As always, this year’s camp meeting was a time of joyful fellowship, intense prayers, and genuine and amazing miracles. A week after camp meeting, Barb Karge, shared a camp meeting miracle story during the worship hour at the Hood View Church.
“Sometimes, I think I was raised at camp meeting. Mom would take me and my best friend to camp meeting and drop us off there with a tent, sleeping bags, soap, towels, and enough peanut butter and crackers to last a week.
We went to all the meetings and had the time of our lives.
This year was the same, except I stayed at home and ate better food. We live 8 miles from the Gladstone campground, so it was easy to make even the early morning meetings. I got up early every day to hear Dick Duerksen speak about the martyrs at 7 a.m., and I arrived early enough to sit near the front row.
I even made it Sabbath morning when my husband just rolled over in bed. That morning I went alone and found a place on the second row.
A man arrived a bit later than I and sat down in the seat next to me. I did not know him and could not remember ever seeing him. He smiled and then pulled out a pen and began taking notes on a tiny piece of paper. Knowing Pastor Dick, I knew the man would need a much larger paper, so I dug into my purse and handed him a notebook, which he accepted gratefully.
At the end of Pastor Dick's presentation, we greeted each other, asking all the customary camp meeting questions. You know: Where do you live? What do you do? Where were you raised? Why did you come today?
His answers made my hair stand up on end! Our lives seemed to match in so many ways, I was getting both excited and uncomfortable. He was just a stranger, but one whose path seemed far too familiar.
I asked his name and almost screamed when he answered.
"Dwayne Alexenko," he said.
I am adopted and do not know much about my birth parents except my mother's name, where she lived, and that she had at least one brother.
My mother's maiden name was Alexenko, and the man who had come to sit beside me was her brother!
When we realized what God had done for us this camp meeting Sabbath, we both shouted with joy!
He could have sat down anywhere. But God sat him down beside me. He could have come late, especially since he lives in southern Oregon. But God brought him to the same meeting I was attending. I could have let him write in his tiny paper. But God asked me to give him my notebook.
Yes, I was practically raised at camp meeting, but my best camp meeting moment of all time was last Sabbath at 7 am when I met my birth uncle.
Thanks, God!
