We will be welcoming families to the annual Memorial Day Family Weekend in just a few days and I wanted to give you a peek at what our theme is for the summer, and what my involvement has been in the process.

Earlier in the year Diane Windle suggested that we do something along the lines of the Amazing Race. I’m somewhat familiar with the television show, and so it seemed like it would make a good theme for the summer. There are three main areas at camp that all need to come to some kind of agreement on a theme, because they each carry out varying aspects of it. For example, the Bible teaching needs to have a theme that has a good teaching component; the Program team needs a theme that will work programmatically; and the Visual team needs to be able to produce shirts, decorations, and artistic materials to support the idea. My specific role is in the Visual team, as I’m the person to create the artwork as well as help produce a video that will illustrate the whole concept. It’s no small feat to make this come together!

Anyhow, I wanted to give you just a peek into some of the art concepts that we went through before finally landing on the finished product.

Early on we needed to decide whether we were going to model the theme on the popular television program with the name “The Amazing Race” or if we were going to go a different direction. After speaking more with Diane, we learned that our theme was actually going to be “AMAZING grace for the human RACE”. With that in mind we agreed that it would probably work better to stay away from the television program and create our own “Adventure Race” feel instead. So here are some initial concepts that I put together. These were intended to be proof-of-concepts, and not necessarily finished products.

Adding in some Color

Once I started getting some feedback from the different departments, I started playing with colors:

A Concept is Chosen

At this point we really had to make the decision as to whether we wanted to look like the television program, or if we wanted to go a completely different direction and make our own look/feel. After a few emails and discussion, it was decided that we would go with the concept of our own adventure race. With that being decided, the following mark was selected as the direction to go!

The Final Mark

The following is the image that we sent off to the T-Shirt company! Sometime in the next few days we’ll get a shipment of shirts and this mark will be right on the center of the chest. I’m proud of it!

Now you have a little more insight into what my specific responsibilities are at Camp. We get to serve in a wide variety of capacities, but we each have our specialty, and this is where I’ve been called to serve!

(All photo credit goes to James Stokes)

Anderson was born on April 1st, without any complications. He was the largest of all of our kids at 8lbs 14oz and was 20 inches long. April elected to be induced on the first since we had family with us to help with all the details. My dad was brave enough to take Lauren, Jack, and Avie back to Minnesota for the entire week after the delivery! Way to go Dad!

The siblings have welcomed Andy into the family with sloppy kisses and many requests to hold him! I’m pretty sure Avie is in denial though, as she still calls him “It” or “Her”... she wanted a sister

Adoption Update

As some of you may know, Anderson was a bit of a surprise to April and me, since we had been moving down the road of adoption. In fact, we were already a “waiting family”, albeit only for a week or two, when we found out we were pregnant. Honestly, it was a shocking discovery and took both of us some time to adjust to.

Once we told the adoption agency that we were expecting, they put our file into a holding pattern. They said we could reopen our case once the baby was born, if we wanted to.

We had also done a bit of fundraising with the Micah Fund. Fortunately they were willing to just hold our account as well.

Our home study needs to be renewed every year, so on Monday the social worker came to our house and we went through the renewal process. So as of right now we are waiting to hear back from our adoption agency. It is possible they would put us back into the “waiting family” status as soon as we give the OK.

All along we’ve held adoption with an open hand. The promptings we’ve felt are simply “be available”. So, since we’ve taken all the steps so far, we are going to do just that… be available. If the Lord chooses to place a child in our family via adoption, we will choose to trust Him!

Thank you to the many, many of you who have given to us in such a multitude of ways. We love you!

Here are some stats for you: From January through March we served 29 groups with over 1,699 students! Praise the Lord! Though we don’t know all the stories from these individuals, we know that important things happened in the lives of our guests while at camp this year.

While many of the groups that come consist of church youth groups, or school groups, several of the events are ones that we sponsor. Wintertainment & MELTDOWN are two that come to mind right away. At these two events we provide all the programming, as well as the counselors and speakers. Jake, the visual media specialist, and I worked hard to create highlight videos so the campers had something to take home with them and share with their friends.  Here are the two from Wintertainment and Meltdown:

Family Happenings

While we are extremely busy with camp during the winter, we also managed to find some moments to enjoy time with our family.

