How We Started
Sometimes on your way to a dream, you get lost and find a better one.
In the summer of 1992, Cyndy Teas was working as Medical Director at Kanakuk Kamps, a conglomeration of Christian sports-oriented camps near Branson, Missouri. One afternoon she received a call from a camp nurse, sharing with her that one of the campers, Lauren Hauschild, had been coming into the nurses’ station daily complaining of pain in her leg. Kanakuk campers aren’t typically trying to get out of the highly-competitive camp activities so Cyndy decided to check Lauren out herself. Unable to find anything visibly causing the pain, Cyndy made a mental note to talk to Lauren’s family when they picked the 12-year old up from camp.
When she did, Lauren’s mom, Debe, assured Cyndy they would have it checked out. Two months later Cyndy received a phone call. Lauren had a cancerous tumor and would be undergoing chemotherapy and surgery to remove her left leg, from just above the knee down. Debe told Cyndy that, when they explained to this teenaged girl she had cancer, would lose the lower part of her leg and then undergo chemotherapy that would make her sick and leave her bald…..Lauren’s first question was, “Can I still go back to camp?” Debe wanted Cyndy’s reassurance that camp would be possible for her child. Cyndy consulted with the Kanakuk staff and they agreed to ensure that could happen for Lauren.
The next summer Lauren arrived at camp bald and weak from her chemotherapy, adjusting to an artificial limb. Cyndy watched Lauren throughout her term enjoy being at camp but didn’t see the excitement she always saw in Kanakukers. One afternoon toward the end of Lauren’s stay, Cyndy sat down with her on a bench and asked how things were going. Lauren looked up at her and said, “I just wish I could be a normal kid at camp.” Cyndy asked what that would look like and Lauren began to describe a place where different is normal and normal is different. Everyone would be in a wheelchair or on crutches. No one would care that your hair was missing from chemo. It would be easy for anyone to do all of the activities of camp. Cancer wouldn’t isolate you – it would unite you – and when you came there you would be loved.
Cyndy went home that night and, with tears, shared Lauren’s desire with her husband, Paul. Paul looked at her and said, “Why couldn’t there be a place like that?” And, over the next few months, as they brainstormed how something like this could work, the idea of Camp Barnabas was born. In 1994 and 1995 they rented a Kanakuk facility and held a special week of camp for children with cancer or blood diseases and their siblings. Then, between summer 1994 and summer 1995, with only change left in their pockets, the generosity of one special donor and lots of faith, they purchased Soaring Hawk Camp near Monett, Missouri and launched Camp Barnabas for the summer of 1996.
Camp Barnabas started with the simple dream of a young girl with cancer, it now serves over 1,300 campers each summer. A Christian camp for campers who have mental or physical challenges and/or chronic illnesses, that cannot attend a typical summer camp. Camp Barnabas is not typical, it is an incredible place where people come to just be kids at camp, a place where they are participants, not observers, in life.