The Underwoods

It is after Christmas and we are now into the second week of January 2018.  In Bob's last blog post of 2017, he wondered why does time always seem to pass so quickly?  For us - the Underwood family - we ask the same question.  2017 was a year that we were glad to be able to put behind us on a high note.  The day we received the "keys" for the Red House - now the Underwood home - was one year plus a day that Rachel was diagnosed with ovarian cancer.  The start of 2017 was a little challenging to say the least!  However, we are blessed by our Heavenly Father for the amazing gift of life and healing that we have experienced, Rachel in particular.

We are also blessed with the beautiful gift of this home that we are now living in and thoroughly enjoying.  We are thankful for the community of Evergreen that we call home and for you, the greater community, for making all of this possible.  We thank you for your prayers and your love for us as a family.  There is no better place for us to be as a family than where we are right now.  It has always been a desire of our hearts to be in a the centre of God's will and we believe Camp Evergreen to be that place.  The added blessing to this is having a phenomenal church in Bergen to be part of.  Bergen Missionary Church has been an incredible support to us in 2017.

We're often asked how Rachel is doing.  To say she is doing well is an understatement.  She is doing fantastic!  We had a follow up appointment on December 18th and her levels are normal.  Praise The Lord!  Rachel returned to work in the middle of September to Mount Imagination Chldcare where she teaches preschool three days a week.

We want to thank all of you for your love, your generosity, and your faithfulness to the ministry here at Camp Evergreen that impacts so many people, including our family.  We have been blessed far more than we can ask or imagine.

We also want to thank all the people who made our home possible.  Craig and his guys from Kingsmith Homes, the Evergreen Board for having a strong vision, Ben for the amazing cabinetry, the tin roofers, Scott and Brian for framing the homes (even when the weather was downright cold!), Larry and Linda for painting, the flooring and tile installers - the list goes on.  Thank you, thank you, thank you.

May you be richly bless more than you can ask or imagine in this year ahead.

With much love, joy, peace and hope,

Ken, Rachel, Kiah, Daniel and Levi Underwood

Timeline

As both the Red House and Green House are getting close to completion I thought it would be fun to take a look back on how it all started.  A trip down memory lane as it were.

On Thursday October 20th, 2016, the excavator arrived all the way from Edmonton to dig the holes for the new homes.  Later on that same day, Craig, Jordan, Rolf and Kevin put the final stakes in the ground to map out house number one.

The next day, October 21st, Rolf was busy building a road back to house number two.

Our good friend Arnold from Edmonton, arrived on Saturday the 22nd to start digging the basements.  It seems like a long time ago already!  Craig needed to do some fine tuning on the dig and so he brought his own mini excavator!  (BYOME)  Let me say one more time how much we (I) like and appreciate Craig! 

Remember when the blog word of the week was schrakjlijch?  Well when we started working with the footings on October 28th it was very, very schrakjlijch down in the hole.

On November 15th, while it was snowing outside, we were pouring the basement walls and by the 17th the basement walls were being sprayed with a black, tar like material.

A month after we started digging the basements our building packages from Star Building arrived on site.  A big shout out to David for taking care of us at Star.  And on November 29th, the first beam on house number one is up!  I remember making a comment about beam me up Scotty - in reference to our framer Scott.  Thanks again Scott and Brian for serving us so well through the good weather, cold weather, super cold weather and then...the mud!

It was a cold winter and I remember nail guns having a hard time working never mind the framers and volunteers.  Here is Don from Gem on December 1st screwing the floor down.  Right where Don is standing there is now a hardwood floor.  And we had two father/son combo's helping us on December 3rd.  Richard and Ethan from Gem and Brian and Kurt from Calgary.

By December 22nd - less than a month after starting - house number one was looking like - well it was looking like a house was supposed to look like!  :)  And on December 28th one of our Alberta Mennonite Brethren pastors - Laurence was braving the cold and helping finish the garage.

January 4th, 2017, the first beams were going up on house number two.  It was very cold, and if you look hard in the background you'll see another father/son combo, Walt and Nathan from Edmonton also braving the cold as work continues to progress.

January 20th saw the tin roof up on house number one.  A big thanks to Ron and his crew from Duchess who installed the roof on both homes.  You may remember my reference to tin roof ice cream - tin roof is one great tasting ice cream.

One of my favourite Reaching Higher stories comes out of the two roofs.  We received one invoice for both roofs in the amount of $4,000.  In the same envelope as the invoice, was a donation cheque for $5,000.  If you think about it, not only did we get two free roofs, we actually made $1,000!!  How fun is that?  Because of the incredible support we are getting, both homes are being built for approximately half their retail value!

Thanks very much for your continued support as we push to finish the year strong financially.  Stay tuned next week as we continue down the staff home timeline.

Bob "Ranger" Kroeker
Executive Director

Getting Ready

In case you missed it, today is June 9th.  Already!!  Remember when you were a kid and time seemed to drag on forever.  I'm wishing time would slow down already!  It seems like just yesterday that our spring staff arrived and we are now over half way through our busy spring season.

In the midst of spring we are getting ready for summer camp.  Last weekend we were blessed by a group from SunWest who helped us with some summer preparations.  They built planters, cut grass, split wood and helped tidy our new staff homes.  Thanks very much for serving us SunWest!

We are still looking for volunteers to help us out this summer in the kitchen and at the barn.  Starting July 9th if you would consider helping us out that would be super appreciated.  Working in the kitchen will be one of two shifts, morning or afternoon.  Food prep, maybe even some food sampling will be the focus.  At the barn we're looking for people who can tell the front from back of a horse.  Being able to shovel poop and some riding experience would be an added bonus!

