Telling His
Story Onscreen
Camp is proud of the
movie I Still Believe,
starring KJ Apa and
Britt Robertson.
“I’ve got a reminder
of what I went
through and how
there’s so much hope
and redemption
at the end of it,”
he says.The Love
He Lost
Camp and Henning
on their wedding day
in 2000. “She stood
out above everybody
else,” says Camp.
“She was selfless and
she loved people,
and she had this
purity in her heart
for God. I was drawn
to all of that.” She
died less than four
months after this
photo was taken.March 30, 2020 51JJeremy Camp knew Melissa Henning was
the woman he wanted to marry almost
instantly when they first met at a Bible
study 21 years ago. “She stood out above
everybody else,” he recalls. “It wasn’t just
because she was beautiful, but I could tell
her heart was pure.” The two embarked on
a whirlwind romance and tied the knot in
2000, but less than four months later
Henning died from ovarian cancer at age- “It’s the most painful part of my life,”
says Camp, now a successful Christian
music artist. After Henning ’s death, he
says, his faith was shattered, but he tried to
remember what she’d told him from her hospital
bed. “She said, ‘If one life is changed by what I go
through, it’s all worth it,’ ” he recalls, noting his late
wife’s hope that just one person would be inspired
to accept faith into their life.
Camp channeled his pain and frustration with
God into the song “I Still Believe,” now the title of
a new film starring RiverdaleÕs KJ Apa based on
Camp’s 2013 memoir. “There is hope at the end
of hardship,” Camp says. “Instead of turning my
back and being an angry, bitter person at God, it
made me stronger.”
From childhood the Indiana native, now 42,
was always confident in his Christian faith,
inspired by his parents, Tom and Terry. Although
his family was “super poor,” he wrote in his
memoir, they made the most of what they had.
“I remember times when our needs were great,
and my dad would pull out his guitar. Despite
the circumstances, he would play and sing with
such incredible joy. For my parents, God truly was
good all the time.”
Thinking he would go into ministry, Camp
enrolled in 1996 in California’s Calvary Chapel
Bible College, where he started writing music
to accompany worship, then began performing
at other churches. In 1999 a friend asked Camp
to lead a Bible-study group at Palomar College,
where he met Melissa. “I was smitten, going,
‘Okay, she’s the one,’ ” he recalls. Six months after
that first meeting, they learned Henning had ovar-
ian cancer. Henning took the diagnosis in stride,
undergoing treatment and trusting that God had
a plan for her. “Her maturity was so breathtaking
to me,” Camp recalls. They married in October
2000, but after returning from their honeymoon,
they learned Henning ’s cancer had returned and
spread. She died on Feb. 5, 2001. Camp, then 23,
was devastated. “I believed that she was going to be
healed and we would have this long story togeth-
er,” he says. Writing “I Still Believe” helped him
reconnect with his faith in God. “It was like finally
recognizing that I felt He was near constantly.”
Camp started talking about Henning during his
concerts, one of which his now-wife, Adrienne, 38,
a South African-born Christian singer- songwriter,
attended. “I remember the first time I heard Jer-
emy sharing his and Melissa’s story from the
stage,” she says. “It changed my life.” Two years
after Henning ’s death, Camp and Adrienne con-
nected on tour. The couple wed in 2003 and now
have three children: Bella, 15, Arie, 13, and Egan,- “My heart is ready to explode. I’m so grateful,”
says Camp of life now. And he’s thankful every day
to have known Henning. “I know she’s in heaven,”
he says. “And this is making her so happy.”•
The Love He Found
The Camp family (clockwise from left): Bella, Egan, wife Adrienne and
Arie. ÒIÕve learned to really live in the moment,Ó Camp says.CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: LARRY MARANO/SHUTTERSTOCK; JOSH DELL; MICHAEL KUBEIY/LIONSGATE; COURTESY LIONSGATE; NIKKI HOLLISP13CAM2B.indd 51 FINAL 3/16/20 9:43 PM