I started going when i was a young kid.... my parents put me in for a two week session, drove off and left me with a very energetic counselor named Kevin Hass... and a strange hippie named George Phelps. I was a trouble maker and had many run-ins with BAR, and Liz. I got  into fights, i kissed girls, and dialed 911 on the camp phone on two occassions... it was because Odallas dared me to... I remeber singing and dancing to bohemian rhapsody during the talent show and feeling on top of the world as a room full of brothers and sisters cheered and laughed. I remeber going back home after each summer and demanding i stay a longer duration the next summer ....staying a month at camp each summer. I remeber telling my friends at school what i had done the past summer and them poking fun at me. I finally convinced my friend Dominic to go with me one summer. He fell in love with music and played guitar, read, and sang...We continued to rmeber and laugh about that summer up until his early death a year and a half ago. I remember how happy, joyous, and free people were. It was love. I learned as a child that god doesnt set bushes on fire and scream from mountaintops... he speaks through our laughter, our unconditional love, and relationships. It was lasting, its a feeling that still warms my insides as i write this- almost like crying, cuddling, and warm sunshine on my laughter filled face. I went on hiatus for six years only to return as a counselor. As a counselor i was able to give back the love and epic summers i longed to have again, to the next generation. It breaks my heart to know those kids won't have anyone to pass it on to at bement. I hope that they continue what was taught to us elsewhere. The importance is, that it keeps flowing. I Regret that i wasnt as present as i could have been my final year there...i wish i could've concentrated more on the mission and love... I miss how free and beautiful every celebration felt. I miss night on the oakwood sports field.... The moon soo bright you could see the color of the grass and the milkyway cutting through the galaxy like one of the fingers that god uses to cradle his infinite, perfect, beautiful, universe. Thats where i found god.

my heart is overwhelmed with gratitude to my counselors, campers, co-workers, friends, and family.

thank you for this life-long gift. I love you

Nick "Nico" Roche

rochenick68@yahoo.com 

I spent from 1963 to 1972 at Bement every summer, all summer.  This camp became my refuge & safe place to be.  I learned too many things to count, but am the person I am because of the chance I had to grow up there.  If it had not been for Camp Bement I shudder to think what my life would have been or if I would be even be alive if Bement had not been there.  I am sure I am not the only person to have been lucky enough to have had the chance to grow up at Bement. That life chance should be passed on, not sold and the will of Mary Bement should be legally honored not illegally exploited for the money.  This fight for a principle attribute was learned at Bement.

In 1996, I was pretty rebilious. My friends, at the time, consisted of "druggies", promiscuous girls and school drop-outs and I was slowly on that road myself. While I was smart, my grades started dropping because I was missing school at least once a week. I was offered drugs frequently, but I just stuck to my cigarettes and alcohol. I was caught several times that year skipping school or smoking in some hiding place, but I didn't care. Summer came, and with it more freedom. I was allowed to go to the park and hang out with my friends or even walk across town to my father's house. Looking back, I realize how unsafe a lot of things I did that summer were, but at the time I was having a blast. My friends had planned a day for me to finally become "one of them" by getting me to do drugs that I had previously rejected so many times before. The day was planned for the following week, when my friend's brother could get some more. The only problem was, I was supposed to go to camp. Ugh! Camp! That was totally for little kids. Clearly, not for me. I was a super cool cigarette smoking, booze drinking, school-skipping 13 year old, who had way better things to do than go to camp. My mother signed me up for adventure camp, which she insisted sounded "very cool" from their brochure. Three days later I was at Base with a bunch of kids I did not know. It only took me a day or two to snap out of my oppositional behavior and realize that this place is different. These people are different. The new cool for me was wearing duct tape on various articles of clothing and stealing mayonaise from the kitchen. I learned faith and spirituality is much more than a church. I learned that there are different ways to relate to people other than doing drugs. Mostly importantly, I learned one week at a summer camp can really change a person's life. When I returned home I did not return the phone calls of my friends. Instead I was too busy writing letters to the friends I had made at camp. I started attending church of my own free will again and I made new friends whose idea of cool was being on the honor roll.

Because of camp, I firmly believe that I would have dropped out of school and become a drug addict. Because of camp, I have broken the cycle in my family of addictions and high school drop outs. Today I am in the process of getting two masters degrees in counseling and music therapy to help emotionally and behaviorally troubled youth. It is heartbreaking to me that Bement might never re-open. I can't help but wonder who is going to help the kids like me? I can only pray that they have resilience and support from other resources, and that one day Bement might open its doors again.

Several times one summer I was asked to "stand watch."  I hunkered down against a large oak on the hill overlooking the unit and spent the night watching for "visitors."  I watched and listened as the unit gradually quieted down to near silence and eventually only the sounds of the bull frogs and smaller wildlife remained. 

I have always felt at peace in the woods by myself but these nights provided the opportunity in the stillness before dawn to have some very personal conversations with our Lord. With the sounding of the wakeup bell I walked back to my tent to move my guys on down to chapel and to breakfast, refreshed in spite of the lack of sleep.

Rachel Biron and I are getting married on October 16, 2010!  Without Bement, I would have absolutely never have met the woman of my dreams. :)