Bryce Fech said he had spent the morning of June 27 rushing around Wal-Mart with his mom and sister to buy toiletries and care-package items for a week-long stay at Twin Lakes camp.

Over an Olive Garden lunch, Bryce, 14, told his mom how much he was looking forward to returning to Twin Lakes, a Christian summer camp in Hillsboro, Indiana.

His favorite memory of summer 2024 was going to Twin Lakes Camp, he said, and he was looking forward to this year’s camp because he would finally be able to participate in events in the same age group as his 17-year-old sister.

“I had just such a good time at camp. I made such good friends. I got along with each and every single person in my cabin,” Bryce said.

Later that afternoon, Bryce said he was getting ready to go swim in the backyard pool of his dad’s Crown Point home and texting his friends to let them know he would be out of pocket while at camp.

As he was about to jump into the pool, his mom Nicole Fech told him the heartbreaking news: He was turned away from attending Twin Lakes Camp this summer because Melissa Anderson, the director of kids ministry at Bethel Church in Crown Point, where the Fech family used to attend, called camp officials to inform them that Bryce is gay.

“The thing that irks me is, we haven’t talked to her in a year and a half, and she’s a grown woman who decided to take time out of her day and call the camp because this was such a big issue to her,” Bryce said.

Bethel Church officials and Anderson did not respond to multiple attempts for comment. Jim Patten, the director of Twin Lakes camp, did not respond to multiple attempts for comment.

Rev. Leah Peksenak, who leads Marquette Park United Methodist Church and Hobart First United Methodist Church and is the president of Northwest Indiana Pride Fest Inc., said it is “unusual” for church leaders to reach out to an outside entity, after the person left the church, to share information about them.

“What is really unusual is that this person would go above and beyond to contact the camp … to out this minor who isn’t under their pastoral care,” Peksenak said.

Bethel Church

About 16 years ago, before Bryce was born, the Fech family started going to Bethel Church in Crown Point, Nicole Fech said. Shortly after joining the church, Nicole Fech said she started serving in the church’s children’s ministry, and even served while pregnant with Bryce.

“So he literally grew up in Bethel Church,” Nicole Fech said.

When he was 3 years old, Bryce said he joined the church’s youth group called Awana, in addition to attending service. Once he was older, Bryce said he became an Awana leader, and he really enjoyed teaching the children.

“It was a very welcoming environment. I never felt unwelcomed,” Bryce said. “I felt really loved there, and I really enjoyed going.”

The day before Easter in 2023, Bryce said he was watching a movie with his mom when he turned to her and told her he was gay. Nicole Fech said with a laugh that he just blurted it out.

The two hugged and kissed, and nothing has changed, Bryce said.

In November 2023, Bryce said he came out to his dad Matt Fech in the car after theatre practice. Matt Fech told his son he loved him and gave him a hug and a kiss.

“Nothing really changed with family dynamics at all. I’m very lucky,” Bryce said.

On Feb. 14, 2024, Nicole Fech said she was scheduled to lead the church’s Love Your Leader night, where she would lead about 300 kids in devotion and show love for their leaders.

That afternoon, Nicole Fech said she received multiple text messages from Anderson that they had to talk as soon as possible. When she received the text messages, Nicole Fech said her motherly instinct was that Bryce and his sister Kenna Fech likely got into some adolescent trouble.

She texted them asking if they knew what Anderson was reaching out about. Kenna texted back that she had no clue. Then, jokingly, Kenna texted back that it’s likely a call about the fact that Bryce is gay.

Nicole Fech said when she called Anderson to talk, Anderson opened the conversation with, “This is going to be a hard conversation.”

“I immediately knew. Immediately,” Nicole Fech said. “That’s when I told her, ‘It’s not going to be a hard conversation for me. But we can have this conversation.’”

Anderson said that children in the church were talking about how Bryce had a boyfriend, and she asked if that was true, Nicole Fech said. When Nicole Fech confirmed, Anderson asked if she could “walk beside him and pray with him.”

“I told her, ‘No, Melissa. That’s not the way it works,’” Nicole Fech said. “She basically told me that because it conflicts with our theology, and with our doctrine and our rules, he can’t serve.”

Nicole Fech said that Bryce was a leader at the time, so he was supposed to go to the church later that evening to participate in the Love Your Leader program.

When she got home after work, Nicole Fech said she told Bryce about her conversation with Anderson, stressing that what Anderson said didn’t reflect how the Lord felt about him.

The whole family decided not to attend the Love Your Leader program that evening, Nicole Fech said. They haven’t returned to Bethel Church since the phone call, she said.

Bryce said it was hard to hear that he couldn’t serve anymore because he was gay, and he felt hurt by it. But, Bryce said he was happy that his sister immediately said she wouldn’t attend the leadership program if he couldn’t go.

“I was hurt by the church, but I felt very loved at home and by all my friends,” Bryce said. “It was very bittersweet.”

Twin Lakes

In June, about a year and a half since the Fech family stopped attending Bethel Church, Nicole Fech said that Anderson reached out to her because the church received a list of children registered in the church’s name attending Twin Lakes.

