Czechmate

So lots of action on the homes this week.  Han and Peter are back working on the Red House stone.  They brought some propane, a heater and a fancy insulated tarp.  If you ever find yourself doing stone work in cold weather, remember - freezing and setting are not the same thing!  You're shooting for setting.  Our painters, Larry and Linda from Linden, continue to paint the Green House and Bob (what a great name!) has joined us in staining the mantle and stair railing in both homes.  Bob is from right around the corner and attends the Bergen church.  Its good to have local support!

The basements are coming along, our plumbers are very close to having the hot water connected.  Poly and final insulation went up in both the Red and Green house basement walls and our electricians were back finishing the Red House.  Next week is scheduled to be just as busy.  Still no official move in date from Craig, but we're getting pretty excited!

The blog word of the week is check.  Or is it cheque?  Or maybe Czech?

I used the word check once back in grade four when I said checkmate as the Grandmaster of the tournament.  To be fair the tournament only had about three students and I'm not sure who was more surprised with the result, myself or Steven Collins.  I haven't really play chess since grade four as I wanted to retire a champion.  According to Google, Grandmaster is the highest title a chess player can attain.  Once achieved, the title is held for life!  I'll try to beat Scamp next time I play.

Or you could spell it cheque which is a great segway into asking you to consider helping us finish the year strong financially.  Our operating budget calls for $50,000 to be donated by churches and individuals in the months of November and December.  We had a few unexpected expenses this year in the way of furnaces and hot water systems, your support would be greatly appreciated as we continue to reach higher!

We could also mention check in the context of our upcoming Pond Hockey tournament Saturday, January 13th.  (Good thing its not on Friday the 13th!)  Using the word check is a little misleading as usually we're interested more about what kind of cheese the players like (cheese is a typical topic when Tom announces the game) as opposed to how well they can body check - as we try to keep checking to a minimum.  Two of our board members Eric and Cody missed the memo!

And finally, we can use the word Czech very effectively to tell a (very funny) story.

Hey Chad, Kenya see who's winning the race?  Iran up to Czech but couldn't see anything.  It looks like those two are Russian to the Finnish line.  I think it's gonna be...a Thai!

Thanks for your ongoing support!

Bob "Ranger" Kroeker
Executive Director

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