is Zion’s Youth and Family Ministry Director while also working in the synod office.  Together the two of them parent Mary, Nora, and Isaac.  Their family is very intentional about faith formation, yet like many of us, they struggle to truly be together in the day-to-day busyness of life.  Joe states, “We are with our kids, but we’re often mentally somewhere else: doing housework, or thinking about our jobs.  At camp, we were able to truly be with our kids, to watch their joy as they experienced camp in ways that we remember as being so special to us as kids.”

Joe and Brianna were shaped through camping at other Lutheran Outdoor Ministry sites, both as campers and staff members.  When Joe was assigned to the Northern Great Lakes Synod as a pastor, the growing family quickly claimed Fortune Lake as one of their camp homes.  We’re so glad they did!  Joe acknowledges that being a camp counselor is probably the best job God ever created.  For him, the next best thing is to be able to share the beauty of God’s creation and immersion in the intentional faith community of camp with his own children.  May we all find those moments of reckless abandon at the water’s edge to sustain us through the busyness of life.

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Walking Together

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Wade with a group of Rocket Campers

Because he has a twin brother, Wade Crevier has seldom been alone.  However, like many campers and staff at Fortune Lake, Wade learned what it meant to truly walk with someone else through the challenges of life through his work at camp.

When Wade and his brother Lance had just graduated from high school, Pr. David Murphy of Good Shepherd Lutheran Church in Peshtigo, WI encouraged them to apply for summer staff at Fortune Lake. It took them a full year to come around to the idea, eventually deciding on a whim to commit to work somewhere that they had only visited once before.  Wade recalls driving to camp that summer thinking, “Oh no. What did we do?”

But it didn’t take long for Wade to feel at home in this new place. He quickly realized that the summer was going to be a lot of fun, and that he could truly be himself at camp.  Although he didn’t yet know how, he found himself thinking that the summer was going to be a game changer.

A couple weeks later, with staff training under his belt, Wade was making his way from the duplexes to the pavilion with some Victory Campers.  The campers were tired from a busy day of activities, and one camper, Rodney, preferred to ride in a wheelchair rather than walk.  His friend was pushing him along through the rugged terrain, and Wade watched in admiration.  Suddenly, the camper pushing the wheelchair looked at Wade and said, “Do you know why I’m pushing Rodney?  Because I love him like I love Jesus.  I’m happy to be pushing him, and I’m happy to be here learning about Jesus.”

In that moment, Wade was caught off guard by the selfless love of a friend.  He felt as if he’d witnessed a glimpse of the kingdom of God in the here and now.

In the years since that impactful moment, Rodney has passed away.  When Wade recalls that trek across the field, he is hopeful that in his final hours, Rodney remembered the love of Jesus and that he had a family at Fortune Lake who loved him dearly.  

Wade leans on that moment – and others like it – as he prepares for his future as a pastor.  He is currently an M. Div. student at Wartburg Seminary.  Wade anticipates many more moments walking with people through the rugged terrain of life.  He hopes that he can walk with them exactly where they are, just as he witnessed two friends walking together across the Fortune Lake field.

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Unexpected Blessings

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Sophie enjoying the summer sun in the Fortune Lake field

For Sophie Carlson, the entire summer at camp was filled with challenges that led to unexpected blessings.  Sophie had recently graduated with her teaching degree.  She had endured the ever-changing landscape of the public schools during a pandemic while struggling to process the outcry due to racial injustice.  She needed a safe place to land, and the Holy Spirit called her back to Fortune Lake. 

Sophie was hired as the Youth Camp Coordinator, a position that involves coordinating the programming for all youth campers and dealing with the unexpected situations that arise.  “Although the leadership team had faith in me,” Sophie says,“ I was freaking out, as it was a bigger position than I had ever had.”  Midway through the summer, we learned that our international staff would not be able to arrive; Sophie was asked to step up into a second position as the Intergenerational Camp Coordinator.  Despite her apprehension, Sophie accepted with poise and grace.

Throughout the summer, Sophie witnessed campers who were grateful just to be with people again.  They were able to find a glimpse of light after a dark time, even if just for a week.  Fortune Lake was a safe space where they were fully welcomed, able to ask questions, and free to experience God’s love for them, exactly as they are.

For Sophie, the unexpected blessings have continued far beyond the summer.  She became close friends with two other staff members who are attending college in the new community where Sophie was hired as a teacher.  Those friendships have carried her through her first semester of teaching.  Her desire to be in a safe space for a season brought her back to this Place of Grace in two unexpected positions, and the blessings are still flowing.

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Trying It Out

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Nathan Bruchman (left) and a team of Summer 2021 Staff gather for a campfire

Nathan Bruchman wasn’t sure what he was going to do for the summer. All of his siblings had attended summer camp at Fortune Lake, so working at camp seemed like something to try.

