Family Kamp Campground

Some years back my husband got an idea to have a campground on our land. We were going to call it "Family Kamp Campground." I envisioned the kind of campground I liked to visit when I was a kid, some swings, a big sand box with toys, volley ball, a nature trail with signs naming the trees and plants, a small tower at the end with interesting things we have found on our land, a camp fire where everyone could gather in the evening to tell tall tales and sing songs, a small shelter with information on places to visit in the area. Running water would come from a picture pump, one civilized toilet for the little ones who were afraid they may fall in that dark hole. No electric, electricity means television, radios, light so people can stay up late and miss the morning sun. No RV's, one does not leave home when they have brought it with. No road to mess up the place but a portage to the campsite. The kind of campground where a family that works together, learns how to stay together.

We were told by the small business center you are not on a lake, to get people to come you would need a pool, you need electric and no one would stay without a shower. You need RV's because that was where the money came from. You have to have a road for an ambulance if needed.

Where was the road when we camped in the boundary canoe waters for three weeks at a time when I was a kid? Where was the store when we ran out of food for two days because we did not catch any fish? There was no electric when the fire went out you hit the tent and woke early. There is no feeling like sprinting from the tent at the crack of dawn and hitting the water, the smell of frying fish, dried potatoes, and trail mix. By 7:00 you were at the paddle and couldn't wait to see what was around the next bend. My brother was eighteen months old when he took his first canoe trip. Our campground was for the overnighters who were on the way to places like these. The kind of place where a fifteen year old and her thirteen year old sister can climb to the top of a cliff watch the most glorious sunset they will ever encounter, scramble back down before darkness engulfs the land and head back across the lake toward the welcoming light of the home camp fire. Where you could portage and paddle for three weeks and not see a single building or another human being. Where civilization was a century away.

When I discovered that the plans I envisioned for our campground were not the plans of society my heart left the project. So, what became of the campground? Town meetings, upset neighbors, a visit to our land by about fifteen cars of people storming in trying to be polite-as it was still our land. Who was there? Commissioners, persons from Brainerd and Baxter showed up although we are unorganized territory. One neighbor showed up to raise cain, he now has a go-cart track on 371 and is considering letting a Manards move in and destroy his land. Baxter did not like the idea; this is a residential area. They raised concerns about increased traffic. Strange I thought we were zoned agricultural. The speed signs say 40 mph, residential is 30. Since the stoplights have gone up the Woida road has become a major thoroughfare with cars that travel around 50 mph. It is hardly residential. With the commercial spree encroaching on every side one wonders what happened to those who raised concerns about the environment. At the moment, the dozers at the end of the road do not seem to concerned about the habitat. Brainerd spoke of rights and lawyers. But the idea had lost its flavor bound up in red tape and tossed into the mounting pile of dead end dreams.

Over the years, we have been threatened by rumors of annexation. We left Baxter because we did not wish to live there. If we had wanted to live in a commercial area, we would have moved into an apartment in Downtown Brainerd. We wanted land, we have had horses and goats, which defied electric fences and chose the middle of the road most days. We have had chickens, geese, sheep, the list goes on. Between the garden and venison we have survived and dined better than most. We have watched deer, skunks, badger, mink, wolves, muskrats, ducks, Canadian geese, White fronted geese, brown bear, black bear, raccoon, porcupine, blue herons, eagles, falcons, bobcat, hawks, beaver, owls, ferrets, wolverine, rabbit, gopher, night hawks, coyotes, beaver, bats, birds from blue bird to scarlet tanagers, snakes, squirrels, teal, wood ducks, mallards, turtles, travel through and live on our land. We were told the campers would chase them out. Each year we see less and less they are being chased out anyway.

One day I watched the UPS truck traveling at approximately 55 mph hit the neighbors' cat that was sunning on the road and continue on as if he did nothing. We have lost two puppies, and innumerable cats. There are about 20 plus kids living around here now. We tell them to be careful. We are not and do not wish to be residential even to the extent of sacrificing our children.

Awhile back we received a letter from the government stating that our cabin up on Boy River was not on our land. They were interested in purchasing our land for a wildlife place. We could resurvey, fuss get a lawyer. We sold them the land for 4000 profit. A couple of years latter we were audited. They took back the 4000 with 900 interest. Interesting. We sold our latest venture C&J Pet Farm to pay off the loan, we took out, to pay the government.

