Thankful Thanksgiving

Hello from a very beautiful Camp Evergreen.  Yesterday we reached a high of 21 and as you walk around camp the leaves are crunching under foot.  Most nights dip below freezing, the canoe pond pump has been taken up for winter, we've had our second snow fall and our coldest morning so far?  Minus 10!  Winter is coming, but we're really enjoying fall while we can!

This weekend is Thanksgiving weekend and we have much to be thankful here at Evergreen.  We really feel that God richly blessed us this summer.  We had more volunteers than we've had over the last couple of years.  We had fewer hospital runs and discipline challenges.  Our staff really bought in to our vision of "seeing lives transformed by the power of Jesus."  We're very thankful for the 476 campers that we know of who made a significant faith decision this summer.

We're also thankful for our fall season.  Financially we are on budget, our new staff homes are getting closer and closer to being finished and we made it through our very busy month of September.  As an entire staff we put in extra effort to make sure our guests were well taken care of.  I'm thankful for our staff, each one bringing a unique perspective to how we do ministry here at Evergreen.  I believe I can speak for all of our staff that we are thankful for four days in a row with no guest groups!  (insert whoo hoo)  We intentionally do not book  guest groups over Thanksgiving weekend and are excited for the opportunity to sleep in, relax and re-charge as we have guest groups on site 19 days in a row once we return!

I remind myself almost daily that as we reach higher, every decision we make, every staff member that we hire, needs to be made with our summer campers in mind.  Summer camp is the heart of who we are.  It's an opportunity to share the Good News of Jesus Christ.  It's an opportunity to disciple our young people, to provide leadership training.  By the end of summer we're always tired.  Summer has long, long days, we're cooking for 200+ people, washing that many dishes.  But as tiring as summer camp is, I'm already looking forward to next summer!

The homes continue to move forward.  Last Saturday the basements were poured.  Thanks Kevin and Green Acres for heading that up.  Gary our finish carpenter finished (slight pun) the Green House and has now moved to the Red House.  Craig and Jordan were back to build the stairs into the homes from the garages and install the basement doors.  Han and Peter arrived late in the week to start the stone work.  And Ben, Andrew and Don came today to install the cabinets in the Red House.  We ordered gravel to deal with the schrakjlijchness, but so far it hasn't arrived, so you guessed it - the mud is still pretty schrakjlijch out there!

Thanks again for your continued support.


Bob "Ranger" Kroeker
Executive Director

One thousand and two!

Today was our annual Senior Day.  What a blessing to share the day with some of the very folks who started Evergreen 54 years ago.  It was good to hear their stories, and we hope the seniors enjoyed the stories of God's faithfulness today.  It's also encouraging to know so many of our seniors are praying for us on a regular basis.  Thank you seniors for the hard work and sweat poured out over our land so many years ago, and for having the vision to see lives transformed by the power of Jesus.

We continue to reach higher as we get ready for summer.  This week we're reaching with a brand new 54" lawn mower that arrived this morning.  One of our Evergreen couples funded the tractor and Moody's Equipment gave us their non-profit price.  Thank you very much!  I'm guessing there's going to be a line up to mow the lawn.

Rolf continues to work on his projects.  We're waiting for the good kind of strapping to go on the roof over the new freezer.  Having a covered area outside of the kitchen will be a great addition allowing us to BBQ under cover.  And what about that "thing" Rolf is building.  Its now at a different angle, and you'll just have to stay tuned to find out what it actually is.

Scott and Brian have finished up the window batten, soffit and fascia.  They are now framing another home in Cochrane and will return to finish the siding.  We're waiting for the ground to dry out so we can backfill the homes.  The ground around the homes has been so gooey we were afraid of losing the D6!  Once we've backfilled we can move on with the drywall and basement floor.  We've also upgraded the water pressure in anticipation of the two new homes.  The immediate result is not having to run around in the shower looking for water!

1,002!  That is the total number of children, youth and family campers that have registered for this summer as of today.  We have already passed our total number of children and youth campers from last year.  We're also excited that God is providing the staff that we need - including those elusive boys.

With an increase of campers comes an increase in our campership aid need.  Please consider donating to our campership aid fund which directly helps children come as campers who otherwise would not be able to attend.  This is a very practical way you can help our ministry of seeing lives transformed.

In other news I'm still working on my selfies.  Who knew you could angle the selfie stick?  I just kept trying to get the crazy thing higher!  :)

Thanks for your continued support.

Bob "Ranger" Kroeker
Executive Director

The Blog of Thanks!

Last weekend Camp Evergreen was at our annual Alberta Mennonite Brethren Church conference.  I tried to take a selfie of the delegates after I shared my report but was unsuccessful!  You'll have to make do with this selfie of Kevin and I.  I need to say thanks to Kevin for not only heading up our building committee, but for keeping me on the straight and narrow when it comes to Camp Evergreens financial numbers.  I appreciate Kevin more than you know.  On a side note - if you were at the conference and suddenly heard the Bee Gees singing "Stayin Alive" Saturday morning - that was me!  In my defence the mute button was on and there was a disco ball hanging from the ceiling...

I believe that I can safely say that we had our strongest (and largest!) winter staff this year.  It was great serving alongside them and seeing their heart for ministry.  Our vision is to see "individual lives transformed by the power of Jesus" and I have definitely seen transformation in our staff lives this winter.  A HUGE thanks to our staff for working so hard.  I'm looking forward to keeping this culture moving into spring.

I'm thankful for a couple of good Reaching Higher meetings in Gem and Rosemary recently.  It seems like the Reaching Higher momentum continues to grow.  Our current pledge/donation total is $694,003 and progress continues on the homes.  I'm thankful for volunteers like Barry and his daughter Kristianne who connected power to the homes.  The plan is to turn the heat on today!  I want to say another HUGE thanks to Scott and Brian for working on our "mud homes."  They are making great progress with the window batten, soffit and fascia in spite of the incredible amount of mud they are working in.  Brian was moving a ladder yesterday, got stuck, and we almost had to tow him out.

 

While I'm thanking people I would like to thank some folks from Lendrum church.  Our good friend Bob is working with David, Diana and Don to get our Gator back on its wheels.  Thanks also to David and Mary for donating our "new to us" maintenance truck.  This truck will replace our aging Dakota which we just found out was donated to us by George - who also attends Lendrum! 

We continue to be thankful for our full summer camps.  As of this afternoon we are 98 campers ahead of last year.  15 of our 26 camps are full - which means unfortunately we are turning children away.  I'm thankful for our good challenge, and I'm also thankful that as a camp we have a plan to address that challenge in Reaching Higher.  By the way, we are still looking for a few good men for our cabins this summer.  You know who you are!  :)

And finally, I'm thankful for your continued support!

Bob "Ranger" Kroeker - one last selfie with the Dakota!
Executive Director