Jul

28

Junior 2

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Sunday afternoon Andrew and I were trying to take a nap in our cabin. I heard something outside, but thought it was the boys with their airsoft guns. For some reason it didn’t seem right to me, so I looked out the window. To my delight the moose and her baby were about 6 feet behind our cabin eating the little willow bush. We watched the moose for about 15 minutes just eating away. It got scared a few times and started to leave, but would come back. The baby moose was so cute. It would watch it’s mom and then copy it by eating some of the willow bush. It was so awesome!

This was another exciting week of camp. It began Monday morning at 5am when Andrew and I both woke up around the same time, and Andrew said he didn’t feel well. He spent the next few hours throwing up. Of course I couldn’t go back to sleep after that. At a more reasonable hour of the day he was no longer throwing up, but still not feeling well and aching really bad. He stayed in bed most of the day, and by bed time was feeling much better. We didn’t know if he was sick from something he ate (since his symptoms were similar to mine when I was sick) or if he had the flu. I was worried that if it was the flu I would get it. Thankfully I have been healthy all week. A few other staff members were really achy and another one seemed to have the same thing Andrew did. This is the worst summer I’ve been here with people being sick and throwing up.

There were 65 campers. I think this is the largest week of camp I have been here for. Since there are only 3 boy counselors the boys had 10-13 campers in their cabin. The counselors also commented that many of the kids had a hard time obeying and listening to what they were told.

Wednesday night as I headed to the service some of the campers said to me, “Did you hear what happened?” I hadn’t. One of the campers was playing on a pile of disassembled playground equipment, fell off, and broke his arm. Andrew was the first adult the boy saw, so he was with the boy who by this time was laying on the ground with Mr. Dean and several counselors running around helping him. We gathered the campers inside to start the service. The boy had a compound fracture in both bones of his forearm. They were going to have to take him to Jackson, and there was the possibility he would need surgery. Andrew, Mr. Dean, and Mr. MacGill left with Cody about the time we started the service. When they got to Pinedale the doctor there was able to give him some morphine to help the pain. This meant they had to wake Cody up every 5 min and tell him to take two deep breaths, so his oxygen level would stay high enough. When they got to Jackson they found out he wouldn’t need surgery, and the doctor set it pretty easily. Cody’s parents live in Boise which is about 8 hours away, so they were going to get there until very early in the morning. Back at camp we had gotten a phone call saying the men wouldn’t be back until around breakfast time. It ended up that they didn’t have to stay until the parents came, so they were back at camp around 2am.

Thursday rained out stations (various activities the kids have an hour to do like archery, riflery, floor hockey, volleyball). (It actually rained some Wed night too.) Friday we changed the schedule to try to have stations that afternoon. But when the time came for stations it poured rain.

There were a lot of decisions made this week. I think there were 8 kids saved and quite a few made decisions in obedience and dedicating their lives.

Jul

22

Young Teen Week

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See new pictures in the gallery from the fire and from the two teen weeks.

Before I get to this week of camp I’ll give my version of last week of camp. We had 29 teen campers. It was a small week, but that ended up being a blessing. As Andrew said before, camp began with 8 staff members getting sick on Monday night. I was one of them. It was pretty miserable. Ben, a boy counselor, was so sick that his cabin was divided between the other two boys cabins. Everyone got sick to different degrees. A few got sick once or twice in the night and then were fine. Others of us had it worse. Ben was the sickest; he had a high fever and was sick longer. I stayed in bed most of Tuesday. Wednesday I was feeling better, but I didn’t have a lot of energy.

After lunch we noticed some smoke so Mr. Dean called it in. I went to take a nap. When I got up an hour later the smoke column was huge and angry-looking. At 3:30 the forest service asked us to evacuate. It wasn’t mandatory, but the fire people were nervous to have so many people up at camp. The campers got showered and packed and by 5pm we loaded vehicles and left. Because it was a small week we were able to fit all the campers in the two 15 passenger vans. Once in town we went to Mrs. Mason’s (whose husband donated the camp land) for a cookout and volleyball. Then we went to the church and had a service. We spent the night in the church—the girls in the auditorium, the boys in the back rooms, and Andrew and Mr. Dean in the hallway. We were hoping to go back to camp in the morning, but the fire was still pretty bad. We made calls to the campers’ parents and had another service. Rides for the campers started arriving around lunchtime, and by supper all but one camper was gone. Mr. Dean wanted to take the staff back to camp. I wasn’t very excited about going back so close to the fire, but we didn’t have a choice. Thankfully, as we traveled back, camp was getting a huge storm. It rained 1 ½ inches in about an hour. It was the first substantial rain since our first day at camp. God sent it at the right time. When we got to camp the fire was mostly out in the danger area for camp.

