the green spot blog

Sometimes when people ask me if things have settled down at camp I want to chuckle. Not because it's a silly question - more because it can feel crazy how far in advance we are planning. Not only that, but a few short days after Impact ended we were training our Fall staff, jumped right into Summer's End Family Camp, and then started receiving Guest Groups on site. There really isn't a "settling" that happens here. Just transitions into the next season. Summer has been packed up in my office, it's true. I've rolled up the signs that read Lost and Found, Registration A-K, The Nurse and stored them for the winter. Summer planning takes a cat nap in September. By October, registration forms for 2018, speakers, and volunteers all start getting worked on. It's exciting to watch plans build and develop. Summer camp isn't the only thing we plan for right now. In fact, it's only one piece of what we do. Retreats and Fundraisers are being planned...

Does anybody else feel like they're in a sprint to get to July? Camp starts in less than a month now and things are just buzzing around here. Each of our programs are getting planned and designed - Skills are getting prepped. It's hard not to feel impatient with summer on the brain these days. Summer isn't the only thing happening these days. We've had several weeks of events leading up to the launch of summer. One of them was our very first Daughter Day . It was amazing! Forty people joined us: mums, dads, and daughters. Our youngest daughter was 5 years old and our oldest was 29. It was so much fun hanging out with them on a beautiful day here at camp. We came together for chapel, some games, and fun activities. We're looking forward to next year! Check out these fun pictures: This next weekend we host our sold out Father and Son Retreat. It's always a fun time - rain or shine. We know it's going to be an amazing weekend. ...

Spring is all about new things. How fitting a time then for us to start a new thing. This May 28th, join us in our very first Daughter Day. A day dedicated to the ones in our lives that are surgar and spice and everything nice, who are fierce and strong and not often wrong. This new day is embedded in a whole bunch of exciting events at Evergreen. Take a look at what's coming up here onsite: We start with Ladies Retreat which kicks off in only 10 days. We're completely full again for the second year in a row! Our Spring Fundraiser is on May 6th and it's a Star Wars theme! We're so excited about this fun, light-hearted evening whose purpose is to support the work at Evergreen. We will be serving an amazing meal, offering live and silent Auction items and evening entertainment from Gery Schubert. Daughter Day is on May 28th! It will start with a chapel, picnic lunch, activities, and finish off with a special dinner. Head to our website to check out the details. R...

Happy March everyone! This month has started with a bang as we hit 700 campers a few days ago. That's very close to 75% full in our camps. Every day that numbers grows and I get more and more excited about what is to come. We're selecting our Spring Staff right now and wowzers it's going to be an amazing season! Just a couple weeks ago - we hosted our Jr. High Retreat, Rise 'n' Shine. It was an amazing time of fellowship, worship, and learning with six youth groups from across central Alberta. We played submarines at night, Jug 'n' Jog in the snow and all around just has a good time learning about God and our response to him. This next year will reflect some big changes for our retreats. We're really excited to share these things with you. This Fall - we will be introducing a new kind of youth retreat here at Evergreen. It will be a giant Jr/Sr. High combined retreat that will feature workshops, main session speakers, and bigger programming. Info...

Ladies Retreat for 2016 is in the books and WOW was it amazing! I mean, if we just start with the fact that it is our LARGEST Ladies Retreat that we can remember (and Colleen is a good reference...she's been at 17 consecutive Ladies Retreats). We've never sold out - never had 100+ Ladies PLUS a waiting list. Just...Wow. The community and the spirit of the women that attended this weekend was just beautiful. I must say also - I've never - never heard such a reactive crowd. The "oooo's" and "ahhhhha", the gasps, applause, cheering, laughter, and even sympathetic 'mmmhmmmm's" throughout the weekend. It was almost as if someone was standing at the front with cue cards getting the audience to respond. I loved it. Saturday's activities included zipline, archery, wagon rides (now an integrated part in our activities), Cooking with Ken, crafty fun with letters, stretching with Lisa, and wonderful fellowship on a beautiful day. Check ...

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...

Our annual Ladies’ Retreat was held on April 20-22. As far as anyone currently at camp can remember, it’s been going since at least 1998! The 22 ladies enjoyed worship with Amanda Falk , and speaking by Heather Boersma , who based her messages around this summer’s theme verse, which is 1 John 4:10-12. Our activities were open, and as usual, Ken’s cooking class was a hit! It was wonderful to see this intimate group of ladies bonding and enjoying some time away from the daily routine. We were glad to welcome Heather Boersma and Amanda Falk for our Ladies' Retreat . On March 30-April 1, we held our first ever Mother and Daughter Retreat, and it was a definite success! Colleen and Sydney Reimer (Colleen is a member of our management team) led worship, and we were happy to have mother/daughter pair Lorinda and Kayla Block with us from SunWest Christian Fellowship in Calgary to share their stories and wisdom with the 11 mother/daughter teams. During one session, the mothers ...

Well folks, high fives all around. Rise 'n Shine Round 2, on February 24-26, was such a sweet weekend; it went off without a hitch. We had an awesome time with our speakers for the weekend Mat, Mike and Mericha. They came to join us from Prairie Bible Institute , and we shared some good laughs and stories. Along with the gang from PBI, we were blessed to have a worship team from Briercrest Bible College , led by our own Becca M. They were a great addition to the weekend, leading us in songs and a generally fun worship time. (You can listen to Becca on her myspace page , or watch her singing on her youtube page .) With youth and sponsors from Dalhousie, Linden, Highland and Coaldale, we had over 60 people on site. We also had amazing volunteers, as usual: here is the shout out: thanks REILLY, Cam, Nick, Sho, Cody H., Sarah, Steph, Julia, Ashley, Bradley, Kim, Amberly and Kathrina! Thanks to everyone for the sweet weekend, hope that the zip line, archery, skating, tuck, jug ...

Last weekend we hosted our first of two Rise 'n Shine junior high retreats. Yeaaah! We had a BLAST. We had an amazing team come down from Peace River Bible Institute . They lead us in worship, performed some super funny skits, and told us their stories. Shane (PRBI's Dean of Men) spoke. His talks definitely encouraged laughter, lots of questions, and great conversations. Youth & sponsors joined us from Bergen, Gem, Rosemary, and Crestwood. We had 40 people out, plus our staff and volunteers, to make it a wonderful and exciting weekend. Here's what some of our retreaters had to say about the weekend ... "The whole weekend is well organized with some free time. The focus is on God and getting to know him better and learning to follow him better. That's awesome!" "Great speaker, awesome and funny personal stories to lead into scripture and talks. Simple truths of God...

Father & Son Retreat, two weekends ago, was super fun! Our speaker was Rob Holland and everyone really enjoyed him. I know this because I read the evaluations and the fathers who evaluated shared resounding appreciation of the message Rob shared. (As I am neither a father nor a son, I didn't attend chapel ... so I can't report in further details. Maybe someone will leave a comment?) The fathers and sons also reported that they appreciated the time they were able to spend to together, and the opportunity to "get back to the basics". Our staff had lots of fun too. We're already looking forward to next year (you can mark it in your calendars: June 8-10, 2012). Bottle rockets! Bottle rockets were the funnnnnnest. Hiiiiyah! Jasper is now a wrangler. Sometimes. Contrary to tale told by the full out wrangler jacket (slicker? is that what they're called?), it was very nice day on Saturday! We're 64% sure Owen has a future as a jockey. Good form, right? The Ch...