“Why don’t we have our own snow camps right here at Word of Life?”
“Jack, these snow camps that I’m doing over in New Hampshire are reaching a lot of kids. Why don’t we do this at Word of Life?” In 1959 Paul Bubar had just started the first Word of Life Bible Clubs, but, in 1963, only four years into his new job, he was a dreamer and not afraid to ask his boss to try a new way to touch teens with the Gospel. But my dad turned a deaf ear to Paul’s idea. “Jack, Shirley and I are headed up this weekend for a snow camp I’m doing in Sunapee, New Hampshire, at Seminole Point Lodge. Let us take your son, David, along. I’ll even teach him how to ski.” Paul didn’t quit on his idea, and he was clever enough to recognize there might be another way to capture his boss’s attention. I was about 12, and Dad not only let me go but also quickly told Paul, “Take my station wagon. It will give you more room.” Dad wasn’t much on maintaining cars, and he had no idea that a penny test on his tires would have left almost all of Lincoln’s face exposed! We headed up through Connecticut, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire, and it began to snow. Raised in Maine, Paul was an expert winter driver, but as we started down an icy hill and around a curve, there was nothing he could do. We started to skid. He said, “Hold on”, and we hit the snowbank hard at an angle. The momentum took us high and to the side. I remember struggling to get out at such a weird angle, and when I did get out, I looked down into a ravine. A couple more feet and we would have been somersaulting into a frozen river. Calmly, Paul checked to make sure Shirley and I were okay. Help arrived quickly, and they pulled us out of the snowbank. After checking the car, we were back on the road for the snow weekend at Sunapee. The place was so packed that I ended up sleeping on a large windowsill. During the night, I could just roll an inch, hit that glass, and instantly know Paul had taken me to the Arctic. In the morning in spite of the bitter cold, we hit that mountain, and he did teach me to ski. At night he taught the teens who had jammed the place how to meet Jesus, and when I went home, I was excited not only about skiing but also about Jesus’ power to give life. “Dad, it’s awesome. What a weekend!” Dad saw my excitement, and the next year he and my younger brother, Ron, went with Paul to Sunapee to experience
for themselves a skiing weekend. Soon after, Dad came to Paul and asked, “Why are we taking all these kids over to New Hampshire? Why don’t we have our own snow camps right here at Word of Life?” Snowcamp had become his idea! In the winter of 1965, the maintenance team worked day and night to winterize the dorms on each end of the new fieldhouse so Paul could begin the first Word of Life Snowcamp. That was 53 years ago, and over 175,000 youth have since attended! The Word of Life Bible Institute students of 2018 are now hosting another season of Snowcamp. I want them to know it’s because the Lord used a young man who showed “no fear” to challenge Word of Life’s founder, Jack Wyrtzen, to try a new idea. Paul was even clever enough to get the boss’s son involved, and my Dad responded. As an older leader, my Dad was not afraid to let his young associate go for it. When the Apostle Paul sent Timothy, his young associate, to pastor a large church in Ephesus, he trusted him and told him, “No fear!”
dave wyrtzen
P a s t o r , t e a c h e r & A u t h o r
A d j u n c t P r o f e s s o r
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