Dark Leaves

The house is really taking shape.  Drywall is fun to work on because it's fairly simple to cut it out, and it's fast work to put it together.  We had 4 guys plowing away in 3 rooms and it's made things go really quickly.  We still have more to do though.

The extra bedroom that could be the main bedroom.  We'll see.

The living room.  It's hard to express how much brighter it is now.

 The wind and rain have been taking their toll on the woods.  There are leaves everywhere.  It's actually fantastic, especially knowing that I don't have to clean them up this Fall.  All part of the cycle of the seasons. I'm looking forward to Christmas already.  It's definitely my favorite season.  I guess each season has some great parts to it.  Definitely get lots of changes while in Michigan.

The woods are gorgeous right now.  A carpet of leaves covers most of the ground.

 This weekend was Jack and Jill weekend.  It was fun to see everyone that was able to make it back up to camp.  Especially Rob and Adela of course.  I felt like it was a really good overall group of workers.  The work that was done saves camp a lot of time and effort over these next couple weeks.  My group was in charge of washing the buses and then cleaning up for some tree cutters.  I enjoy this because we mix up our tasks throughout the day and washing the buses is a formidable task on a cold morning.

Dropping off some wood from trees that were being taken down to make room around the zipline.

Traditionally there is an Ultimate Tourney on this weekend, but I've missed it for the last 3 years.  I'm really looking forward to getting back in on it next year, or at least on other Ultimate Frisbee related activities.  For now we begin to transfer into our five days a week mode.  This will really help us accomplish a lot in the house we're working on.

Thanks for reading.

Who knew?

This week team seasonal staff had dinner at the Van Orman's.  It was a really good meal, and instead of playing cards or board games we tried out something a little different.  We rolled coins!

That jar/bottle thing was loaded with coins.  It was hard to even pick up.

I haven't rolled coins since I was a little kid.  It was actually really fun!  Who knew that simple stuff like counting and rolling coins would bring back fun memories from childhood.  All in all it was a haul of about 500 bucks in mostly dimes and nickles.

All finished!

As for the rest of the week, we're still in the old Cook's House making major renovations.  Right now we're working on the ceiling, but we're close to drywalling around the whole building.  In the meantime there has been a lot of electrical updates on the building.  Mainly taking out old wiring and reorganizing the junction boxes.

You can see the angle of the ceiling, and the annoying wires in the way.

So we keep plugging away at different parts of the building.  We need to do a little more cleaning, but the retreats are officially over.  We still have the Jack and Jill Retreat where we'll get lots of Winterizing activities finished up around camp.  I'm looking forward to seeing the Summer Staff returning up to help out.

The Fall colors are still looking great.

Camp will start settling into our 5 day work weeks.  I'm always sad when the people leave, but we do get a ton of work done with extended weeks minus the cleaning and other preparations for the weekends.  Plus 2 day weekends are fun too.

Until next time.

A Letter to Camp Staff

The following is a letter I am sending out to Camp Barakel staff today.  It has relevent information for pretty much anybody though.  You will noticed it's written to the staff though.

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Dear Camp Barakel Staff,

My status as Seasonal Staff will be ending in mid November, and I’d like to keep all of you up to date on what’s going on, and why.

It’s been about 3 years since I moved up here.  I was just looking at my notes regarding the details of Seasonal Staff that I had sorted out with Dave Douglas.  Certain phrases stick out to me now, such as: “half a day shoveling”, “fire wood cutting and insulation”, “Titus Brown”, “Leave mid March”.  All of my notes carry a completely different meaning to me after spending so much time performing each of those tasks.  In the summers I fulfilled almost every role I was qualified to do, spending time with my best friend (Rob) along the way.  Being at Camp for these 3 years has been a fantastic, life changing experience.

But, it’s called “Seasonal” Staff for a reason.  This particular season of my life is reaching its end.  There are a wide variety of reasons that I’ll be leaving, and I’d like to share some of them with everyone so it’s clear.

·  I’m nearly out of money.  I haven’t sent out very much about support this year, mostly because I felt my time here would be ending, so I wanted to try to make it through the last bit on my own funds and on what God provided independently of that.  I have received a lot of support in my time here, including a couple people who have supported me throughout my whole time here.  And don't let me forget you folks with you meals and outright monetary support at times.  I thank God for the ability to live mostly off of my own savings along with support from friends and family.

·  The 2 year Seasonal Staff limit.  My understanding of this limit is that it’s not a hard and fast rule. There is wisdom in it though.  I can see that because of my time here.  The longer I stay here, the more attached I am to this place, and the people that live and work here.  It’s not going to be permanent at this point though, so I believe going home and maintaining relationships in Battle Creek will be a good thing.

There are more reasons to leave, and I could go into greater detail about those two reasons.  But I won’t for now.  Any of you are free to ask me more about this process if you wish.  

Leaving is certainly not all bad.  Here are some things I’m looking forward to doing:

·     Sports.  Volleyball, Soccer, Ultimate Frisbee.  Competitive and Leisure.  It’s all good and I’m looking forward to all of them.  An average week at home sees me playing 3 different competitive sports.

·     Church.  I love my church at home, and the people in it.  It will be good for me to reconnect with the youth in the Battle Creek with a renewed zeal for the Gospel.

·     Friends and Family.  My Mom will love to have me home as most mothers can probably relate.  I also have many friends who I will enjoy getting close with again.  This includes Adela Aguilera who I’ve been dating since the week off after Summer.  (The way you’re supposed to do it Rob!).

