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.