Lauren and I have enjoyed doing some woodworking together. She built this picture frame so she could have a place to display her family portrait!

Jack has practiced dressing himself!

We ate a number of meals with the campers… before mealtime I’d hear little footsteps come running up to my office! We took a picture one of the days.

Jack and I got to practice downhill skiing on the bunny hill at camp.

Our neighbors came over and watched the kids so April and I could serve in the Snack Shop at camp! Since we have such little kids, we don’t get to actually work together very often. So this was a date for us!

Avie got some sparklies in her ears.

As you can see, lots has happened recently! Thank you for your part in our lives

One of the things that He has been teaching me lately is that I must trust Him in all things. Either I’m a consumate worrier, or He likes to keep circumstances just tough enough to pry me out of my self reliance. Or more likely, both of those things are true.

Recently I was fretting about one thing or another and I found myself being consumed with negative thoughts about my future and the future of my family. At one point I was able to break out of it enough to ask the Lord to bring to remembrance a piece of Scripture that would help. He very quickly brought Proverbs 3:5-6 to mind.

“Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him and He will direct your paths.”

I find it so wonderful to be able to deeply inhale a passage of Scripture like this one! It gives me something to do… Trust.

As I sit here looking out the window all I can see is the reflection of the christmas lights in them since it is already dark outside for the day.  Those white lights are so pure and beautiful.  We have been thinking a lot these last several days of the beauty of how God choose to save us.  Through a child, his only son.  We are grateful this holiday season, and throughout the year of the hope that we can have because of the baby that God sent.  As we anticipate the birth of our own baby soon, we are reminded even more of the precious gift!

So, what have we been up to you ask?  Homeschool, camps dinner theatre, Wintertainment, life in general…many things fill our days.  I thought is might be fun to show you a bit of these last few months through some pictures.  Because who doesn’t like to look at pictures right?  So, here goes…

Though Lauren is the only one who is formally going through a homeschool cirriculumn right now, all three kids are sure learning everyday!  We studied insects for one of our units and got an ant farm.  It has been very fascinating seeing how hard those little ants work and reminds us about how we should be working hard with all our hearts as working for the Lord and not for men!

Avie loves to read and I will often times find her like this with a pile of books around her.  She will sit and look at the pictures for a long time.  She also trys her best to keep up with Jack and Lauren and as a result has been learning to identify her alphabet too!

Jack will do anything that involves being a mess!  He’s a boy, what can I say?  In this picture we made moon sand to go along with the unit that we studied about the moon in school that week.  We learned that the moon has no light of it’s own and all the light it gets is a reflection from the sun.  Reminds of of how dark we are if we don’t have Christ but those who have the Son have light!

The next event that has keep us very busy is camps annual Dinner Theatre.  Over the first two weekends in December camp puts on a fancy meal followed by a full length play.  If you’ve never come to one you are missing out.  The play is designed to be an outreach for the local community and has the gospel message clearly incorporated into the story.  We sold out for the dinner theatre when tickets went on sale in just over an hour!  We were grateful that the Lord allowed us to minister to over 700 people over 6 nights. 

Jesse was quite involved this year.  As he has done in years past he took care of all the lights and sound effects for the play.

Here is a picture from the performance.

And now tonight we welcomed around 200 high schoolers for Wintertainment.  Is is a fast paced camp designed to hit kids hard with the gospel message.  Be in prayer with us that the Lord would change lives this week!

Finally, since we know kids change fast I thought I would leave you with a recent family picture we took on Christmas.  Of course this picture was followed by a snowball fight!

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

I came across this blog, among MANY others, and found this fun and easy “recipe” for homemade puffy paint.  We followed the directions on the blog (though I had to add a tiny bit more water than the recipe called for) and ended up doing 4 different colors of paint.

I decorate the kids birthday cakes by putting frosting in a ziplock bag to use for my piping.  The kids were pretty excited when they found out they were going to be able to paint just like mommy does their cakes…

After they had finished painting one of their pictures I put the drawing in the microwave for about 30-45 seconds (also a little different than the blog suggested).  When they came out of the microwave the kids were quite amazed to see that the paint had “puffed” up and was able to be touched without getting them messy.