We were able to have a full week of camp this week! It was a big group with 55 campers and an 18-person work group. Matthew had the biggest cabin: 10 campers. Things seemed to go pretty well. We had some rain Monday night, and Tuesday it rained almost all day. Actually, from Thursday (of the previous week) until Wednesday of this week it rained at least a little bit every day. I have never seen it do that during the summers I’ve been here. Tuesday’s rain caused some schedule changes, but no one seemed to mind.

During Young Teen week we do a Mystery Meal. The campers get a list of items that are correspond to necessary supper items, and they have to write down in sections of 4 what items they want. The counselors then serve them their food. Some of them get some food without utensils, and the best is when they order their drink before their cup. Then the counselor gets to pour some in their mouths. The kids love it, and so does the staff.

There has been a moose around camp. During Teen Week it was in the clear cut and had a baby with her. This week she was in the meadow. Andrew went through the woods to get closer pictures of her. The baby was in the woods, so he got to see her too. Apparently Saturday morning around 6am the moose and baby were on the volleyball court and the basketball court and later it was seen several times close to camp. I still haven’t seen the baby, but I hope I will soon.

Saturday was also Matthew’s birthday. Friday night I made a cake and we put up some decorations. At lunch we sang happy birthday and gave him a few gifts.

Jul

15

Lander

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We traveled to Lander, WY this weekend with the SALT crew. The church is currently without a pastor, so we had the entire day if we wanted it. We ended up taking the morning service and an afternoon service.

The fire is slowly getting better. Keep praying that it goes out. It’s not really going either way right now.

We are going to have about 105 people at camp this week. It’s Junior High week and there is a smaller work team coming.

Not much time today. I’ll try to post some more next week.

Jul

12

Fire Update

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Well, we’ve had to cancel the rest of the week of camp. All of the dirt roads that would give us access to the camp are closed per the Forest Service. You can follow the official reports on the Forest Service website. (They need a new typist, but it is the official report.) The officials are concerned that the weather may change as the day progresses and the shifting winds may drive the fire back toward the camp. If the winds hold, the fire should burn itself out pretty quickly.

We had a service this morning after letting the campers sleep in. The Green River Rendezvous is in Pinedale this weekend, so the counselors and campers are out checking out the booths right now while we wait for parents and sponsors to come.

I sent a few pictures to Pinedale Online, so with any luck I’ll be a published photographer by the end of the day.

Jul

12

A rare post

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I usually can’t post during the week, but tonight is a special exception.

Two prayer requests:

1. 8 people on staff were sick on Monday night. We think it was something in the potluck at church on Sunday since several church members were also sick. Everyone seems to be doing better, but pray for strength.

2. I’m in town because we voluntarily evacuated camp (with the campers). There is a fire about 3 miles to the southeast that is burning really fast. We watched it grow today. I’ll try to post pictures sometime by Monday. It is, as of my writing, over 2000 acres; it started around noon at 10 acres. It’s been impressive, but it’s a little scary. The wind has been favorable, pushing the fire away from the camp, but even 30 minutes of change could put the camp in serious danger. There are still 5 staff members up there to watch, but they’ll have to come down in a mandatory evacuation.

The campers are spending the night at church in town. We hope to go back up to camp in the morning, but that will depend on the fire. Currently there are no firefighters actually working on it, since it doesn’t immediately threaten any people or buildings and because the terrain is very difficult. Also, there are several other large fires in the West that are drawing the national teams.

If I’m still here in the morning, I’ll try to post some more updates. In the meantime, please pray.

Jul

8

Camp Meeting

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It rained this week! Ok, it lasted about 15 minutes and barely got the ground wet, but it was nice. There were a few thunderstorms in the area, and hopefully they didn’t start any fires. This was the first precipitation we’ve had since the day we drove up to camp in the snow at the beginning of the summer.

See new pictures in the gallery.

This week has been busy. On Monday we went whitewater rafting in Jackson on the Snake River. It was fun, but it wasn’t as wild as I thought it could be. We had the dinner trip, so about halfway down the river we stopped for supper. The food was very good. It was a nice day, but we were all exhausted afterwards.

At the same time, a couple of staff members were getting sick. Through the first few days of the week, 2 staff members and one of the Loftus kids were very ill. The SALT counselor that was sick could barely get out of bed for a while. Whatever was wrong with them seemed to go away fairly quickly. Everyone was back to health for the beginning of Camp Meeting.

Camp Meeting began on Wednesday afternoon. All of us had different jobs for the weekend, and Mel and I were in charge of the Pavilion (where the services are), the greenhouses (outhouses), and the trash. For us, it was almost a break from the hectic pace of previous weeks.

