Adventures on Mount Washington!!

Hello everyone!

It's now been nearly two weeks since we've last checked in, but that was because we have just had one of our most exciting and eventful weeks of the year. There is no doubt that any of you with loved ones in the program have heard stories of our trip to Mount Washington! We have just spent the majority of last week snowboarding, snowshoeing, and genuinely enjoying ski resort life!

We left early in the morning (around 5!) on Monday and headed our way up to the mountain. We were lucky enough to be able to get there reasonably around 9 in the morning and spend out first day either learning or reacquainting ourselves with skiing and snowboarding. Most of us rented equipment and were lucky enough to receive lessons with our package. Mount Washington is the biggest ski resort on Vancouver Island, it is well known for having one of the largest snow bases for resorts in the world. Conditions are usually very favorable and the powder is kept amazingly groomed. We were so lucky to have this within driving distance to us.

We also had some amazing accommodations. We rented a chateau situated directly at the bottom of the ski hills. You could literally make your way down the bunny hills and side-track to where we were staying. The chateau had a number of bedrooms, common areas and hot tubs which were all used regularly as most of us were pretty sore in the evenings and needed some down time. We also were lucky to have incredible food all weekend (steak anyone?) I'm not sure if these pictures can quite capture how nice the area was, but we all felt so blessed to be able to stay and enjoy the amenities.

Wednesday brought another fun adventure, as we were able to go snowshoeing for the afternoon. We took a chairlift up the mountain and all walked together (with our guides) to an awesome out-of-bounds area. It was here that our guides taught us a bit of survival techniques such as how to build a snowcave, how to use a compass, and how to see where avalanches might happen. I think we all enjoyed just how much fun this was. At one point we separated into groups and used our compass to find our way down the mountain. I know it was my first time snowshoeing and this was definitely a highlight of the week. We really enjoyed our guides as well, and you'll see in the pictures below we decided to build a little homage to them.

Nights also brought some really special times as we had the opportunity to get to spend some amazing bonding time together. Some nights were spent encouraging each other, and some were spent talking about what God is doing. I can truly say that one of the hugest benefits of this trip is how close it makes us as a group. We can truly see the bonding and closeness being magnified after this trip. I think we definitely grew together with the quality time we were able to spend.

You'll notice there's not a lot of pictures of our skiing and snowboarding action so far, and that is because we were able to have some of our incredibly gifted students take a video of that! Special thanks goes to Matt who edited this video and took most of the shots!

We arrived home on Friday night, some with more bumps and bruises than others! After a couple of days recuperating, we are now on our way to Vancouver for Missionsfest. I will give you a full report on what that is when we return. But we are on our way tomorrow for yet another adventure! Things really don't slow down here!

Please continue to pray for us! We are so grateful for all of you!

Derek

Happy 2013!

Hey Everyone! Happy New Year! We trust you all had a great time over the holiday season and that those of you who had loved ones return home enjoyed every second with them!

Returning to the camp seemed very similar to when we left, there's still no snow on the ground and the weather actually seems nicer now than in December. We are currently sitting at 5 degrees and it's sunny. This is why we love the West Coast life!

The students hit the ground running upon getting back. They are currently taking a Pauline Epistles class with Prof. Carl Hinderager. We have seen the holiday rest attitudes go away and a strong academic work ethic take over. There are scenes like this all over Pacific Woods lodge right now!

One of the assignments for this class included memorizing an entire book of Scripture. It has been amazing to see the students take this project on with excitement and work hard at it. It's not an abnormal thing to see students walking around talking to themselves in memorization. It's also been great to see how hard the students have been pushed to know their Bibles in this class, every day includes a quiz that expects them to know what book and chapter a certain passage is found in. I know that while the moment may seem like rigor to many of the students, they will be richly rewarded through Paul's Epistles.

It's also been the season where we are really kicking our missions trips into full gear! The teams have been formed and we are weeks away from embarking to either Mexico or Vancouver-East Side. Many of the students have been figuring out what they can specifically bring to the trips. I can say from personal experience that the trips are one of the most important parts of the year as they stretch you out of your comfort zones in ways unimaginable. These are not going to be vacations, and we are excited to see how the students will push themselves and really learn things about themselves and ministry in the process.

It's with this in mind that I would like to present an opportunity to all of you. Many students have been fundraising for this trip and it's been really encouraging to see many people partner with the trips in either financial or prayer support. We would like to ask all of you to be praying for these trips already! If anyone does want to support the trips financially as well, either connect with your loved one in the program or contact us directly! All the funds will be going to the students fundraising efforts, and anything extra will be given as a donation to the organizations we are going to be working with.

I think it is time to end here, the next couple weeks will be crazy! Next week we are going to Mt. Washington for our yearly ski/snowboard trip, so you can all be praying for that! We leave bright and early on Monday morning!

Until Next Time,

Derek

Christmas Celebrations!

Hello again everyone! It’s been an incredible first semester and we are excited for all of you to see the growth in the students as they head out for Christmas break on Tuesday. We are going to miss all of them so much, but January will come sooner than we are expecting.

This week has been busy in terms of activities, we are gearing up for Christmas! On Tuesday we took all of the students to a Christmas tree farm in Duncan We were allowed to choose the type of tree we wanted for our lobby (Douglas fir!) and then choose our tree.

We had spent the morning making Christmas decorations so it was a lot of fun to hang each of our personalities on the tree and take pictures. I’m not sure there is much more enjoyable at Christmas time than a Christmas tree hung near the fireplace. So we’ve found it’s increased the amount of homework being done in our lobby as well as the amount of carols we have heard played around camp.

