Quest

Somehow I have managed to get behind again on my blogging. I wonder how that happens, it isn't like I have anything else to. Ha ha, right! Anyway, last week we had a small high school youth group, Quest, from back home in Antigo, WI. Dave and Tracy Cooper have long had ties with Silver Birch so it was great to see their family again and it was especially fun for me because when I was still living at Silver Birch I worked with Quest and it was great to see some of my old girls up here. We also had a helper up from Sault Ste. Marie who was quickly dubbed Mr. Canada and became a welcome addition to the group. I was fairly tied down during the week but Tracy Cooper was nice enough to let me sift through her wonderful pics and I've pulled a few to share with all of you guys.

The students started the week with a work project. Thanks to these hard workers we have some improvements to our Sanford's sight trail. 

Kelly Jo and Me with our matching hair!

There is the group on top of Mt. Sinai, including Josh and Steve and Mr. Canada.

 Attempting to hold Cooper at the Golden Stair Case. Notice how all the girls and doing the work. 

And I think this was swimming at 10 mile falls, but I might be wrong.

What a great group. They had a blast up here and it was most of the student's first time exploring Canadian Adventure which always makes it more fun. I'm looking forward to visiting and catching up some Sunday night next year. 

Featured Location:Hubert Lake

So these pictures are a little old, but I figured that late is better than never, so today I'll feature our little excursion to Hubert Lake. Last week when the youth group from PA was here, they left us (Kasey, Kris, and me) to spend a couple nights up river. We were given nearly 3 days to ourself, which was mostly filled with cleaning, baking, catching up on emails, and getting in some R&R. Since we has such and extended time to ourselves however, we decided that we should take some time and hike up to Hubert Lake, a lake right along the train tracks about 3 miles up from base camp. Here are some pics:

On our way to Lake Hubert we took the 4 wheeler trail which loosely followed the power lines and took us over hill and dale. We did get to walk through some pretty country though. 

This is from the top of one of the hills, you can see over to the left is Mt Sinai. 

 And this is lake Hubert, you can see the train tracks run right by it. We sat on the dock you can see in the corner and soaked our feet while we ate our lunch. What a relaxing time.

On our way back we took the train tracks, which is actually a pretty hike... and there are no hills. We got to pass several rock cuts like this. It makes me glad I wasn't the one who had to build the rail way!

Also on our way back along the tracks we found some wild strawberries. The were very tedious to pick and we didn't get much, but I did take a cup of them and made strawberry cupcakes that were delicious. Too bad we ate them all before I got a picture. 

So that was our hike, not bad for three wilderness girls. We also got to see the train up close and personal when we were picking strawberries, which made Kasey's day. Now we just need to convince every group to spend two nights up river!

On another note, my prayer request for those of you praying for CA this summer isn't directly related to camp this time. A 13 year old boy, Nate Cook, who has been up to work at CA a few times and is pretty well known by our CA staff was severely burned in an accidental explosion over a week ago. He is currently in the hospital in Madison WI and has burns on 54% of his body. Prayers for him and his family are GREATLY appreciated as they tackle the road to recovery. Quite honestly it is a miracle his is alive so we are counting our blessings, but every bit of support helps. God is good... ALL the time. 

Church of the Open Door Student Ministires

This week we officially had our first camping group in, and it was a great start to the summer. An old Awana counselor, Brett Ayers, is a youth pastor at Church of the Open Door in York, Pennsylvania and most summers he makes the long trek up here with a bunch of his high school students. This group has proven to be a highlight of my summer with their laid back attitudes and one of the most thankful spirits I've ever encountered. Their leaders are phenomenal and both times I've had the pleasure of working with them, God has blessed this group with the production of spiritual fruit while the spend their week away from the world and its distractions.

Because 40 people is a lot to pack for up river I didn't get that much of a chance to go out with them on their day trips, but I have a few pictures that I thought I'd throw up here so you could get a glimpse of their group. 

This is most of their amazing leaders. Watch out Satan, this is a force to be reckoned with! 

Mmm, lunch on Mt. Sinai. 

While up river the group did several baptisms. For many of the group, this was the highlight of the week, hearing the testimonies of their peers. 

Prayer time after the baptisms. 

