By Maria Clark
Silverton, Ore’s. Grace Hansen is often awakened by a guest banging on the door looking for his key or laughter and yelling from a youth group playing “Capture the Flag” in the woods. Hansen has lived at a camp her entire life. The Christian Renewal Center (CRC) is adjacent to the Silver Falls State Park; the creek that she spends her summers wading in trickles down into the Upper North Falls.
Grace Hansen’s grandparents founded the CRC 40 years ago. Her grandfather, Allan Hansen, was a Lutheran Pastor in California. He and his wife, Eunice, first started the Renewal House in California in the middle of the Jesus Movement, hippies and druggies alike searched for a deeper, spiritual meaning to life. They would stay at Allan Hansen’s Renewal House to learn about Jesus and Christianity.
While he was a pastor more people came to know the Lord in one church retreat than in years of his preaching, this led him to the hills of Silverton, where Grace’s grandparents built the Christian Renewal Center from the ground up. “The family camp is located on 40 acres of trees and has cable swings, a zip line, a mountain golf course, playground, half-size basketball court, dinning hall, creek, prayer huts and many nature trails,” Hansen said.
Grace Hansen’s father, Tim Hansen, chose to work at the camp and is now the director. Christians come to CRC sponsored retreats in the summer time or during holidays to hear speakers, eat home-baked meals, and have family time-all on a donation basis. Church groups also come for retreats year-round at an affordable price. The camp can sleep up to 100 people in seven different buildings.
“I work in the kitchen on the weekends and with the children during family camp in the summertime,” Hansen said.
There are ups and downs to living at a camp.
“Sometimes it feels like your home is open to the whole world. Especially when people just walk in because they think it’s just another cabin, but it’s a life that I wouldn’t trade for anything,” Grace Hansen said.