Though the activity itself didn’t last too long (about a half hour of actual painting) they still seemed to have a great time.  Here’s to the internet and a lazy Sunday afternoon! 

It’s canning time!

First up for us is always peaches.  Last year I was able to get 50lbs at our local Walmart but this year I just ordered them from our local bulk food store.  They were amazing.  Softball sized and excellent flavor and texture.  The kids were a big help again this year and enjoyed the process.  It is good for them to learn how we prepare for the winter by canning!

Jack’s job was to peal the peaches after they had been blanched.  He had a lot of fun with it.  They slid right now nice and easily!

Once they were peeled Lauren cut them into nice sized slices. 

All in all we ended up with 25 quarts of sliced peaches and a pan of fresh peach cobbler!

This year has been quite a rough garden year to say the least but we are still thankful for the crops that have done well.  We have harvested some yellow waxed beans and have many more still to pick.

Our peas have done the best they ever have in years past too.  We have been able to enjoy them fresh as well as froze a small amount to use for stir-fry this winter.

We do have some peppers coming and our tomatoes are just really behind but we will have a few I am sure.  Thanks though to a friend we have a bushel of peppers coming tonight which will fill our freezer for fajitas! 

Next week we will work on canning applesauce and then as the tomatoes come we’ll hopefully make pizza sauce, maybe spaghetti sauce and some salsa!  We are grateful for how the Lord continues to provide.

This past week I’ve been without my regular assistant, so I’ve been out taking all of the photos and video clips.  While it has meant that a number of items remain uncared for at the desk, it has also given me the opportunity to get out and interact with a number of the families.  It has also forced me to look very closely, and analytically, at what goes on here at Camp Forest Springs.  What I’ve seen has been a great encouragement.

Our summer started off in the regular fashion of Counselor Training Institute, followed by Youth Camps, and now Family Camps.  Throughout the past weeks much ministry has been accomplished!  It’s a joy to watch the staff come here for the first time.  They are always a bit nervous, which manifests itself in either general goofiness, or in a more timid fashion, of reserved emotion.  By the time they have gone through their training they have really gelled into a group that works well together and is ready for the summer activities.

Then there was Youth Camps… talk about a crazy time of year for the Media Department!  There is a saying that goes something like the following: “A Photographer Works When Everyone Else Plays”.  And, at a CFS Youth Camp, there is much playing!  I was able to help create a follow-up, highlight DVD for each camper.  This packet included a video that recapped the week, a challenge for the kids from the speaker, as well as recordings of the Bible sessions.  Hopefully this will be a tool that helps keep them connected with Camp, as well as get them motivated to come back in the future.

From what we’ve heard, there were many significant decisions that were made by the campers.  I don’t know the exact numbers, but someday we will see the fruits of our labors!

That pretty much brings us up to where we are at right now, in Family Camps. 

This morning Lauren and I were able to lead a group of families out to Voyager’s Breakfast.  Paddling across James Lake in the early morning mist, while listening to the family units chatter back and forth, I was impressed with the fact that Camp Forest Springs truly is a place where families can get away from regular life and enjoy being together, sharing experiences, making memories, learning, and laughing.  Sometimes it’s easy for us to forget that things are happening in peoples lives.  It’s easy to get distracted by our own issues and forget that there is much important ministry to do!  People need Jesus!  Our world needs Jesus!

Anyhow… I hope that this gives you a bit more info on what Jesse and April have been up to this summer.

PS - Here are a few videos that I thought you might like to see

So, what does that mean?  It means that everything on our end is taken care of (paperwork wise) and now birth familes can start to look at our family as they consider who would be the best family to raise their child.  The wait could be anywhere from a day or two or even up to a year or more, but we know that God already has the timing chosen and will let us know when that is when He is ready! 

We pray.  Since the process has begun, we have started to pray for the birth family and the baby that the Lord would place in our home.  The kids faithfully pray as well and wait with anticipation as we do.

More exciting news happened on Saturday.  We were approved for our first grant!  It is a matching grant through the MICAH fund.  Look for more information on that to come later. 

Thank you for praying for us.