Blog
GOOD WORKS FROM A HEART OF FAITH
Back in his college days, Bryan Schwarz went searching for a cheap way to go skiing in his native state of Colorado. In the process, he discovered his life’s avocation—one that would benefit thousands of people.
“I was 18 years old and looking for a free season pass,” he says. While checking out a campus bulletin board for spring break skiing opportunities, Schwarz found an advertisement from a Winter Park, Colorado, resort looking for volunteers to help with its program for visually impaired and blind skiers. Those who volunteered received free lift tickets.
Bryan signed up, got the the free lift tickets, but after working with blind skiers for a couple years, his perspective changed and he “began to understand the real benefits of being there.”
One of the participants touched his heart when she suggested to Schwarz that while she was blind, he was the person who could not see.
“She said that I was visually disabled because I was distracted by the cars people drove, the clothes they wore, or the houses they lived in. She said those things kept me from seeing who people were on the inside,” Schwarz recalled.
She also said that the only important thing for either of us to see was Jesus and she could see Him just as good as I could. “I pondered that conversation for many years and it began my relationship with Jesus and formed how I now look at the rest of the world.”
The National Camps for the Blind of Christian Record Services ran the ski program in Winter Park. Schwarz and his wife volunteered there for more than 20 years until it closed.
At that point, the Schwarz’s decided to start their own version of the non-profit sports camp. In 2008, they started XMO Camps to provide a variety of outdoor adventures for visually impaired youths and young adults. The Schwarz’s two grown children are staff members at the non-profit, which is supported entirely by donations.
Bryan says the goal of the camp is to increase self-awareness and selfconfidence in participants, and to light the fires of faith in their hearts. “We believe that it is more important to live by faith and not by sight.”