The New Lodge

Let me introduce to you the newest member of our Camp Evergreen team - the new lodge!  Finally after what seems many months - well it actually was many months - we have some pictures to show you of our new lodge.  As a board and staff we are pretty excited about the ministry potential this building will allow us to have.  We are still making some last minute (minor) changes so the final result will look slightly different!

Here are some quick numbers:

1 - lodge
1 - elevator
1 - meeting room
2 - stories
2 - boot rooms - one really big!
2 - refrigerators - two different temperatures - you'll have to ask Ken...
2 - laundry rooms
3 - dining rooms - or one big one - for a total of 400 people (not squished)
3 - lounges/sitting areas
8 - hotel style rooms - expandable to 15

The lodge is approximately 22,000 square feet and will sit close to where our current mini lodge is located, overlooking the lower playing field towards the west.  We're hoping that we will be able to see some of the mountains from the upstairs rooms.

Some of you might be wondering - why a new lodge?  We've been turning campers away since January - shortly after registration opened.  We've also been turning guest group after guest group away from April to the end of October.  This lodge will allow us to expand our current style of ministry.

The lodge will also allow us to branch into new kinds of ministry.  We would love the host the Alberta Mennonite Brethren conference, we'd love to host church leadership teams and Alpha weekends.  There is a seemingly endless amount of new ministry that awaits us.

And finally this lodge is critical to our much needed winter revenue which in turn is needed for a healthy budget.

Many of you know that the board voted to start this lodge in October of this year.  We are still working with many, many ducks, trying to get them in a row for us to be able to put a shovel in the ground.  In fact a brand new duck showed up this morning!  One of the biggest ducks - finances.  Without your support this lodge will not move forward - it's as simple as that.  We have already raised in cash and pledges close to a million dollars towards the new lodge ($935,693).  We believe this project is doable because no contribution is too small - or too large for that matter!  :)

And Finn?  Finn is now almost 13 weeks old.  We're working hard on changing some of his bad habits and are rejoicing at his good habits.  At last weigh in he's 22 lbs already!  He's still pretty excited to see our guests so we're working hard at keeping all four paws on the ground!

May you experience God's blessing and goodness this Easter weekend.

Thanks for your continued support.

Bob "Ranger" Kroeker - and Finn!
Executive Director