Deck Project

Tearing out deckboards.

Frost has been greeting us in the mornings up here at camp as we literally tear into the deck on the East Side Dining Hall.  As clouds come and go it warms up and cools down at the work site.  It's weird to think of the hours of work put into constructing this deck turns into about 10 minutes of me slamming it with a sledgehammer.  That worked for the spindles, but the decking was a lot more work.  Soon enough we had half of the deck torn apart and we were already installing new posts and new deck boards. 

The stripped down deck.

Dan Haines cutting new deck boards.

Most of my pictures on this will be from the same spots, but I think it will be fun to see how the porch starts to form, leading up to roofing the last quarter of the dining hall.  Just a stone throw away Mike Alchin has been working on a leaky water tank that feeds the whole East Side of camp.  It's buried underground and looks about like an in ground swimming pool.  It's been debated a little, but it sounds like the tank was probably installed in the early 70's. 

We also spent some time hauling equipment away from Crosscut.  Why?  Because it was used by campers this weekend!  There is still some more work to do, but it is a fully functional lodge at this point.  Thank God for the hard work and money that people were willing to sacrifice for this place where God has blessed.

I'm getting used to the Fall schedule, and I really enjoy the Fall weekends.  This weekend I helped out by driving the younger boys on the East Side to their chapel on the West Side.  I enjoy getting to know the kids a little, and also talking to them out at Thunder Express.  As for me, I've been spending most of my time working, but I've also had time to play soccer, watch some movies, and even a little mountain biking.  I borrowed the new head mounted camera from camp, and here's a video of a quick ride on the shortcut from the Program Center to the Trailer.

Mike and Cody's Greenhouse

Wait, greenhouse?  Yep, you heard it right.  The guys who tear down, chop up, and burn hundreds of trees throughout the year are working on some tree planting.  And here's why:

The new stairway to Crosscut is mostly finished.  We framed the last landing and now we just have to put up some of the railing and spindles.  There is a bit of a bald spot on the side of the hill near the stairway, so we decided to plant some trees.  Mike Baker and I traveled around the lake and snagged 14 to start us off on this hill.  We tried for a variety, and planted them with some kind of super tree fertilizer pellets.  Hopefully most of them will grow to be big fellas.  Now Mike is chomping on the bit to plant about 20 more in that area.

So now we wait and water.  Sometimes we have 20 minutes to an hour of downtime during the retreats, so it's fun to swing over and give them all a little water.  This weekend we didn't have a whole lot of extra time.  It was Grandparents Family camp along with work crew.  All of that on the West Side. 

The work crew was from 5 Points Community Church over near the Pontiac/Auburn Hills/Rochester area.  They are a top notch work crew and they showed it this weekend.  About 25 teens and leaders helped to do a lot of work in a quick hurry.  The big help was about 7 trees near the West Side Ball Field.  We hesitated to take them down because we didn't think we could clean it up well enough before a retreat.  With all the help from 5 Points we did it all in one day DURING a retreat.  I spoke to some campers that were in the RV Park and they were impressed that all of the trees were cleaned up so quickly.  The staff also mentioned how hard working the group was, and how their attitude was excellent throughout the hot day. 

The grandparents seemed to have an enjoyable camp.  The weather was fantastic and the moon was rich and full at night.  This camp is fun to see grandparents try to wear out grandkids without getting too tired out themselves.  I think everyone sleeps well after running around at camp for a weekend, especially if they come visit me at Thunder Express.  I had a couple kids that probably went 10 times in a row.  That's a lot of uphill hiking. 

Tom Harmon was our speaker this weekend.  Several times he mentioned "if time stands, which probably won't be for long".  One time he mentioned that he'd still rather "go up with the trumpets" than die on Earth.  Well the feast of Trumpets (Deuteronomy 29:1) is coming up at the end of the month and it just reminds me that life could be all done any moment.  I'm happy to be spending my time at Camp, living and serving my best.

Another Fall is Here

The Fall is Here

It's really Fall now.  It was so cold that Titus Brown came through the trailer and closed several of my windows on Sunday.  I usually just leave them open and cover up with blankets.  He says I look like a babooshka wrapped up in my blanket in my chair.  I think things will warm up again shortly.  Funny to think that on the 1^st it was 90 degrees and I was at a Tigers game.

This weekend we had a Family Camp.  It's interesting to watch the different families that come up here year after year.  I've been able to spend time with the some of the kids at all 4 of the family camps.  One of them is named Cody actually.  I was able to talk to him this weekend, and he spent a lot of time on the blob while I was lifeguarding.  I also spent some time on the Zipline and several trips through the dish room.  