Bryce, who attended the camp in summer 2024 and registered as a Bethel Church parishioner, was on the list for this summer, Anderson said. Nicole Fech said that Anderson asked if the home church could be changed.

Because Bryce and his sister had been attending the camp for many years, previously under Bethel Church, when she registered them for this summer, a lot of the information was pre-filled out, Nicole Fech said.

Nicole Fech said she texted Anderson to let her know that she didn’t realize that her children were still listed as Bethel Church parishioners, but that she had called the camp and given officials the children’s new home church.

But Nicole Fech said Anderson kept calling her. In a text message, Anderson said she wanted to talk about Bryce “because I know from our last discussion that Bryce was involved in a same sex relationship and chose this lifestyle with your approval.”

“We have an obligation to let the camp know as this would go against their Biblical standards and policies. Is Bryce still living in this lifestyle? If so, I would like to request that you call the camp and let them know and talk to them about it,” Anderson wrote, in part.

Nicole Fech texted back that the family no longer belongs to Bethel Church, so Anderson doesn’t have anything to worry about.

Anderson texted back that she would like Nicole Fech to call camp officials to inform them that Bryce is gay, or that she would call to “let them know of (her) concerns.”

“I want you to know that I would be doing the same for any child that is attending camp where I am concerned that the camp should be aware of something. This gives the camp the ability to be best prepared for what is needed for the child and for the camp,” Anderson wrote.

Nicole Fech texted back that there was no concern because “Bryce loves the Lord and is going to have a wonderful time.” She reminded Anderson that Bryce has attended the camp for years.

“If you call, Melissa – how disgusting,” Nicole Fech wrote back. “What is your goal here, Melissa? That you block Bryce from going to church camp? That you isolate him from being able to participate in learning more about the Lord and making new friends?”

Matt Fech, an attorney, said he wrote a cease and desist letter to Bethel Church to stop them from contacting the camp on the family’s behalf.

On Friday, June 27, two days before Bryce and Kenna were supposed to leave for camp, Nicole Fech said she got a phone call and Twin Lakes flashed on her screen. She said she immediately knew what the call was about.

Patten, the camp director, was on the other line and asked if she had a moment to talk. Nicole Fech asked if he was calling to tell her that Anderson had called him and now Bryce can’t come to camp anymore.

Nicole Fech said she asked Patten what his concerns were about Bryce attending the camp. After “beating around the bush,” Nicole Fech said Patten told her Bryce would be put “in a situation of temptation” if he attended camp because he would be sharing a cabin with other boys.

When she heard that, Nicole Fech said she became upset about the conservative, Christian stance that being a member of the LGBTQ community is all about sex. Ultimately, she said she hung up on Patten.

“I was not nice. I probably lost some of my Christianity on that phone call,” Nicole Fech said.

But, Nicole Fech said her heart immediately dropped because, after spending the morning getting all the final items they needed for camp, she had to tell her son – for the second time – that he’s being excluded for being gay.

The aftermath

What perplexes her, Nicole Fech said, is that Anderson went out of her way to call the camp a year and a half after the family left the church. To her, it feels like a violation of Bryce’s civil rights, Nicole Fech said.

“I can’t believe this is happening,” Nicole Fech said. “The fact that she did this a year and a half later, when we have no affiliation with the church, is absolutely, jaw-droppingly, astoundingly inappropriate in all the ways.”

Actions like this, Nicole Fech said, lead to people feeling church hurt and excluded from religion. But the message of all this, Nicole Fech said, was best summed up by a friend who said, “Jesus doesn’t practice selective grace, he embraces radical inclusion.”

Matt Fech said what bothers him is that Bethel Church didn’t raise an issue last year when Bryce went to camp.

“This is a conscious decision by them to take affirmative steps to make sure that Bryce doesn’t get to go to camp,” Matt Fech said. “One of the things that I have been so proud of Bryce is the maturity with which he has handled all of this. It’s really been incredible. You always want your kids to handle adversity with grace and dignity, and how Bryce has handled this situation over the last year and a half has been incredible to watch.”

Peksenak said it’s “commonplace” for conservative Christian church officials to remove LGBTQ members from leadership positions once they are made aware of how a person identifies.

When it comes to disclosing information about a minor, Peksenak said church leaders are held “to strict confidentiality” unless the minor expresses harm to themselves, harm to others or reports abuse.

“You are expected to hold that sacred,” Peksenak said. “The bar is so high, you don’t break confidentiality unless you have a good reason, and this isn’t a good reason.”

Unfortunately, church officials police themselves so it’s unlikely any action will be taken by Bethel Church against Anderson, Peksenak said. The impact of such actions, Peksenak said, is that people in the LGBTQ community and their families “don’t want anything to do with the church anymore.”

Bryce, who was interviewed July 4, the day he should’ve been returning from camp, said he wanted to share his story to remind those in similar situations that they are not alone and they are loved.

“I don’t need a pity party for this. I want people to just know what happened and know if this has happened to them, they are not alone, and this happens a lot, which is very unfortunate,” Bryce said. “Gay people are nothing more than a beacon of light and love.”

akukulka@post-trib.com