That evening we had our Qwanoes Christmas banquet and enjoyed an amazingly cooked Turkey dinner. We also dressed up and had to take lots of pictures of ourselves.

 We also enjoyed our talent show that evening. It was a special time of enjoying each other and the gifts that God has given us. While the evening was very heavy on inside jokes, we were treated to a number of memorable acts. Highlights of the night included the girls’ Carly Rae Jepsen dance, a Hawaiian Christmas Carol and a reworded Christmas carol that intended to embarrass a certain intern (Ashley). It was a wonderful, full day and we once again felt so blessed to have everyone here. I can’t imagine what this year would look like with even one student missing so we are more than grateful to God for orchestrating bringing each one here.

The next day we thought it would be wonderful to spend some time separately as both the guys and girls went off their own ways.

The guys spent some time bowling and then went back to the camp for a pizza party and video games night. 

The girls spent some time doing Zumba in town and then went back to the camp’s guest house for some cheesecake and a sleepover. It was a great time had by both genders and we are extremely grateful for how God has given us each other.

I'll wrap up here, but it's been great to have so many things to tell people about all that is going on, I'm only scratching the surface. Please ask for all the stories while they're home and you'll be treated to a number of really good ones!

We all know how much we’re going to miss all of the students, so we can only imagine how excited many of you are to have them home.

Derek

Gospels and Christmas lights!

In the midst of Gospels class, we thought to truly understand what is being learned it should come from one of the students.

So we are extremely grateful that one of our students, Rachael Allen, has written our post for this week! (Thanks Rachael!) We hope that you will be blessed in hearing a first-hand account of what is going on!

Most believers brush over the Gospels as stories about Jesus' birth, life and teachings and resurrection, and move on to much more applicable books such as the Letters of Paul. As students, we had come from this bias as well at the start of our Gospels class, taught by Wes Olmstead, a prof from Briercrest. This past week we had our largest content and significance course, 26 packages of notes and an entire lifetime worth of strengthened beliefs about our Savior. The morning after our final class, a group of us headed down to the dock and we stood in a circle looking at our great God's creation amidst the rain. As I heard the testimonies of changed hearts, lives, and theology from my classmates, there was nothing else I could do but marvel and praise God. This class has been so monumental as we learned about the history of 1st century Israel, the background of gospel texts and retraining ourselves to interpret Scripture based on what it actually says, not what our biases presume. 

A break from studying during the course was the mid-week trip to Ladysmith for the annual Christmas "Festival of Lights." It was so refreshing to laugh, play and enjoy Christmas with an entire town lit up with strings of coloured lights. The perpetual parade ran snaked through the town, ending in a finale of dazzling fireworks cascading in the night sky. It was such a needed break and reminder of the coming holiday that we were going to be spending with each other as well as back home with our families. Hooray for an eventful month, and God has blessed us immensely as we draw closer to him!

Rachael is pictured here in the front row - Green Jacket and Red Hat (Thanks Again Rachael!)

Deep in the Earth and Learning about Church

Hello Everyone! I'm thrilled to bring you another post about the adventures our Qwanoes students are going on! As I'm sure those of you with loved ones out here already know, this will be the one of the last blog posts before Christmas break. We have finally decorated the lodge with lights and now have a local Christmas radio station, so it must be nearly time!

The past week or two has been incredibly busy, but also incredibly rewarding for us here at camp. After our week of prayer ended, we went straight into our Church ministry class with Prof. David Ernst. The students really enjoyed being able to learn about our roles as Christians in the church and even debate about current Church issues. With all the discussion that happened, I am absolutely sure that we will see some good things come out of what was learned. I'm really excited to see how the students will practically apply these things in their churches at home.

We are now right in the middle of the busiest academic time of the year, and it has been so encouraging to see the students thrive in the middle of academic pressure. We are not only seeing papers drastically improve, we are also seeing students seek to be a blessing to each other and help each other through this time. Next week, the students will be taking their Gospels class with Dr. Wes Olmstead. We are sure this will be an incredibly enriching time learning and critically thinking about Jesus Christ and what role He plays in our lives.

We also had the pleasure of being able to help with the Senior High retreat two weekends ago. Many of the students, in some capacity, were able to spend some good time ministering to a number of 15-18 year olds. It was amazing to see the students building relationships and practically serving this age group. We were thrilled to see the students jump in and enjoy their time with these Senior High campers. Maybe some of them may come back and do the Kaléo program themselves some day?

Finally, we had another adventure this week! We were able to head up North and head over to Horne Lake Caves Provincial Park to go caving! (spelunking?) We all headed up and split into two groups. While one group went caving, the other got to spend some time in Parksville and Coombs Market. Coombs Market was a lot of fun, many of the students spent some time getting homework done, while others shopped in the impressively International Market for treats and Christmas gifts.

Up at the caves we spent a lot of time crawling deep into the earth, up the waterfall, and past the roof spiders. Many of the students had the excitement of squeezing through some tight spaces and spending some time in the most intense darkness they'd ever experienced. For those who haven't experienced it, there is absolutely no light deep into a cave. You could hold your hand less than an inch from your face and not be able to see anything. It was an incredible experience and one that was more than little creepy. But through this, we were able to learn a good Scriptural lesson. We were able to see what the Scriptures were talking about when it talked about darkness. We learned how truly dark darkness could be. How perfect an object lesson before the gospels class! This is what Christ came into, and this is what He has saved us from! (Not caving, the darkness)

This was our last adventure of 2012, the time has flown and we are so grateful to God for the safety He has provided us with thus far. Can you believe our next adventure will be in 2013? And that it's only a few weeks away?

Time flies when you love what you're doing!
Until next time,

Derek