The weather was the peculiar aspect of the weekend to me.  I think that we bounced from high 80's to low 60's as the weekend rolled on.  The crisp air makes me want to run out and play some football.  Instead, I'll probably spend the day unpacking my things, and really moving into the trailer.  So far I have my stuff in the building, but I need to get it all unloaded and put right where I want it. 

As for the maintenance department, we have a busy Fall planned out.  So far there has been a lot of getting ready for Fall camps.  That means tidying up the buildings and preparing the grounds for visitors.  For me that meant moving the Handcrafts tables from the East Side to the RV Park and cleaning up the cookout and campout sites in the national forest.  The big project for the maintenance group has been a giant stairway for the Crosscut parking lot.  I've been able to help on it here and there, but not very much.  I'll be able to work on the finishing touches this week. 

Please pray for the work that is coming this season!

Summer Wrap Up

Here's a couple things from the summer.  Just to catch us up before the Fall blogging season really begins.

This was very early in the summer.  The turtles were out and about, and Rob is always looking for animals to pick up.  All those turtles led to a classic Lee Brown story.  Lee Brown directs the program department here at camp, and he's somewhat of a nature guru.  He told us that you can tell a male turtle because he has big claws.  Apparently he uses those to brush against the face of females and melt their hearts.  It's classic Lee Brown.  I could tell more stories about Lee, but they are much better coming straight from him.

During the summer we clean all morning after the campers leave.  Once cleaning is done we have the rest of the day off usually.  I enjoyed stuffing soccer games into that time, but after that everyone wants a good dip in the lake.  Since I'm still certified to lifeguard, I was able to open the lake up on many of the afternoons.  One of those times a couple of the swimmers wanted to kayak to the other side and swim for a bit.  So I tossed a life tube in a canoe and went across the lake with them.  Made for a mobile life guarding station for a little while.

This isn't the best picture, but I think it gets the point across.  I helped out witht the maintenance issues on the West Side.  That usually meant plunging toilets in the ladies bathrooms.  The funny thing is that they usually had plunged it well enough, and they just needed to give it another flush to try it.  On the other hand there were a couple terrible messes that I had to call in back up for.  Otherwise there were light bulbs I'd mess with, and a couple of non-critical things that I left for the real maintenance guys.

The zip line was my second home this summer.  Actually my third home.  My first was the West Side Dining hall, the second was my bedroom, and finally the zipline.  The last week we had a couple of thunderstorms roll through, delaying some of the zipline times.  Since the tower has no roof I hunkered down under my umbrella while waiting for new groups to come up.

All in all the zipline was fun to work.  It's neat to get to see all the campers at some point, and it's an important part of safety at camp.  I thank God for the vigilance and the endurance to keep running the zipline on the super hot afternoons.  Also for the patience to deal with Thunder delays with a positive attitude.

So I'm happy the summer is over.  It pushes you to the limit to work so hard and just keep going.  I'm also sad to see the summer staff go.  I njoy meeting all these folks who come out to help.  Hopefully many of them will return for retreats as part time staff or as campers.  Thank God for the ministry He lets us be a part of at camp.

Wind Sprints

This summer sure feels like Wind Sprints.  I'll try to lay down some of my schedule along with some pictures.  We'll see how much I can type in about 10 30 45 minutes.

Tuesday
Most of my days are really fast.  Tuesday morning is not.  After winding down on Monday I usually get breakfast early, then spend some time on preparing for the week.  That can mean modifying ambushes for odd tribe numbers, or possibly just printing out some of the paperwork I need throughout the week. 

We bring in the campers at about 2:30pm.  I run announcements in the Dining Hall while they all grab a cookie and milk.  Then I send them out to get split into tribes by Jon Ford.  Rob and I look around to make sure nothing is coming up with the counselors as they are sorting through some paperwork.  By 4:00pm we try to ring the bell for our opener. 

The Opener establishes some major Camp Barakel rules and alarms to pay attention to.  Then we turn them loose with their counselors.  After dinner Rob and I run a dual ambush with guys and girls playing different ambushes.  I try to go to most of the chapels, at least to check in and see how they're going, otherwise I get paperwork and reading done before counselor snack.  I also try to help out at counselor snack until about 11pm. 

Wednesday-Saturday
I usually get to the Program Center before 8am to make sure all my ducks are in a row for the day.  Then after breakfast I help run the Counselor Circles.  On the West Side of camp we have one for girls, then another later for boys.  It's a chance for the counselors to regroup mentally while they're campers are in morning chapel.

