Vision takes imagination of what could be. It starts with a dissatisfaction of the now – and turns into an exciting potential hope for the future.

As part of my research this week, I am digging through YL archives around the fundraising history of our organization. There is fascinating and telling information in these dusty documents!

I ran across an interesting Inter-Office Correspondence from the YL Headquarters today. It is a note from Paul Frazier to John Carter on Oct 29, 1969. Bill Starr and Bob Mitchell were also copied on the memo.

Paul is updating John regarding an exiting trip to the Great Lakes Region (Ohio, Michigan, Indiana and Illinois at the time).

One of the stories he is telling is about vision of the Flint, Michigan committee. Woody Skaff was committee chair, and Cy Lewis was the treasurer. The two of them and Homer Doudy had been thinking about a “Young Life Ranch in Upper Michigan.” Cy wanted to start looking for property now, in hopes that in “two years Young Life would be ready to put on a camp in this area.”

Wow! What a vision! The mission was growing in leaps and bounds, and a place for leaders to go to camp with kids was really important to them.

Except it never happened.

Well, actually it did happen… 31 years later.

Land was acquired north of Lake City, Michigan in early 2000 for the YL camp that would soon be called Timberwolf Lake.

I’ve done a little digging with some YL folks today to see if Woody, Cy and Homer were still around to see this 1969 vision to fruition.

Cy died in a tractor accident on a farm in Beulah, MI years ago. No one really remembers Homer.

Woody helped build Timberwolf Lake with generous financial support while in his late 80s. Almost 30 years after this initial vision for a “ranch in Upper Michigan.”

Vision can be funny. We pray, we dream, we strategize – and then sometimes nothing happens.

Or maybe we simply don’t live to see it.

Or it takes 3 decades and another year for it to gain steam.

What do we see? Around us now? What are the needs? How do we hope for the future?

10 years from now?

20 years from now?

31 years from now?

May each of us pause long enough to dream about:

What we want out families to be like – 10 seconds from now and 10 years from now.

What we want our workplace to be like – next week and 20 years from now.

What we want this WORLD to look like – next month and 31 years from now.

Let’s work hard to pray, dream, cast vision and to imagine together what might be possible.

It might take a while…but the outcomes are certainly worth the wait!

Kevin