And there they all are. Man, just love what I do!

So that is all I've got. Great kids, great week, I couldn't ask for more. For you prayer warriors out there, we saw a lot of potential for growth this week and if you could continue praying that these kids (and leaders) would allow the God they experienced in a big way to change their life as the go home it would be greatly appreciated. It is hard to believe we are only one week in; God has big thing in store for Canadian Adventure. 

New Kitchen

Okay, Okay, I know I'm way over due for a post, but this last week has been crazy with our first group of high schoolers in.... well and I also might be in the middle of a really good book that takes up all my free time. But anyway, I'm going to make up for it and post all of my stored up material this weekend (at least I say that now)
 
So this has actually been done for a while now, but we had our kitchen redone before the start of the summer this year and for you old CAer's I thought I'd post the new pics. There were some things in bad need of repair and it is now so exciting to have a fresh place to work in.
 

So this is the before picture... and by the way, I HATED those ugly green cabinets.

 

And here is the new! Plus some pudding we were making for snack. Notice... that whole island is gone, it is so nice having that room.

 

This is the new dishwashing station. No more scrubbing at the super low pots and pans sink, and we have a sprayer, which is the best thing since sliced bread.

 

See how our sink flows right to staging, and right into our new dishwasher... which does a load in 2.5 minutes. Can you tell I'm a little excited?

 

Here you can get a good look at the new flooring. Our old flooring was pealing up, so this is a really nice change. The flooring is a laminate tile, so it is flexible and can shift with the building.

We also got all new cabinets in, so everything can be put away now, instead of piled on shelves.

 

The other major change is that we took out the window and added a door onto the kitchen so we can close it during dishes. Tamara Smith was gracious enough to wood burn Mount Sinai onto our covering and paint our door for us. 10 points if you can tell me where that painting is!

 

So that is pretty much it. It is so exciting to have this all done and to cook in a new kitchen! Thanks to all of you who helped support camp and make this change possible. 

Featured Location: Hidden Falls

So this week brought the arrival of one of the most anticipated groups of the summer, at least for me. Starting out the summer with a church group from Indiana sets the stage for all the craziness that we will encounter in the weeks to come and their southern, semi-hill billy culture becomes a great source of entertainment for us staffers. Don't get me wrong, this is a great group of people and I love the encouragement they bring to our staff every year.

Yesterday after our morning "church" service (Which actually consisted of Pastor Ken speaking rather than a podcast for once!) we decided on a whim to make the trek to hidden falls. Hidden falls is actually located below the power dam and requires a short drive, a short canoe, and a short hike to find. Tucked up in the hills by the Montreal, the landscape makes you feel like you stumbled on a Lord of the Rings set. Here are some pics of our trip up.

This would be the boat landing below the dam where we put our canoes in.

This is a view from the lower river as we worked our way towards the stream that creates hidden falls.

 Too cool huh? The hike up is filled with huge rocks and a section of the trail even goes strait up the creek. Unfortunately pictures just can't do the landscape justice. 

Here is a view of the creek we follow.

We made it! Here is our group sitting on the rocks at the foot of the falls

 And there it is all it's glory, Hidden Falls is a sight to behold.

Kasey and I just had to get our feet wet. I even managed to get over in front of the falls which only accomplished getting me soaking wet from the spray. 

So there you have it, arguably my favourite waterfall at CA. Not only was the hike beautiful, the Hoosiers were a great group to share the time with. I can't wait to see what the rest of the week has in store. For those of you praying for us, we have been having some problems keeping our internet working, it comes in and out at the most unpredictable intervals, and since that is the main form of communication we utilize up here things can get complicated quite quickly when it is not working at the proper times. But we know God is good... ALL the time. 

Lake Superior Provincial Park

So I know I haven't posted in a while, but quite honestly I've just been busy working and unless you want to see pictures of me cleaning, there hasn't been much to report. Wednesday, though we got the opportunity to take a staff day and decided to make the short drive up to Lake Superior Provincial Park and see some sights on Lake Superior. Being it is my third summer at CA, it is especially exciting to visit and do some hiking at a new place and it is always special when we get to spend some time, just the five of us staffers getting to know each other and taking a break from our regular duties. I figure the best way to relate our trip is to show the the pictures and let them do the talking. (I may have a few too many)

This is the Sand River (Ironic right... I guess there is sand down by Lake Superior) 

We got to hike back a ways on this river and it was one set of rapids or waterfalls after another. I'd love to come back later in the summer when the water is down and actually hike up the river on the rocks.