Nathan described himself as pretty quiet and not very outgoing. He didn’t venture to try new things very often. However, when he arrived at camp, he found a community waiting with open arms to help him break out of his shell.  Everyone on staff was kind and supportive, and he never felt part of an “out group”.

Nearly halfway into the summer, Nathan was feeling like he didn’t really know what he was doing. His confidence needed a boost.  At an end-of-week staff meeting,  a fellow counselor  shared a story about Nathan’s campers that opened his eyes. The staffer had overheard a cabin conversation about how cool Nathan’s campers thought he was, and how impressed they were with his wheelie abilities in his wheelchair. This reminded Nathan that campers look up to staffers and may be affected by “stuff,”  even when one isn’t aware of it.

Reflecting on his summer as a FLLC counselor,  Nathan thinks the lesson that has stuck with him most is trying new things is worth the experience. Though it may not work out exactly the way you’re hoping, there is value in it nonetheless. He is grateful for both the experience of being a leader and having the opportunity to impact those who were campers.  He is thankful for all of the new friendships and connections he established while at camp.

Fortune Lake provides a space where the Holy Spirit can act through community. People are encouraged to get out of their comfort zones, create new relationships, and be appreciated for who they are.   We meet God in a multitude of ways through this ministry, where we all get to try something new. Thinking about trying a summer on Fortune Lake’s Staff like Nathan did? Email campdirector@fortunelake.org to inquire, or visit the Employment section of our webpage for more information.

 

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Making Space for Gratitude

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Liz Grenke-Leach in one of her favorite outdoor settings

Liz Grenke-Leach breathes gratitude and shares it freely. But in her role as a public middle school teacher, she was tired. Recently she had the unique opportunity to share Fortune Lake–this place she has long loved–with the students she serves, and it proved to be exactly what she–and they–needed. 

7th grade is a tumultuous time. There is a lot of developmental change that is hard to understand, and young people and their peers can be hard on themselves and one another. Couple all that with a pandemic, the question of what “normal” school even looks like anymore, and it’s a real challenge. The recent commitment of Liz’s teaching team at Calumet’s Washington Middle School to prioritize school camp helped a group of 7th grade students to get out from the school walls and find their gratitude again.

On the first evening at Fortune Lake, one student was anxious about being away from home. She reached out to Liz,, and Liz invited her to go on a walk through the grounds. Daylight was waning, and they didn’t have a flashlight. Liz reassured her by saying, “Are you okay? I know every foot of these grounds.” The student replied, “I can tell you do.” Together they walked through the dark, together they breathed deeply, together they found calm. Eventually, the student was ready to re-enter the group. Although she and Liz had developed a bedtime plan, she didn’t end up needing it. At the end of the third day, she was so proud to have made it!

The pandemic has shown us that we all sometimes need an opportunity to re-center before we can sincerely re-enter the spaces to which we’ve been called. We all need someone to walk with us, someone who has tread this path before, to tell us it’s going to be okay. Through her experience at camp, Liz was reminded that we need to build time and space for gratitude, for ourselves and for our young people. Fortune Lake provided that opportunity, both for her and for the students she accompanied. Their teachers and our Fortune Lake staff could sense the students’ gratitude as they played field games, cleaned up after meals in the dining hall, learned how to jump off the dock for the first time (yes, even in October!), or learned three-part harmonies around the campfire. Their smiles–and Liz’s–said it all.

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Generations of Grace

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Melissa and her daughter Caroline in front of Emanuel Lodge with the tree they planted in Vicki’s memory.

Melissa Salminen has experienced Fortune Lake as a place of grace, meeting her spirit needs, across the span of her entire life. A former camper, camp counselor, teacher, and now seminary student and mom,  she reflects on her relationship with Fortune Lake with gratitude.                

Melissa remembers, “ I always seemed to get injured in some way during my camp week!”   Attending camp every year since third grade, she thinks these little injuries may have enabled her to take risks she had not been brave enough to take before.   She is grateful for that.

It was her mother, Vicki Baldini, who encouraged Melissa and her brother to attend camp as kids, as Vicki was a camper herself back in the 60s. When Melissa became a counselor during college, her parents began to support the camp even more fervently– her dad helping with upgrades on facilities and her mom quilting with Sisters of the Cloth.   After being away from camp for nearly a decade, Melissa became involved again through that unique community of women who support FLLC by making quilts for the annual quilt auction.

When Vicki passed away, Melissa continued to help with the quilt auction for one more year, wanting to make sure that the tradition of support continued. She had brought her own daughter, Caroline, to Women and Kids week in 2019 and the two were heartbroken in 2020 when camp was shut down. In 2021, Melissa and Caroline returned for an Intergenerational week, and Melissa found what she had always experienced — grace, made especially meaningful in her mom’s absence, to be able to continue this tradition of camp and faith with her own daughter.

