El Porvenir Christian Camp in New Mexico is 'busy living' as a spiritual retreat

Yahoo

19-05-2025

Lots of times since we've been married, my wife has said she'd like me to see El Porvenir.
That's because Kathy and her youth group friends made the trip from Amarillo to northeastern New Mexico throughout their junior high and high school years to attend church camp.
For decades, El Porvenir Christian Camp was a regular destination for groups from Paramount Terrace Christian Church. After PTCC became Hillside Christian Church in 2006, its hundreds of young people were too many for El Porvenir, and Hillside began using other locations.
But when Kathy and I joined Amarillo's Washington Avenue Christian Church, a smaller congregation, a couple of years ago, El Porvenir again became a possibility for us. WACC sends men's, women's and family groups to the site near Las Vegas, New Mexico, every year.
I'll admit, though, I'm happy, but I'm not normally a camper. As a kid, I attended church camp only once, maybe around age 10. The whole time I spent at Ceta Canyon Methodist Camp, I was wishing I was back home near McLean. I remember inspiring times around a campfire and some fun in the swimming pool, but I just wasn't a social boy.
I did get over my shyness to some extent as an adult. I was wowed when I attended a three-day Walk to Emmaus, enough so that I later worked as a team member on several Walks. But the fact is, the Myers-Briggs personality test still reveals me as an introvert.
Despite myself, El Porvenir kept calling. This year's Ironman men's retreat, a Friday-Sunday event, was last month. Melvin, a wise man in our Sunday school class, told me I should consider going. I would get to know some of the WACC guys – and God – better, he said, and he filled me in on the history of Hermit Peak, one of the mountains that surrounds El Porvenir.
My wife had told me how her youth group friend Glenn had been compassionate as they hiked up Hermit Peak, walking with her as she had trouble keeping up with the group.
So I went. Our friend Barry offered me a ride in his pickup, so the four-hour drives each way were nice and fun. The El Porvenir bunkbeds were comfortable, and none of the 20 or so guys in the 'dorm' snored. The hamburgers, tenderloin and other meals were top-notch, and we had a whole afternoon off from spiritual talks, small group discussions and outstanding worship music.
I even got to try pickleball for the first time, with Steve from our church guiding me and the other beginners.
Of course, the spiritual aspect was the reason we were there – 96 of us, with about 60 from our church and others from two churches in Oklahoma and New Mexico. The weekend theme, 'Memento Mori,' sounded a little dark, because it's Latin for 'Remember your death,' or 'Remember you will die.'
We learned that during the Roman empire, victorious generals who were being praised by masses of citizens for their success also would have someone whisper 'Memento mori' in their ears to remind them to be humble.
Four sermons by Paul, a preacher in Oklahoma and a veteran of WACC's retreats, effectively turned death to life by laying out scripture that pointed to making the most of whatever time we have on Earth.
Paul and Lennie, our lead pastor and organizer of the weekend, posed questions like this to us: 'What would you do if you had 60 minutes left in your life?' 'One year?' 'Five years?'
We discussed practical things such as funeral plans and making sure family members are familiar with bank accounts, but also emotional aspects like telling wives and children how much you love them and want to see them in heaven. The one- and five-year scenarios gave time for doing our best to spread Christ's good news of salvation to others – and all the actions that God wants us to be doing anyway.
Paul supplemented his sermons with videos, including a clip from 'The Shawshank Redemption' movie with the line, 'Get busy living – or get busy dying.' Certainly, despite the theme, the retreat's focus was on life. Paul (from Oklahoma, not Tarsus), reminded us that with his resurrection, Christ defeated death and made eternal life possible for everyone.
The biblical Paul wrote in Romans 14:8: 'If we live, we live for the Lord; and if we die, we die for the Lord. So, whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord.' (NIV)
El Porvenir is nestled among beautiful, craggy mountains and towering trees – but a devastating fire in 2022 changed the trees on the surrounding slopes into black sticks reaching toward the blue sky. Without tree cover, rocky crests that weren't visible before can be seen now.
A man who has attended the retreat regularly since it started in 2011 said that for the most part, the fire moved by on each side of the camp like the parting of the Red Sea. Some older cabins and the bridge across Beaver Creek were the main losses. Our weekend was proof that the camp is 'busy living.'
Yes, I'm glad I went. And I hope everyone who pondered their death went home anticipating growth and following God's path in the years to come. After all, El Porvenir is Spanish for 'the future.'
Mike Haynes taught journalism at Amarillo College from 1991 to 2016 and has written for the Faith section since 1997. He can be reached at [e-mail]. Go to www.haynescolumn.blogspot.com for other recent columns.
This article originally appeared on Amarillo Globe-News: Haynes experiences men's retreat at El Porvenir Christian Camp