the green spot blog

Summer 2017 has officially come to an end.  There were so many amazing things to be thankful for... One of them has to be our Staff Team. They are a phenomenal group of young people who put in an unbelievable amount of work to make camp happen. There are a lot of skeptical people out there who would say that camp isn't a real job, but when you account for the 16 or 17 hours a day that these young people are running around after campers, dressing up for atmosphere, drying tears, finding bandaids, telling stories to homesick campers, leading activities, giving their testimonies, teaching about God, and more... Looking at our staff - these are World-Changers. The other group of people I want to thank are our volunteers. Our volunteers come to us in different ways. Maybe they're one weekers like our nurses or kitchen staff, maybe they're high school kids who have given up working somewhere for the summer to serve at camp, or they're retired couples giving months...

  Thanks for your patience this last week! We seem to need a couple days to rest once Impact wraps up before getting our Blog summary up. We always get to it but it does take some time to recover from this... IMPACT! This is our oldest camp of the summer. One of the reasons why we leave it to the end is because we typically empty our tanks for this one. Evening programming after chapel every night keeps up until midnight, sleep in breakfasts, giant wide games, and more give Impact a different kind of flavour. We played a night game, had a late-night cookie ice cream bar down at the field, played our experiential game - Bible Smugglers where campers got a very, very small taste of what it's like to be a Christian working to shine God's light in a closed country, a night of extended worship, and finally - Homemade Jam. We laughed a lot, played tons of games, and had amazing conversations. I think what makes Impact different than a lot of camps - other ...

The title to this week's camp blog really is inspired by the thousands of yards (quite literally) of embroidery thread that our campers have gone through this week. Sometimes I think we likely keep the thread business going with how much we (and every camp) must go through in two months. The title doesn't just have to do with the bracelets that are made but something Dan talked about last night at campfire. He talked about our circles of friends who who we need to surround ourselves as we go home from camp. How we need to have friends around us that are holding us, centered in Jesus - helping us stand firm in the faith. We also talked about sin and the how God forgives us and how we can say yes to following Him. There was ice cream/brownie socials, night games, Pro Skills, Jug 'n' Jog, and more amazing superhero costumes than you can shake a stick at. It was SO much fun! Here are some of the testimonies from Campfire last night: I don't have ...

This week may have been a short week for us but our Sparks might be the biggest gift. We love our littlest campers as they play the hardest, sing the loudest, and star jump the most enthusiastically. They are such amazing gifts from God and we sure do love everything about them...from their alligator house coats and princess PJs and more.   Some of the funnier things you would have seen or heard this week would have been along the lines of how this was the best week of their life (when they received TWO pieces of tuck) or how they are able to ANYTHING (after riding a horse). These campers know the magic of living in the moment and enjoying everything (right down to the sticks they collect all week long). Rather than sharing a bunch of testimonies - I just want to share this short story about something a camper shared with one of our staff. A camper asked about how God makes day and night and so I explained that it's really cool how God made the world t...

What an awesome week! Explorers are our new adventurers of the summer. They're so much fun to play games with - ultra enthusiastic and willing to try new things at every corner. They LOVE Willsonball (the moment a meal is done, there is atleast two cabins in the Willson Pit playing) and getting out on the activities. Mike and Joy share a lot of fun stories with us and if Testimony Sticks on Thursday was any evidence - these Explorers are going home with so much knowledge! They shared stories about a man named Saul, who did bad things but then turned to God, was forgiven, and then helped write part of the Bible and bring many more people to Jesus. They learned that God shines brighter than anything else in the world, that He created the universe, and that we, too, can be a light that shines for Jesus. Here are some of the other things our campers learned about God this week: I learned to shine light for God. I learned that God loves everyone and that we can be childr...

As I write this, we have checked our half way point. Our fourth camp is finishing up and we only have four to go. It's always amazing to us here how it seems like summer camp will never arrive for 10 months of the year and then all of a sudden we're halfway done and we don't know where the time has gone. We had our second of our largest weeks of the summer with Charge 2, Roughin' It Girls 2, Trail Blazers 2, Pit Crew 2, and Internships all being full. 163 campers in total were here! That's crazy!! The week blew in with a start - quite literally actually. We had a really big wind storm on Sunday evening which caused us to pull our two out-trips in just to be careful. They were chopping at the bit to get back out to the bush next morning doing their out-trip thing. Those Out-trip kids are just not made for civilization. :) We played Jug 'n' Jog, Ketchup to the Flag, Captain Sonar, Collector's Choice...sometimes I wonder how we fit everything in. ...

It's been an amazing week! Yes, yes - we say that every week but seriously - it's been a super week. And this week we had to enlarge our Fort Firering again . Isn't that awesome? Read about this really unique challenge we have here on our Reaching Higher Blog . Weather has been just perfect. No rain, not too smokey, and warm enough for our Creek Party and Field BBQ. Could you ask for anything more? Well - there was also horseback riding, ziplining, climbing, paintball, artsy awesomeness, and wide games galore! Jug 'n' Jog, Ketchup to the Flag, Human Sized Clue, Pandemic just to name a few. We had one last chance this morning to go on some wagon rides, play on the Balance Beam, Leap of Faith, and Climbing Wall. Brennan, our speaker for the week, from Dalhousie Church in Calgary shared stories from his own life and also about Moses throughout the week. Testimonies from this week were especially cool. Here are something of the things that were shared in th...

What a week! It was such an amazing week with our Trail Blazer 1 campers, Roughin' It Girls 1, Charge 1, Pit Crew 1, and Interns. The weather was  pretty wet in the beginning but that made it's own fun. By Wednesday, the sun was out and we were playing Jug 'n' Jog, Captain Sonar, and all the fun outdoor games we could get our hands on. Chapel this week was amazing. These kids were crazy good singers. One of the things that gave me shivers was the unexpected singing of Oh Canada during our last lunch, started by Crestwood. That rendition was good enough to be on any Stampede Grandstand show. I definitely got the shivers.  J Janzen, from Abbotsford, BC, was our speaker during the week and shared a lot of stories from his childhood and from the Bible. He taught us that we are created with super powers, that we have the power to serve, and that Jesus is the ultimate superhero and we can join his team by saying yes. Campers had a ton of...