I almost exclusively run lunch announcements and the Big Splash afterwards.  Big Splash is where we pick two tables and each of them sends a representative to challenge another camper or staff person.  Then we go outside and they each have to kneel in front a bucket, only one of them has water in it.  So it's a challenge where you have a 50/50 chance of getting soaked.

Most afternoons I have Zipline for all of freetime.  It's a fun break from the thinking aspect of programing.  You just operate the zipline, pretty simple.  Saturday afternoons I have a break from the Zipline and I usually get pulled for Lifeguarding, or else I just go down to the water to swim with the kids. 

After freetime we have dinner, ambush, chapel, counselor snack.  This is my daily grind for the most part.  I have a lot of responsibilities throughout the day, but there are often 15-45 minutes slots where I'm between tasks.  I try to use these times to be a presense around camp, but I also get in a lot of reading.  It's just enough time to take a break, but hard to do much beyond that. 



(I know this is super big but I thought it looked sweet.  Rob has a fun panorama camera)
Sunday
On Sunday I get up early for breakfast announcements, and then I send the tribes off to the East Side for Chapel.  After that I become the inspector, checking out to see how well the 4th-6th grade kids can clean up.  I'm suprised at how good they clean one week, then the next week there'll be a couple of tribes that completely blow it.  I get to rush over to chapel late, then rush back over for lunch on Sunday afternoon.

Sunday afternoon is funny.   Everything is kind of chill around here because games are over, free time is over, but there is still a lot of programing work to do.  So I spend most of the afternoon adding up Merit scores, Sports scores, and also running the famous tradition of Counselor Hunt.  Through all that I try to watch Musicale and eventually get some food before my Big Big Splash and the Awards.  It's mostly downhill from there.  We only have Firebowl and Counselor Snack after the Awards.

Monday
I usually need to be at the Medicine Teepee at 6:45am to get the leftover meds that we'll pack up for the kids.  Sometimes Rob does this for me to help me get a little sleep.  It's very much appreciated when he does.  So I return the meds, hand out camper release forms, then after saying goodbye when the buses leave I get to watch the last kids before they get picked up.

That's Day 1 of Monday.  Day 2 is cleaning.  It really does feel like a whole day, although it's just 8:45am-11:00am.  I run the Heritage cleaning crew, which is kind of a joke because I have two THREE year returners that help clean.  They let me vacuum and I get some much needed alone time with a lot of noise in my ears.

Day 3 is the afternoon where we have free time.  Sometimes there are organized events or training sessions, but usually we find some way to chill out for about 8 hours.  The iron man summer staff used to welcome the buses back that same day.  We're super thankful for the rest. 

So that's the summer for me.  I do have time to chill here and there, but most of the day is spent on the go.  I'm having a lot of fun, and I still get to spend quality time with Mike Baker.  I helped shingle for a morning, and installed a window into Dave Douglas' house one morning. 

If anyone is still following I thank you for that.  Please keep praying for me as I try to sprint my way through the summer here at Camp Barakel.

Summer Workshop

Summer has started here at Camp Barakel.  We haven't seen any campers, but the two weeks of training are important for our summer staff.  During this time they accomplish a lot of different things.  New people are getting used to camp, and learning about the daily schedule.  Otherwise there are several roles, and each one has a slightly unique workshop experience.

Counselors- prepare for their tribe talks.  These are short little Sunday school type segments of the day early in the morning, and right before bed.  Campers usually focus on memorizing our summer verses (Romans 12:9-12) in the morning, then they have a review of the evening chapel service at night.  Each counselor has the latitude to change some aspects of their tribe talks, but they follow that general framework.  Counselors also have a lot of training in how to deal with campers.  Each camper has a different experience and we try to get our counselors ready to deal with any situation they might run into.

YAPS (Young Adult Program Staff)- Many of these folks are fresh out of high school.  They have a wide variety of tasks we ask them to do, flexibility being key.  YAPS can be lifeguards, piano players, archery/riflery instructors, cook assistants, laundry workers, handcraft guides, and trading post workers.  Throughout all of those tasks they help us run the ambush games and pretty much any other program activity at camp sees a YAP cleaning it, preparing it, or running it.  On top of all that they are often asked to counsel for a week when we have full camps.

Programers- This is me this year.  We have an interesting job.  We need to develop relationships with all the summer staff because we depend on all of them to make our program work.  At the same time we have a mountain of preparation.  Programers spend a lot of time planning ambushes and getting the supplies ready.  While doing that, we have a surprising amount of paperwork to attend to.  Every week we have to print out counselor schedules, game schedules, detail sheets (that help counselors remember the daily details), and announcements among other tasks.  This week we also have to design and print out a lot of one time papers like the bulletin board paperwork and rules sheets. 

