the green spot blog

Last week our landscape changed. In truth, our landscape has been consistently changing for the last few years due to our cabins getting rebuilt. This summer saw all 10 new cabins house campers. Cabins Six through Eleven still stood on that back row beyond the bathrooms (called The Lost Cabins by some...or so often - The Boys Cabins). One by one, the cabins have been moving out. First eight, nine, and ten. Six made its way next. Eleven and Seven took the longest as the trees that have grown up around them made quite the challenge and puzzle for Rolf. Koda is sitting where Cabin 6 used to be. Finally, last week, Seven and Eleven were carefully moved out from their homes. This seemed, at least for me, the most significant of the changes that I've seen over the last few years. These little wooden cabins that had housed thousands of summer campers full of memories are almost finished their work here. As I watched Rolf haul Cabin 7 past the Welcome Centre last week, memories ca...

...we had two story nights in two weeks.  The first was in Edmonton, at Sunrise Community Church and the second was in Calgary, at Dalhousie Community Church.  The goal was simple, to tell stories.  Stories about how God is working at and through Camp Evergreen.  A secondary goal was to have some good dessert together.  Let me tell you there was some good dessert together!  There was a young boys table that really liked dirt and worms! At both nights we interviewed some campers and asked them several questions including how many years have you been a camper at Camp Evergreen and what advice would you give to someone coming to camp for the first time?  Jesse proved to be our longest attending camper as he pulled seven different Camp Evergreen T-shirts from a backpack including the owl T-shirt from 2012.  Some of the advice given to new campers was to bring a lot of bug spray and lots of socks! We heard from recent and past staff. Stories abou...

Our fall season here at Evergreen is coming to a end but it has been jam packed with all sorts of groups and awesomeness. From youth groups on the weekend to school band camps during the week, it has been two months full of fun and enthusiasm as we continue to zip kids down the zipline and jog the jugs across the playing field. With a scare of snow in September we were not sure what fall had for us however it turned out to be a beautiful season with clear skies and sunshine. This year we were even able to keep our canoe pond open until late October! Wahoo! We had twenty-one seasonal staff stay on to serve with us this fall. Adam, John, Josh, Julia, Kailee, Maddie and Mitch have been here with us since May (6 months). Ashley, Bekah, Daniel, Harold, Joseph, Katrina, Marcel, Mirjana, Paul and Toshi started out in Summer (4 months). We even had some awesome new people come and join us for just the fall season, Jonah, Judith, Kendra and Nina. They have all been such a blessing to cam...

I skipped out of the office to take a walk earlier this week and took some “quiet” pictures. By quiet I mean that usually the picture would be full of activity, campers, staff or even horses. It was good to be reflective. It was good to walk slowly through the fallen leaves listening to the crunch crunch under my feet. It felt good to breathe the fall air. Although we are still busy here at camp with guest groups, that afternoon I met only one other person on my travels. Having been here now for just over two years (time flies when you're having fun!) I still keep forgetting how busy we are from the beginning of May until the end of October. As a staff we give of ourselves daily. We serve our campers and guests often putting in long hours. When we hit this time of year we can't help but think about the slower pace of winter. We're not necessarily looking forward to the long, cold aspect of winter (that goes on and on and on) but we are looking forw...

Well folks, There is only 12 weeks until we drop the puck at our major fundraising event of the year! We are excited for our 6th annual Pond Hockey Tournament on January 9 - 10th, 2015!  Last year we had ten teams participate from all over Alberta. Together we raised just over $20,500! This years tournament will be Camp Evergreens major fundraiser and we would love if you came out as a player, a spectator or as a family to cheer on others and look around at our silent auction. So dust off those skates and start making a team. More information will be released soon! Have a wonderful week! - Taylor 

We just finished an amazing weekend here at camp. Rise Up 2014 started on Friday with a bang and I don't know if many of us stopped moving until after lunch on Sunday. We were joined by Mulhern and Sons, who led us in worship and this guy: Danny Mackay Danny came to us from Winnipeg, Manitoba and who works with an organization called I am Second . It was an amazing weekend filled with hilarious stories and moments from Danny's life. He Good News'd us (remember - it's a verb), reminded us about what we have to hope for, who God is, and as the weekend wrapped up on Sunday - we learned how to Gospel (remember - verb!) people we come in contact with...like Carl . Danny reading through who God is through the books of the Bible The day was full of adventures and fun. Almost 90% of our retreaters played Paintball for the first time ever at Rise Up and it was a huge hit. We had a chariot race that Highland MB Youth won (shown below)...it was a race of very epi...

Leaves are falling all around, cold crisp air in the morning, strong gusts of wind blowing in each direction, Autumn has begun. Summer has come and gone, fall is here but not for long. The busyness of summer has died down and camp has settled into the routine of the fall season. Though there is a completely different feel to the fall season, we still get to enjoy God's creation. As different guest groups come, we get to love them through the way we act and treat one another. It is so beautiful to be outside in God's creastion each day, enjoying eachother's company as we work together in ministry serving God and other people. We can relate each season to different seasons in our lives. Sometimes we go through good seasons and sometimes we go through hard seasons. One thing that remains true through every season is that God is faithful to us. He remains constant when life is up and down. God's steadfast love is always there for us. So remember that during this season of ...

