the green spot blog

Ten years ago, an idea was born... Let's invite people to raise some money and play some hockey.  A pretty novel and pretty brilliant idea our Executive Director and (one of the) biggest Oilers fan I've ever met, Kerry Precht, can be thanked for. The tournament has brought players back year after year - many saying that it is what they scheduled their January around. It has been a day that many people come together each year to make happen. We had a humble beginning in 2010. Six teams and one ice rink. Our Site Manager, Dave Reimier had built a pull "zambonie" to flood the ice which we still use today (with some modifications). We raised $10,128 that first year. Our first Pond Hockey Rink in 2010 Our second, third, and fourth years showed a lot of growth. Six teams grew to eight which grew to ten. Need for a second rink was evident as was a tightening of the rules...who knew hockey players could be so competitive?!...Okay, okay - well...maybe we knew that al...

I've been wanting to do a follow up Blog from our LEAD weekend that we had at the end of September. I have to say - it was one of my favourite youth retreats that we've EVER had at Evergreen. We had 150 youth and sponsors here getting equipped to go out and be active in their faith. Nearly everyone learned atleast two simple tools to go out and share Christ with someone near them. It was an amazing weekend! Danny MacKay from I am Second and e3 Partners was our main session speaker and his stories about taking advantage of every moment he's breathing to share Christ's love with people around him was so inspiring. If you were at the retreat - you will remember Danny talking about what was coming up for him after LEAD. He was going to be going into the Peruvian Amazon to three villages that were unreached by Christians. Well - Danny just got back and I'd like to share his stories and some pictures with you from his trip that I think might encourage you - they sur...

We've been waiting for Fall for what seems like nearly two months now. After three weeks of snowy weather - it feels long past due. I had many days where if I thought hard enough - imagined vividly enough, I could pretend that it was April and summer was only three months away. Alas - it is not April and Summer 2019 is still a solid eight months away. In the next week, we will be transitioning from our Fall Staff to our Winter Staff. We will say goodbye to at least half of our Seasonal Team and enter into a short  point in our year where we are all able to take a bit of a deep breath. We're still working hard to get ready for 2019: Guest Groups are still coming and going, Summer registration webforms are being updated, the website is going under construction, and events happening early on in 2019 are getting designed. Even so - there is a few moments where we're able to just...breathe... One of my less than secret things that I love to do this time of year is to g...

This week we welcomed our youngest campers, our Sparkies, to a week of fun in the sun! Don’t worry, we put on all the sunscreen, drank all the water, and wore all the hats we could find! These campers have loads of energy and don’t stop ‘till they drop (thank goodness for nap time). This week was an adventure for sure, whether it was the good food or soaking our cabin leaders with water balloons at tuck time, these kiddos were all in. We fit a lot of fun into this short week including chapel, pony rides, canoeing, archery, arts and crafts, horse care, bouncy castle, climbing wall, wagon rides, and the best games camp has to offer (that’s right, I’m talking about jug & jog)!    Our speaker Kendall, the children’s pastor at SunWest Church in Calgary, challenged our campers with some very good questions. Every chapel the kids were asked two questions, “who is Jesus?” and “what does that make me?” They learned about what Jesus has done for us and how loved they are ...

This week was full of fun, Jesus, and thunder. Every day, it seemed, had storm clouds roll in and thunder. Fortunately for us, it seemed to only really rain when we were inside for meals or Chapel. Activities like Horsemanship, Zipline, Canoeing, archery, and more! These kids played our wide games with enthusiasm and gusto - you could often hear them playing halfway across camp. I hope all of the parents enjoy the singing today at Closing as much as we have all week. This week our speaker was from Dalhousie Church in Calgary, Brennan Dyck. It was so much fun to see the kids interact with Brennan in chapel and during the games. Last night we had our testimony "rocks"...rocks because for the third week in a row, we were rained out from our fire ring. The weather wasn't a downer though - as always - testimony nights are MY favourite. I absolute love hearing what kids are learning about God and what they're experiencing at camp. Here is a small sample of the testimo...

One hundred and fifty campers spread across five different programs joined us for camp this week. We had 16 Pit Crew finishing out their second week of camp, 16 Interns experiencing their first week as staff, 6 campers in our brand new Wrangler Up Sr. program where they learned what it takes to be an Evergreen Wrangler, 12 campers down at our Roughin' It Boys 2 camp and 100 Explorer campers at our Base Camp. We got a bit a rain and a bit of sunshine this week. Regardless of the weather - all of our campers played, competed, and couldn't be stopped from having fun. The weather even cleared up for our field BBQ on Wednesday so we could Party, eat some burgers, and finish up with Jug 'n' Jog. Our speaker this week was from Lethbridge, Alberta and one of our long standing staff members, Sarah Viejou (Renaissance). She started the week off by talking about lost coins and sheep (with the biggest, fluffiest sheep!!) and putting a puzzle together about how Jesus came to...

Our first week of summer has been awesome! We kick it off with one of the most fun ages - Jr. Explorers! These little ones are between the ages of Gr. 1-4 and are super keen to learn new skills, brave new heights (literally), and test their limits. These campers say the most ridiculous things and are hilarious. I've seen "Tigers" in skirts riding horses!! If that's not hilarious - I don't know what is! I absolutely love watching these kids look at an activity like canoing, identify that they are nervous about trying it and taking the brave steps towards conquering their fears. I think we could learn a lot from these little ones! Our Speaker this week was Carol from Cranbrook. Here we just called her Questing Carol. She taught us songs, had us competing for the Banana Cup each day, looking for stars, and had us laughing. She taught lots about God: He's an eternal God He's our eternal King We can have eternal life though His son, Jesus He offers u...