We had planned for 200 to 250 people to come. Our high number was Friday night with 165. The cooks prepared a lot of extra food for the first few meals, so there are a lot of leftovers in the refrigerator now. People stay all over the campground. Several brought campers and a few brought tents. The cabins filled up pretty quickly, and I guess there are already requests for cabins for next year.

The speakers for the weekend were Dr. Bob Jones III, Evangelist Chuck Crabtree, and Evangelist Dan Hadik. The Hadiks are staying to minister during the next two weeks of teen camps. Dr. Bob was the “keynote” speaker, so he had two sermons each day. In the mornings and on Thursday night we had two services in a row, so one of the other men took the other service.

There was also junior church and nursery, which we were required to work. Junior church was fine, but nursery was a lot of fun. The kids were cute and reasonably well-behaved. A couple of the boys were flirting with Melanie (and all the other girls). We mentioned it to their mom and she said that they flirt with all the girls. The older one is 3 and the younger is 1.

Camp Meeting is also a kind of family camp, so there were people at camp who usually wouldn’t come. We got to meet several people that we otherwise probably wouldn’t see. We had lunch with Dr. Bob and his wife on Thursday along with the other BJU students. We met Todd Wood and his wife (and kids). Todd is up at camp a lot, but the rest of his family doesn’t come up so much. Jason Janz and his family were also at camp (at the Woods’ invitation). He is the founder of SharperIron and is getting ready to plant a church in downtown Denver. I got to talk to him for over an hour on Thursday night. Ron Ehmann came later in the weekend and we talked to him at supper on Friday. He is coordinating the pulpit ministry at the church in Lander where the Hartman’s were serving until a few weeks ago. We also got to meet several staff members’ families.

During camp meeting services there are two pianists, so Mel got to play for nearly every service. The Pavilion is a very live room acoustically, so with all the people singing at the top of their lungs all the time, you can’t really hear either piano. I got to lead singing for two of the evening services and it is a whole lot louder up in the front than in the congregation.

This next week is Upper Teens (high-schoolers). In a way, it will be nice to get back a “regular” schedule. As of yesterday, there are just under 40 campers registered. There are always last-minute additions, so we might have a fairly full camp. This week’s SALT sessions will be busy too. We missed one last week, so we’ll make it up on Monday. Then on Wednesday I am planning to talk about music (at the kids’ request). Pray that goes well. I wouldn’t be surprised if all of them need to re-evaluate their positions and align them with the Bible.

Next Sunday we will be in Lander with the SALT kids, so I’m not sure about the availability of Internet. We are ministering in the Hartman’s former church for the entire day. Pray as we prepare the lessons, sermons, music, etc.

Jul

1

Family Focus

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It’s Sunday and we have Internet again, so it’s time for another blog post.

I’m not putting pictures on this week. I don’t have many from the week — there are a few scenery shots from other things that we did, but I’ll put them on next week with the pictures from this coming week.

Family Focus had three families come to the camp for four days. It was a nice slow week for most of the staff. After a week of 110 people, we had only 40 or 50. The speaker was Pastor Greg Huffman from Roanoke, VA. He was excellent. Several times he covered things that I wanted to talk about with the SALT kids, but didn’t think I’d have time. He also repeated some of the things we’ve been trying to teach. It was nice to have his experience and credibility with the SALT kids.

There is a big fire about 20 miles southwest of camp. On Friday morning it was 7660 acres. You can read about it on Pinedale Online. It has been spreading smoke over the Green River Valley, and since the camp is at the top of the valley, sometimes the smoke was pretty thick.

On Friday night we hiked to the cliffs in the dark. That was fun. Some of the boys were trying (often successfully) to scare the rest as we hiked up. At the top we got to watch the moon rise from behind the ridge. We were trying to see the fire, but it was behind the ridge to the west.

On Saturday we hiked to the Kendall Warm Springs down the ridge from the camp. The springs are home to the Kendall Dace, a type of small fish that live only in the short creek from the springs to the Green River. The creek spills over the travertine into the river in several waterfalls. The creek water is in the mid-70s all year, while the Green River is probably in the upper 40s by now. We also made the hike earlier in the week with some of the campers.

We’re going rafting in Jackson tomorrow morning. The trip will be on the Snake River and we have the dinner trip, so I’m looking forward to a steak, and Mel is planning to have trout.

The next camp week is Camp Meeting (sometimes called Family Camp). It starts on Wednesday and goes through Saturday. We are anticipating as many as 250 people at the campsite. Dr. Bob Jones III is the main speaker, and Chuck Crabtree and Dan Hadik are also speaking. It should be fun, but it’s going to be busy.