Get ready... Here comes a long blog post. BUT, it will be worth the read for sure!  Here at Camp Evergreen we love our Germans! The past three years we have been working along side an awesome missions organization WEC and they send us Germanys finest. We have seriously been blessed by the volunteers that have came to camp the past few years. They do preparation in Germany before they come and that makes them come sort of in a group. They all have different Generations and actually have numbered themselves from 1 - 14 (I think we are at 14 already!). They are pretty ridiculously awesome and a lot of fun. We can't wait for you to come to camp to meet them so here we go... I introduce to you Generation Three! What is your name, age and origin? JS: Judith Sorger. 24. Deutschland. MH: Marcel Hecker. 19. Deutschland. MS: Mirjana Stilz. 19. Deutschland. DP: Daniel Pfau. 18. Gambia + Deutschland Describe your family in one sentence! JS: Amazing an...

It seems so far away now...summer camp 2014. It has not quite yet been a month since our Impact Campers were here conquering Mission Impossible at night, having a late night BBQ with our very own hipster spin on it or laughing until our sides hurt and tears were running down our faces in Homemade Jam. It's been not quite a month. Seems like forever though - as snow covered us last week (we still have piles of it around today), one could just imagine it being winter and Christmas. Legal Bunny Trail: We even had a Christmas themed meal with our groups Potential Place, Prairie Winds, and Rising Sun clubhouses to "celebrate" the snow. With everything seeming so wintery here...a person could begin to imagine that Summer 2015 is just around the corner. Such a cruel thing...because when the snow melted and we hit 25 degrees again - we remembered that it's just September and Summer 2015 is still 10 months...wait! 9.5 months away. We don't want to forget Summer Camp 2...

Rise Up, our annual youth retreat for Senior High students, is coming! On Friday October 3 we want to pack Evergreen out! The cabins and lodge rooms are awaiting your arrival. This year the speaker is Danny Mackay and we will be welcoming back Tom Mulhern for worship! Danny is the National Ambassador for I Am Second and we are excited to see what he has to share with us! You may remember Tom from Teen week here at Evergreen. Maybe he came into your cabin, maybe you recoginze him from Homemade Jam in the Clucken'eers. Either way, its going to be a awesome weekend as we reconnect and meet new friends. There are so many questions about this event. Who is going to be there? What are we going to do? Is it going to be sunny or snowy? This week proved we really could have any weather.What kind of snacks will Ken gift us with? Well, there is only one way to find out the answers.... You must COME! There will be a epic night game, amazing food, friends, activites, coffee and ...

It seems like just yesterday summer started with our Annual General Meeting at the end of June. At the end of the meeting we gathered the staff together to pray for them and the upcoming summer. (Prayer is a good thing). I've been asked, how did it go? Great, awesome, stretching, new, interesting, uplifting, challenging are words that come to mind. From a strictly numbers perspective we had a good summer. Summer camper numbers were up (779 total compared to 718 last summer) and God provided all the staff that we needed. That makes for a good start. 135 campers made a first time commitment to follow Jesus and 179 made a re-commitment in their walk with Jesus. Our staff and speakers this summer were phenomenal as they really connected with our campers. How exciting is it that 314 campers made a life changing decision this summer? That's why we're here. We want to be used by God to bring campers into a personal relationship with Jesus. It was als...

Oh man... It has been a long time since we talked! How have you been? We've been great out here at camp - weeks are just flying by. It only seemed like a moment ago we were starting camps off and then wham! It's already the second to last week of the summer. I wanted to bring attention to one of our new programs this summer: Charge. It's a new out-trip that we're offering that is based out at our brand new Paintball Range. Who better to tell you about their first Charge experience than our Charge leader, Dylan: This year marked our first ever Charge camp here at Evergreen! It was amazing! For those of you who don’t know, Charge is an all guys Out-Trip camp with a focus on Jesus, teamwork, brotherhood, perseverance, courage, and other manly-type things. We teach these things using the wonderful and colourful game of paintball!  For myself, it was an unbelievable experience! This being the first year we have ever had an Out-Trip solely dedicated to pa...

Saturday, June 28 was a great day for an AGM. If we could emphasize one thing, it would be the need for our society members. We can not, nor do we want to minister on our own. Our members are an integral part of the ministry here at Evergreen. We value your input, we covet your prayers and we need your support. We would encourage you already to put June 27, 2015 aside and join us. Highlights of this years AGM were two of our staff members sharing. Felix from Germany was quite animated as he shared about his experience this past year. Sarah shared about how Evergreen has been part of her faith walk over the last 14 years. Eight as a camper and six as a staff member. After a financial update our board was affirmed and several members were elected. Your 2014/15 board is made up of, Andrew Baerg, Alex Fay, Marni Hatch, Cody Hoffman, Barry Langendoen, Bob Thiessen, Keith Thiessen and Kevin Thiessen. We appreciate their commitment to Evergreen and desire to...