Last summer the neighbors decide to log their land. About ten trees remain on my favorite walking path covered by trees that fell when they dropped them on our land. What does one do? I rent my clothes, I cried, I mourned, I screamed, I ranted, I raved, I tacked up notes on the fence posts we had placed that had not been knocked down by their trees. Railroad ties do not topple over in the wind. The neighbor in the back cut a line down a disputed fence line. More notes. More tears. The cutting stopped. They left me one corner, near my favorite bench and the only campsite that ever came of the Family Kamp Campground. I sit and dwell on a vacant lot. It is no longer a joy to travel there but my dog likes to walk and I do not wish to walk beside a road with cars whisking past.

As I sat atop Eagle Mountain when I was 14 the world spread out before me. I wondered how the Indians felt, what the first settlers thought. How does one divide, fence off, claim the land? It has been divided, fenced off, claimed. We have multiplied and subdued the earth, or have we? We have in fact multiplied to the extent that we are using Hitler's tactics to abort unwanted children. Everyone has come out of the home and closet. Ending up in all members of a family working at mediocre jobs to pay the utility bills that we have learned we cannot live without, the car and nice home. Brought up to believe that to obtain credit one must go into debt, leading to over extended credit and bankruptcy. The leaders of our country top the list with the federal deficit.

The other day my son said if we were a democracy. He could not recite the pledge of allegiance. "I pledge allegiance to the flag..." the flag has been burned. "... of the United States of America..." united we stand, divided we will fall "...and to the republic..." not communism, not democracy, not dictatorship, not yet. "...for which it stands..." since Vietnam we no longer stand proud not because of our boys, but because our government let us down, and we let them. "One Nation under God indivisible..." indivisible: not divisible, not capable of being divided from God. Yet God has been thrown out, spit at, mocked, turned into many gods. Separation of church and state is not found in our constitution, but in a letter using the opposite terms, we use now. We have some how twisted a safe guard written by our forefathers to ensure the worship of God in our country. We have now adopted the communist approach separating church and state the way we have. If something is said enough times uninformed people will believe it. "...with liberty and justice for all." Liberty to do as we please, sleep with who ever we want, trample what ever we have to get to the top, discard husband or wife like used toasters when we can't live happily ever after. And justice? Justice has become a matter of money. If you have it, you can have what you feel is just.

Some demon possessed person has labeled our children generation X and until we start seeing each one of them as generation e-X-tra special we will be walking in darkness. (Eph 6:4) If we weren't all so busy both parents working to keep our heads above water we wouldn't have to waist time in school teaching sex and drug education.

A pestilence has spread around the globe caused by man lying with beast (lev 20:15) and then in the prisons of Africa man lying with man as man lieth with a woman. (lev 20:13, Rom 1:27) And now Ellen has come out of the closet. God loves Ellen. But how long will He tolerate 4000 plus unborn children murdered everyday, (Jer 1:5) and unlawful marriages. Changing our laws will not make it right. The scientific name for aids is encoded in the Hebrew text. The Bible was written by God to us His creation, but we would prefer to come from the very source that is killing us off. If we are somehow linked to the ape than how can we die from a disease that has no effect on them? If we were spawned from hot water vents deep in the ocean or came from mars than how is it that when science finds out we are basically clay and return again to dust they do not announce it? We are tossed by every wind of doctrine (2 Tim. 4:3) and being taught to believe a lie. (2 thess. 2:11)

We have dominated the earth and are now on our way to becoming gods in our own little worlds, building our own little empires. (Is 46:9 47:8,10) We watch the news and shake our heads. However, our little empire is yet unscathed so we close our eyes and carry on. My daughter and I passed out May baskets at 1:30 May first 1997. In a little ring on the side of the basket contained a poem about heaven, and a track about how to get there. At 3:00 a rumor began, we were going to obtain another source to depend upon sewer and water. The empire is shaken. Retired couples saving vanish into the pile of dead end dreams. With both parents working already will the castle now sink? And what of the single parent households?

I am told by my best friends' husband that my castle walls will not be scaled for we do not reside in Baxter, as he lifts his rake in frustration. Nevertheless, my walls are scaled because Baxter can not be trusted and my friend is a part of my world. One does not stand up against the government we have seen the pictures of Waco. We cringe back in fear. In turn we demand that the government teach our children in the way they should go, pay for our children born out of wedlock, feed us when we're too lazy to drive into town and get a job, to care for our elderly because we have no time for them, to clean up the environment because we cannot live without the things we have polluted it with, we want good roads, to be protected from the children we have X-ed out, to pay for our diseases we want cured, planetary exploration, national disasters that have devastated our homes, to bail out our businesses when they fail, our art, to protect our country with the latest in technology... Then come tax time we search for every deduction we can claim to get back our hard earned dollars so that we can pay off a couple of credit cards. Our government uses what it has left to pay on the interest of our national debt.

