New Website for the "old" Calvary Youth Group

Welcome to "Treasures" -- a new site for those of us who remember the good old days in the Calvary Baptist, Normal, Illinois, youth group from the late 1960's. In the summer of1967 a group of hearty souls took the first Colorado camping trip. Below is that group that ventured west, first to Littleton, Colorado, (where this group picture was taken) and then to Marble, Colorado on the western slope. At that "ghost town" site we climbed up to Treasure Mountain and explored an authentic silver mine that was being worked by a lone miner.

(Click on any of the photos to enlarge them.)

Here are several pictures from that trip. Can you recognize anyone? It is hard to realize that it was over 40 years ago when we took that trip, and then the successive trips that followed, over the next few years. We had some great experiences around camp fires, in the old fireside basement youth chapel, along the Mackinaw River, at Camp-in-the-Woods in Ontario, and many other places. Our purpose for this website is to relive some of those experiences and reconnect with as many of the “kids” from the youth group that we can contact.

We have a “few” snapshot pictures from those years that I will post, plus we have some slides that I would like to translate into digital images if I can find the time. If anyone has equipment to transfer from slides to computer – let me know. Also, please send me photos that you have! You can send them via email, or on a CD, our post them on a photo sharing site where I can grab them, or send them to me so that I can scan them. I will return any photos that you send.

I’ve chosen Treasures as the name for the site because of that memorable and convicting song that we sang during our singspiration times. The phrase that I focus on after all of these years is “And He filled them with a store.” Truly Connie and I have been blessed to serve in ministry all of these years. Those years in Normal were a definite highlight in our ministry, and it is a blessing to remember the way the Lord worked in our lives and in the lives of so many young people.

Somehow we can’t get out of youth work. We’ve served as a youth pastor, pastor, Christian school work, and then college administration. In all of those ministries we worked with and for young people. Now, for the last 12 years we’ve worked with a great youth-oriented ministry called Positive Action For Christ. You can check out our ministry at www.positiveaction.org to see what we are up to these days.

Let us hear from you! Send us email addresses, or get folks to our Facebook site where we will have a link. Keep trusting the Lord!

TREASURES

One by one He took them from me,

All the things I valued most;

Until I was empty handed,

Every glittering toy was lost,

And I walked earth’s highway grieving,

In my rags and poverty;

Till I heard His voice inviting,

Lift your empty hands to me.

So I held my hands toward Heaven,

And He filled them with a store;

Of HIS own transcendent riches,

Till they could contain no more;

And at that I comprehended,

With my stupid mind and dull,

That God could not pour His riches,

Into hands already full.