I’ve attended camp meetings for most of my life. At the age of 12 my parents purchased a cabin on the grounds. For some reason everyone calls them “tents”. Our family has attended every year since. Our tent wasn’t much for comfort. It had sawdust floors, no bathroom and one water faucet out in the back yard. The tabernacle had hard wooden benches and a sawdust floor. It was always an adventure in August when the whole family would get the tent ready for the annual camp meeting. We would open the doors and windows, clean out the dust and spider webs, the ever-present wasp nests and freshen up the sawdust floor, hang the porch swings, put out all the chairs we could muster and move in the Saturday before camp meeting opened.
All the tent owners entertained everyone that came by to visit. Us kids loved going to other tents and visiting just to get a little something to eat to fill our unquenchable appetites we worked up from playing so hard all day. We had to go to the morning and evening services every day. If we skipped a service and our parents found out (and they always knew if we were in the tabernacle) we were in trouble. We all went to church every week at our local churches, but going twice a day for a week had a significant impact on our spiritual development. What memories.
I met my wife penny at the campground in 1965. My brother was dating her best friend and they brought Penny down from McDonough to go to the Friday night service. I was sitting on the front porch waiting for supper, when Penny walked out on the porch. I fell in love with her immediately. Penny’s family attended Shingle Roof Camp Ground in McDonough. She had the same ole sawdust flowing in her as I did. We were married the next year and will celebrate our 43rd anniversary this year.
Our kids and now grandkids go as often as they can. They have and continue to make great memories of a special place- Mt. Zion Campground. It was such a delight to see some of the old tenters this past Sunday. Us kids that played in the spring years ago now have grandkids our age when we started attending. I walk over the campus and see so much history. I see a new tabernacle built after the old one burned in the seventies. I see our new tent built in the early eighties after a fire. I see the stately oak trees that were seedlings when my uncle planted them years before he passed away. I see kids running and laughing as they always have. I see the tabernacle filled to overflowing as the Anniversary Celebration began. I see the tables filled with all kinds of food to feed the crowd gathered to reminisce. The list could go on and on with memories.
I encourage each of you to cherish the memories you have built over your lifetime. So many people have impacted our lives in good ways. We have to stir up those memories from time to time and think about what each relationship meant to us. Men and women I grew up with at Mt. Zion were very hard working folks, dedicated to their families and friends, their churches and the community. I’m always grateful for having experienced camp meeting at Mt. Zion. The Lord has spoken to me through many sermons in the old tabernacle, caring people sitting around a wooden table listening and encouraging me and putting up with all kinds of foolishness, and godly men and women loving me.
Keith Wesley