One day in a fleeting glimpse, as you contemplate the vacant lot from your defiled sanctuary you suddenly realize money does not matter. Surprised? Money is an earth thing. A part of the world system in which Satan is in charge of. Since the Devil is not my father I am not a part of this world, but look to the future in which Canaanite (money) has no part. (Zech 14:21) What is the worst that could happen? Wandering the streets, starvation, only to be carried to the bosom of Abraham and comforted for eternity. I caught a vision that day, a freedom, my brow no longer creased, my worries carried off in the breeze. As I find myself separating from the world, I become more involved. I watch the news, I pray for our president; I search for ways to tell others of Gods love. I pray for the peace of Jerusalem, which will come with Jesus return. (Zech 14:4) I watch the value of the dollar turned from cash to checks to cards to credit to interest and I wonder if the rapture (1Thess. 4:17) will occur before the mark (Rev. 13:16) is enforced. Since we cannot manage our money will we succumb to one who will manage it for us? (2 Thess 2:9) Someone who will wipe the slate of interest clean from our country and our selves and in gratitude will we worship the beast? (Rev 13:14-15) or be beheaded? (Rev 20:4) Sound Ridicules? Ask over 7 million people who died under Hitler. How many have died in China, Russia, Bosnia, the Gulf war, Vietnam, Africa... when will the world embrace the very thing it claims to almost have over come? (1Thess 5:3)

A state away lies covered with water. Earth quakes rock the planet but do not shake us awake, tornadoes throw our castles about like popsicle sticks, pestilence once conquered have now become super bugs, yet we are undaunted. (Mat 24:7) Israel after almost 2000 years has become a nation just as predicted in the Bible down to the date and time. (Jer 30:3) But we blind ourselves to the signs of the time.

As I sit now once again on my bench the wind blowing through the trees I ask not what my country can do for me, but what I can do for my country, for our world, and for God. I have found the pride I lost somewhere in High School. Not the pride that comes before a fall. (Prov.16:18) But in knowing that I am a child of God and no matter what He will never leave me or forsake me.

For three months we lived out here waiting to get into our house, then working on making our castle habitable. We had no electric, no TV, no flushing toilet, no running water. It was the most peaceful time of my life. Yet, we still depended on relatives for showers, washing clothes, water, the stores for food. What will happen when the world system fails? And the Bible says it will fail. (Rev. 18:17) Is that what it will take for a sea of people to call on God? (Rev 7:9, 14) To die for Him during the tribulation, (Rev 20:4) a time of trouble the world has never known? (Dan 12:1)

If we are not our brothers keeper, if we cannot love one another than we have no hope. There is a certain peace that comes when God is placed first, your brother second, and yourself last. The empty void in your life becomes filled, your life has meaning, there is hope in the future. Your vision is suddenly clear and you can look upon the reality of the world when it is placed in the right perspective. Only then can I understand Gods love for the world, and the giving of His only begotten Son, (John 3:16) the cry form the cross, Father forgive them for they know not what they do. (Luke 23:34) Once one catches a glimpse of that love, nothing will ever be the same. Whoever you are whatever you have done, God loves you. I am only human, I stumble, I reinforce the walls around my castle, I search for nickels and dimes and pennies for toilet paper. I survive hour by hour day by day on this crazy planet that I have learned to love because of the humanity it carries as it travels through a universe filled with design and purpose. Created for us His creation. Isn't it nice to be cherished. You are special in His eyes. You are loved.

So, what will become of the 15 acres more or less, that I have called home for the last 15 more or less years? Will we be annexed? Will we be someday sent a bill so large that we must sell or give up the land we have worked so hard to make livable? Only God knows and time will tell.

I have learned two things in my past dealings with Baxter. They think they know what they want. It doesn't matter what you want. My heart never pounded so hard as the day they invaded our land. I have never seen such a fuss over a simple idea. I have never encountered such hidden despise as I did that day. Since then, I have tended to mind my own business. But now I've had my say.

(If you feel so inclined, please pass this on.)