You’ll notice all of these include fellowship.  I’ve loved being in fellowship with all of you here at camp, and I plan to maintain that fellowship as best I can.  Camp holds a special place in my heart.  I can easily say that I would like to be on Full Time Staff, but I feel like there is lots of time for that to happen.  I plan to keep camp in mind in my future plans, whether it’s through Part Time, Full Time, or even a future stint as Seasonal staff.

Keep me in your prayers.  Transitioning back into the engineering world could be very difficult, but I’m really not worried about it.  The plan is to go home the Friday (November 16th) before Thanksgiving and to try and find a job by the start of the new year.  I believe God will provide, just as he has since the day I was born, and even before the creation of the world.   

Looking back at 3 years of service, it brings to mind the “Desert Song” that I have on a Hillsong cd.  The particular line reads, “I know I’m filled to be emptied again, the seed I’ve received I will sow”.   In my 3 years of engineering God was filling my wallet with money, and my heart with service.  We get used to it, but the service here is intense.  It’s emptied me in some ways, and I’m ready to go home and let God fill me once more.

Thankfully yours,          

Cody

1126 Frisbie Blvd

Springfield, MI

49037

A New Ride

This was a bit of an odd week.  Normal work on Tuesday, then a normal day of cleaning on Wednesday.  Thursday was a little different though.  My dad came late on Wednesday night to spend a couple days with me before the Men's Retreat this weekend.  He joined the maintenance crew on a trip to CoBeAc Camp and Pleasant Valley Camp.

We like to check out other camps to see what kind of new ideas and interesting methods that have.  We also share some of our ideas.  It's really fun to coordinate with other people doing very similar work.  These meetings could be competitive, but I think because of our joint goal of spreading the Gospel there is a lot more cooperation.

That took up almost all of Thursday and then our Friday was a little different than normal as well.  Usually we don't work the whole afternoon because we have so many assignments in the evening, but for the Men's Retreat we open up some activity areas at 2pm, so I took it a little easy on the morning.  The main task I wanted to complete was moving fire wood into the East Side Chapel so that the men would have a lot of fuel to pour into the fireplaces.

We used Brad's truck so that we wouldn't have to worry about getting stuck outside the chapel.

So we didn't do much with the house this week.  We've moved into the secondary bedroom and we're trying raise the roof so it will be level before we raise the ceiling underneath.  Then it will be a quick matter of insulation and drywall after that.  It's fun to be plowing through such a big project so quickly.

All kinds of walls in this room.  And flooring too.

The men's retreat went well.  I enjoyed seeing lots of people I've met at camp as well as several from home. It was a super rainy weekend, but most of the guys seemed to make the best of it anyways.  The most disappointing part of the rain for me was that I couldn't ride my new toy around.  Dad brought a motorcycle for me to play around with as I travel to and fro.

I like the working headlight and the push button starter.

I'll only have another month to ride around on the bike.  That's right.  I'll be leaving camp for Battle Creek the Friday before Thanksgiving.  So that is about the 16th of November pending a change schedule.  This means moving back south, and finding a job, hopefully in the Battle Creek area.  We'll see though.  I'm really not worried about the details yet, but hopefully I'll have something going by January or so.

Thanks for following.  Only two more camp weekends!

Blogging In a Hurry

A busy week!  We had our last ladies retreat this weekend, and a lot of progress was made on the house.  This week we insulated the ceiling and much of the walls, then we actually put drywall on the vaulted ceiling.  12 foot pieces of drywall.  I've never worked with such large pieces, but they make it go by super fast.  I failed to get pictures of the drywall up, but maybe next time.  Here are some snaps of the house:

This used to be a desk built into the wall by the fireplace.

We moved the door and opened up that hallway about a foot.

Cool temps are good for insulation.  Dan Haines whipped through this wall in short order.

On Sunday I was planning to visit Adela down near Midland, then it turned out the speaker from the weekend needed a ride to the airport in Freeland.  It turned out great.  About 5 minutes down the road from her house.  I really enjoyed talking to the speaker all the way down.  Then it was fun to hang out in Midland.

Now for men's retreats!

Outdoor Exploring

This week was kind of goofy at camp.  The staff men spent 3 days at Reed Ranch for a small retreat.  Reed Ranch is next door to us and they have about 20 times our acreage.  It's usually used for hunting and some family vacationers.  Most of our group explored, although I personally enjoyed the time to read in front of a warm fire.

I pulled out the old stunt kite.  It was very windy off the edge of Shamrock Lake.

The last night I snagged some nice pictures of the sunset.  Every night was a bit of a show over the lake. 

This weekend was the first Ladies Retreat.  Camp wasn't quite full on either side, which kind of makes for more of a relaxed atmosphere.  It also helped that we had 3 summer staff couples that came to help out.  The Coopers and Jerome's worked dishes and programing while Rob and Elizabeth McAdam's worked programing with Elizabeth taking a range for the weekend.

For the day off, Team Seasonal spent the day exploring around the area.  The plan was to check out the Au Sable at different points in our area.  Here are a couple pictures from the adventure.

Great view overlooking the Au Sable River.

The snake we found.  He seemed quite passive.

The view below the Fishermen's Chapel.  

Looking the other way.

We finished off the trip at the Fishermen's Chapel.  Every time I go there I just want to take a kayak or canoe to it.  It would be quite a trip though, involving someone not going along and coming to pick me up at the other end.  I'll get to it sometime I think.  At the 4 or 5 places we stopped the river is really beautiful and very wide.

One more women's retreat this weekend before the men come for a couple weekends.  I'm looking forward to more chances to serve so that the Gospel can be proclaimed.