In an effort to have a more kid friendly barn this summer we had a bit of a horse exchange for some calmer horses.  Let me introduce you to our new friends at the barn from left to right.  Lenny, Duck, Skip, Garfield and Diamond. 

Our Father/Son retreat starts tonight.  101 fathers and sons are joining us for the weekend.  We're excited about hearing from God through our chapels and spending time together as men.  We're also excited for what is new this year, a kit car race, and Dad's Old Fashioned Root Beer!  We're looking forward to a great weekend together and as always there are rumours of cinnamon buns, fancy ice cream and bacon mushroom burgers!

Helmut and Rolf are busy strapping the trusses over the new freezer.  We may even see tin going on today!  This roof will allow us to keep our freezer protected as well as allowing us to BBQ in all kinds of Alberta weather!

We've had three of our four pancake breakfasts (actually the one in Edmonton was a lunch!)  to help raise money for campership aid.  Our fourth one will be in Calgary at Highland MB Church on June 17 from 8 am to 10 am.  So far we have raised $10,780 - thank you very much.  With increased camp numbers this summer comes an increased need for campership aid.  If you live in Calgary and like pancakes, we'll see you on the 17th.

Reaching Higher continues to move forward.  We have raised through cash and pledges $732,000!  Behind the scenes we are getting very close to printing our case for support and this Saturday we will be filming the next video for Reaching Higher.  We're still waiting for the ground to dry out at the new homes, Kevin and Kurt were going to continue backfilling today...but it rained again last night!

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

May The Sixth Be With You!

Consider this your official invitation to help us reach higher by attending our Annual Spring fundraiser on Saturday, May the Sixth!  We're excited about our Star Wars theme and are just a little sad that we are off by two days and can't say - May the Fourth be with you!  Gery Schubert will be joining us in full costume, character and regalia as we transform the gym at Dalhousie Church into a far off galaxy!  Contact camp to register.

Lots of progress on the homes over the last couple of weeks.  Our good friends from Duchess were back to finish roof number two.  A BIG thanks to Ron at Norseman Metal Supply and to the crew, Alex, Jacob, Corny, Choppo and Orlando for coming back a second time to tin our roof!  It is a huge blessing to receive not only one roof but two roofs from these generous individuals.
 

Our staff under the tutelage of Walt insulated the walls in house number one.  Scott and Brian were working hard this week on the front and rear decks.

Our plumber was back working on both homes and our furnace is ready to go in house number two.

What's next?  We're waiting for the rough electrical in house number two. Once that house passes inspection we will insulate.  We want to get heat in the homes and let them sit, settle and dry out for about six weeks.  During those six weeks we will be working hard on raising the funds needed to finish the homes.  If you would consider helping us by making a donation to our Reaching Higher campaign that would be great!

Our summer camp numbers continue to be about 100 campers ahead of last year at this time.  And we're excited to share that it looks like we have enough staff for our busy guest group season starting in May!


Please continue to pray for us.  We know that the enemy does not appreciate the excitement, momentum and lives being transformed by the power of Jesus that we are experiencing.  Your prayer is needed on a daily basis.

Thanks for your continued support.

Bob "Ranger" Kroeker
Executive Director

A New Home For The Trombones

One of the unique things about Camp Evergreen is our guest group ministry.  Working with guest groups in and of itself is not unique.  Most other camps have guest groups.  The Banff Springs Hotel has guests.  Disneyland (I really like Disneyland) has guests.  The unique thing about Evergreen is how our guest group ministry is so effective in getting our guests back as campers in summer.

It starts with our staff.  We have a staff who are passionate about seeing lives transformed by the power of Jesus.  How do I know?  We get phone call after phone call and hear story after story about children coming to summer camp because of their experience as a guest.  Stories of parents who are impressed with our staff and that is the reason they are sending their children to our summer camp.

It continues in the kitchen.  We are known as a camp that puts out some good grub!  (And by grub I mean that in the most awesome sense)  Parents are impressed on how hard we work to accommodate special diets and needs.  Guests are impressed on how good our food tastes.  Our food service is drawing children and youth back in summer.

And its our activities.  Trail rides, the climbing wall, and up on our zip deck.  We start after breakfast and end with yodel and hum.  Our unique style of full programming (at a very competitive price!) draws more guest groups than we can handle.  Every week we are turning groups away because we not have room.  And every time we turn a guest group away, we are turning potential campers away.

That is why we are Reaching Higher.  That is why we are moving ahead with the new lodge.  By expanding our guest group ministry, we are expanding our summer ministry and those stories of children and youth having their lives transformed by the power of Jesus will continue to grow.

We've reached higher this week with some behind the scene projects that most of you will never see, but a lot of you will feel!  Last week when the temperature dipped to -37, the cold took its toll on our furnace in Moose Junction (General Store).  Cornell, Rolf and Jonas were busy this week upgrading our ancient hot water system to a new furnace.  We all know how important candy is in summer!

And finally, we're putting some heat back in our CAB (Creative Arts Building) which has been without permanent heat since 2008.  After putting the trombones in the washroom to practice at our last band camp, we realized it was high time to bring heat back to that building.  We really need the extra space and are looking forward to sprucing up the CAB so the trombones have a home next time they come.

Our homes continue to move forward.  The electrical is ready for inspection and thanks to Kevin and Jesse helping Brian this week, the second roof is strapped and ready for tin.

Thanks again for your continued support.

Bob "Ranger" Kroeker
Executive Director