Melissa has experienced God’s presence again and again at Fortune Lake, as the Spirit met her where she was:  a curious and exploring camper, a staff person sharing a summer of work, a daughter in grief, or a mother passing on faith.

Just as no one hears a single sermon the same way, no two people experience camp the same way. “And yet, God is there,” Melissa reflects. Melissa is proud that her mom was one of the first Tenacious 200 givers to this ministry, a tradition she and her husband carry on today.                      

“When life gets uncertain and seems to swirl around,”  she says, “there is camp. A community of peace, of grace, a place to just be–a glimpse of the Kingdom to come, here on earth.”

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God’s Faithfulness to All Generations

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Arlo, Christina, and Violet Maki at Intergenerational Camp, Summer 2021

Fortune Lake is a Place of Grace where God’s goodness and faithfulness are felt and passed from generation to generation. Christina (Kenney) Maki has recently returned to have this truth affirmed for her and her family.

Christina first experienced Fortune Lake as a young camper and then went on to work on the summer staff as a high school student. Like many young adults, Christina then drifted away from church and camp. As a mother of young children, she found herself longing for something that was missing, so she started worshiping at Our Saviour’s Lutheran Church in Iron Mountain, MI where her children attended preschool. Later she began working in their church office. As the administrator, she often saw the Fortune Lake flyers and brochures come across her desk. She remembered “the connection that you never lose” to the people at Fortune Lake, and she longed for that experience again, both for herself and her growing children. She wondered if an intergenerational camp might be perfect for them; Arlo was too young to attend on his own, and Violet was nervous about coming to camp for the first time.

For Christina, her family’s time at Fortune Lake turned out to be “the one true vacation I get as a mom.” She is grateful that she doesn’t have to prep or clean up from meals, prepare a packing list (it’s provided!), or think of structured activities for her family to do. She especially appreciates the adult Bible study time, as she finds the material to be accessible, regardless of a person’s experience, and it fills a deeply felt need in her life. Her children love the time they get to spend with the camp staff, playing games, being silly, and experiencing God’s word at their own levels.

Christina knows that the time her family spends with the staff is more than just fun and games. She remembers how much she looked up to the staff when she was a child–people like Ruth Almen, the Rundman family, and Ruth Warmanen–and how their examples guided her own decision making later in life. She trusts that the staff her children are meeting now will continue to be their Christian role models into the future. She especially values the passing on of the teachings of Jesus and the inclusivity of all God’s people, which are manifest daily at Fortune Lake. Christina hopes that one day her children’s aspirations of working at camp will be realized so they might perpetuate the cycle of passing on faith through trusted relationships.

As the Maki family joined their voices in chanting our summer theme verse–“Spell it out loud: L-O-R-D! For the Lord is good; his steadfast love endures forever, and his faithfulness to all generations. Psalm 100, verse 5!”– it was glorious to see the truth of these words reflected on their sun-kissed, happy faces.

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A Place of Grace… and so Much More

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Pr. Ron during his Supported Rental, Summer 2021

Written by Pr. Ron McCallum

They call it a place of grace, this camp on the shores of Fortune Lake near Crystal Falls, Michigan. It is that, for sure: a place where everyone is welcome, a place where everyone can be themselves, a place where the Word is spoken in the actions of staff, in the songs that are sung, and in the things that kids and adults learn here. 

The first thing I noticed when I arrived here was the pristine beauty of this place. The lake is as clear as ice used for sculpture. The grass is beautiful and if you are here on a day when they mow, the smell reminds one of days gone by when people in the neighborhood all mowed at the same time. The surrounding forests are amazing and in them, on one of many trails, I saw deer, a small snake, chipmunks, many butterflies, and trees of many species. Just the pine smell alone as I walked was intoxicating.

I came to Fortune Lake telling people I wanted the time to write some things I had been planning to write. But, as I moved from day to day, something else happened. Call it renewal or rejuvenation or cleansing or catharsis or whatever. Those descriptions just don’t seem to be complete enough, strong enough, just right. What I felt was spiritual in the best sense of that word. It was a reconnection with self, a reclamation of my own waning faith, a new direction with God, and a personal calm that I have not felt in a long time.

2020 was a difficult year for me. At times I felt lost and alone. Other times I was beat down and felt great grief and loss. Where was God leading me? Was God leading me? Where was God’s sustaining love? Why didn’t I feel it?

At this place of grace, I discovered that what I was missing, what I was lacking in 2020 was the cleansing breath of the Spirit as only God can give. It was here waiting for me all along. From the cool morning breezes to the bright red sunsets, from the deer jumping out on the trail to the beautiful monarch butterflies flying almost everywhere at the camp, from the friendly waves of staff and visitors to the deeper conversations, God’s spirit reached in and lifted my spirit.

I thank this place of grace for working its magic. I will return and will continue to tell others that there is indeed grace here and so much more.

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