Programing has been a tough balance for me, but I'm enjoying the fast pace so far.  It's also hard because it doesn't feels like our work adds up to much yet.  Others are powering through training sessions while we disappear, but it's all important work for running camp.  I think it's one of those things that I'll feel a monkey on my back until we get through a full week, then I'll feel more confident in our work.  For now we just have to keep our nose to the grindstone and work.  It really is to the glory of God.

STEP Counselors- The Summer Tech and Engineer Program counselor have their work cut out for them.  They'll be working with high schoolers that come to work on dishes and other hard work around camp.  They're job ends up covering all the other jobs in different ways, and more.  So this week they have been learning how to run the dish room, preparing their own program activities, and getting used to a different schedule.  It's really a wide variety, yet the focus has to remain on the one on one relationships they make with their engineers/techs.

So that's the main four.  There are some other summer leaders that are vital to how camp runs, but they have a much different schedule and I honestly don't know the details.  It's hard work all around, but they do make us get our sleep in for now.  I have a feeling they're pulling the plug on that as the summer goes on and our schedule gets crunched.  Pray for us!  We're thinking about campers and God.  Trying to put the two together.  

Here are a couple pictures from family night at the Ford's!  Don't know if the video will work.

 

 

Thanks for following my erratic schedule!

Jumping to Summer

Summer is starting to happen all around us.  Saturday was the first super hot work day.  I think the first one always catches us off guard here at camp.  We get used to the cold in the Winter, everyone has their own methods of coping with the cold.  Well now we start to get used to the hot heat.  The good news is that the gnats haven't moved in quite yet, although the mosquito's are taking advantage of the open space while they can. 

We've been hard at work to finish off a lot of projects at camp this week.  It becomes a juggling act between cleaning assignments, major projects, and minor projects.  All of them are important, so it's important that we get done everything we can.  I'm happy to say the Staff Room in the East Side Dining Hall is finished.  A lot of hands were able to get in on that, and I think it looks really nice now.  I should say we're finished for our part, there is a cabinet that we've ordered and we'll install when we receive it. 

The Bath House continues progressing.  The boy's side is just waiting on the fixtures for the showers.  Someone offered to fabricate some very nice metal boxes that cover the pipes and will give the showers a smooth, finished appearance.  Over on the girl's side we're lagging behind where I'd like to be.  Some of the glass board is up, but it takes a long time to finish some of the smaller sections around the edges.  Unfortunately we won't finish before the Memorial Day family camp, but it should be finished before summer camp begins.  We're doing what we can to make the shower sections available for the campers this coming weekend. 

Crosscut continues to look more and more like a finished building.  I spent a morning last week knocking down trees to open up some room to expand the parking lot behind Heritage Lodge.  It was a lot of fun to just knock the trees down, then push them to the side.  Jerry is a man who comes up for a week at this time of year and he is truly a work horse.  We we're able to take out about 7 major trees and clean it all up so people could come and go to Crosscut.  I haven't been working too much inside the building lately, but I think we're sitting on go for carpeting and bunk beds.  After that a lot of the work is just finishing up the details.  I think the goal at this point is to get it open for campers sometime this summer.

We just had a Men's Retreat on the West Side and a Mother/Daughter Retreat on the East Side.  My dad came up with the men and the Hulderman's (friends from my childhood) came up with the girls on the East Side.  I really enjoyed getting back into the swing of camp, especially with so many familiar faces coming up.  Calvin and Megan Bradley were here to help out as well.  As summer approaches we continue to tighten everything up to prepare for the arrival of our summer staff, and eventually for our campers. 

This summer I'll be programing on the West Side with Jon Ford and Rob McAdams.  This means I'll be helping Jon and Rob in organizing the activities on the West Side with mostly Junior Campers (Grades 3-6).  I don't know all the details and in and outs of my daily life as a programer, but I know I'll be working closely between the campers, the counselors, and the other programers.  The schedule is hardy for a programer, consisting of late nights trying to hammer out details for the week and to keep things running smoothly.  Please pray for me as the summer begins.  Pray that I'd keep a good attitude in stressful situations, and that I'd have the energy to keep working hard throughout the summer. 

Another note on the same train of thought.  With the way the summer goes so quickly I'm not sure how consistent the blogging will be over the summer.  I enjoy getting out some pictures and information on what I'm working on here, but the schedule may take away from the blog.  Thanks for following, and please be patient with me over the next 3 months.