More waterfalls, I know... but if you saw all the pictures I had to narrow down too you'd understand why I kept this one, it is just too beautiful to eliminate. 

So after we hiked a short way up the Sand river, we got back in the van and drove down the coast a bit until Steve decided we should take some unmarked gravel road to see where it leads. It didn't go too far, but at the end of it we could hear running water so we hiked a bit until we found the Sand river again... this time from the other side and further inland. There was a nice little pond backed up behind yet another set of rapids.

Kasey and I decided we should push a log through the rapids, but we quickly found out it was a lot harder than it looked. we probably worked on that thing for 15 minutes just to get it through the first little step only to have it hang up again. I have a new appreciation for the force of water when you see whole trees that were moved with the spring high water and we could barely move that little log.

Our next, and last, stop was this stone wall called Agawa Rock right on the edge of Lake Superior. Thankfully the water was calm so we enjoyed sitting on the rock ledge and soaking up the sun.

 All along this rock wall were old Ojibwa paintings called pictographs. This is said to be Mishibizhiw, the Great Lynx who controled Lake Superior

And this was our view from Agawa Rock. It gives you an idea of the vastness of Lake Superior. I read on one of the guided signs that if you took all the water in Lake Superior you could cover all of North America 1.5 meters deep with water. That is a mind blowing amount of liquid.

So that was our afternoon out; sorry if that was too many pictures. We got to spend some time hiking and sunbathing... well in our jeans. We also took some time by Lake Superior to go over our goals and motives for working this summer. It was a great chance to slow down and communicate... aligning our ideas for the summer and bring our focus back to our purpose, putting God first. I'm getting really excited for campers to come, even though I'm glad they are not coming next week, the black flies would suck them dry. Meanwhile I'm going to take this slower time to soak in God's Word and enjoy the company of our staff, something that can become quite difficult when the craziness of camping sets in. 

We would all be grateful if you kept us in your prayers, and specifically if you could be praying for dry sunny weather so the black flies go away before our camping season starts we would all appreciate it. Thanks so much. 

Featured Location: Sanford's Sight

Sunday up here is often our day off, or at least part of it, so yesterday after a laid back morning and a podcast church service us staff and some volunteers we have up decided it was time to get out and hike a bit. Since we knew the black flies were going to be and issue, a short hike during the heat of the day was in order, hence our destination of Sanford's Sight was selected. 

For those of you old AWANA people, Sanford's Sight is a relatively new location about a 20 minute hike from base camp. Discovered by Steve Tice during one of the winter retreats, Sanford's Sight overlooks the Montreal River Valley below the river dam, and is quite honestly my favourite place to watch the sunset. Sanford's sight is named after the Sanford boys who spent many long hot hours cutting our Yandel 7 trail and in honour of their week of hard work this lookout now bares their name. Just last year a loop trail was added visiting a giant white pine before coming back to camp by way of the desert (the train washout). It makes for a nice hike that can easily be complete as an evening hike after supper.

Here are some pics from our trip

A bug infested pond by the trail

There is quite a bit of rock "walls" like this on the trip up. The look cool, but I think that in the time it took me to snap this picture I acquired 7 bug bites so I wasn't too anxious to take much more. 

The View

It was a little hazy as you can tell, but even still the picture just doesn't do this sight justice. It is such a grand sight up there.

Our hiking group, minus Joel, the photographer

Giant White Pine

 This giant tree is visible from the power road as you drive in to the boat landing as it towers over the other trees in the area.

Trey, trying the climb the tree...

And this is my brothers room mate being silly as usual... it was fun to have him and some of his family up to visit and work this week.

So while we had to keep moving most of the time to avoid the cloud of insects following us, it was great to get out and breath some fresh air. You can't beat spending the Lord's day in His handiwork and I'm grateful to be reminded of the blessing I have up here at CA serving in the company people who love God and the wilderness.