When everyone left camp last week my wife and boys decided to take a look at the Allegheny State Park Museum. It is a little hole in the wall museum that barely occupies half a building in the Quaker run area. I did not expect much but I was pleasantly surprised at what it had for displays there. A great deal of what they showed was the history of each camp site in the park and how the park came to be over the years.

In the past with other camp outs we stayed in group camp 5 and this time in group camp 12. Both camps had long histories that were quite interesting. Camp 5 was used originally to help malnourished children by putting them in a place of natural beauty and giving them whole foods to get them back to an ideal weight.

Camp 12 had a long history beginning as a saw mill, then eventually it became a camp for a local athletic association out of Buffalo. However it was best known as being a camp for Jewish kids and its name was Camp Arrowhead. Many who saw the name recall that that was the name of the camp for young kids in our former association too.

One of the most interesting things about the histories of these camps was seeing how Allegheny State Park went from being a saw mill logging area to being a large wilderness for people to better themselves and more importantly those who needed it most. To me that was the most inspiring aspect of them all. Nearly every aspect of the betterment of others has at least one church involved with the hard work to do so.

The betterment of others has been something that has always been a part of the Church under Jesus Christ and should also continue unabated through the current time we have today. The times may have changed and have gotten worse but God has not changed and his love for his people haven’t changed either.

Philipians 2 drives the whole idea:

2 Therefore if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any common sharing in the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, 2 then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind. 3 Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, 4 not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.

5 In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:

6 Who, being in very nature[a]God,

    did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;

 7 rather, he made himself nothing

    by taking the very nature[b]of a servant,

    being made in human likeness.

 8 And being found in appearance as a man,

    he humbled himself

    by becoming obedient to death—

        even death on a cross!

9 Therefore God exalted him to the highest place

    and gave him the name that is above every name,

 10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,

    in heaven and on earth and under the earth,

 11 and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord,

    to the glory of God the Father.

In obedience we are to serve our fellow man. As we go forward in our fellowship I hope that we can meet the needs of the communities around us in the same way. That as we are a light to them they can be drawn to Jesu Christ through our actions.