the green spot blog

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...

I can barely believe that 2017 is less than three weeks away. Can you? December and Christmas always seem like busy times and then to lump 2017 into that...Wowzers. I always get so excited about what is coming at this time of year - so much so that I forget to be thankful for today. So don't forget to slow down a bit today and take a moment to be thankful for what's around you. There is 19 days ( January 3rd at 9am !!) until we kick off Registration for Children and Youth Camps for Summer 2017. There's also our Family Camps which filled up in only three days last year - Registration opens for Family Camps on February 2nd!  Our Theme for 2017 is SHINE based out of Matthew 5:14: "You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden."   We're so pumped about all of the good things coming at us in 2017. It's not even just Summer Camp! We've got our Pond Hockey Tournament Fundraiser coming up, our Rise 'n' Shine (Jr. H...

It was a great weekend! Boy oh boy, we sure do love retreat weekends. We look forward to these weekends all year. It's fun to hang out with the youth groups and have a change from the normal weekend rentals. We also unveiled our brand new 2016 wide game: MEXICAN SPACE FISHING!! Which further inspired our kitchen to make fish tacos for Saturday's supper (one of Jogee's favourite meals). We learned Spanish and went fishing and it was great fun! Now...who remembers the Spanish word for cod... It wouldn't be much of an Alberta winter retreat if we didn't get a bit of snow...and sunshine...and rain! So sure enough, it rained and snowed and was sunny all at different parts of the day on Saturday. Jug 'n' Jog was fantastic as always...and some day - someone will catch Toby. Our speaker for the weekend hailed from Chiliwack, BC. ( Which makes me want to shout out Whatcha Gonna Do?!?...only a very few of you will get that). Al kept us laughing about how to ...

If you haven't noticed the weather as of late...it's cold outside. But on February 21-23rd, youth and youth leaders arrived at Camp to celebrate our annual Junior High youth retreat, Rise 'n' Shine. It was a cold one but the youth took to the activities, our hockey rink, and indoor Willsonball arena for great weekend. Ambrose supplied the band that rocked us through worship and Brad Huebert brought us the Word. The weekend chapel sessions started with the question, "Is God Real?". Brad's sessions were interactive, challenging, and sticky (well...full of sticky notes, that is). Check it out: We started by making a big list of who God is - which Brad helped us categorize into 5 categories. On Saturday night, Brad invited everyone to personally respond to God from where they were at. It was an incredibly awesome weekend. My highlights were always in the chapel sessions. I think regardless where anyone was at coming into this weekend, we all h...

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...