End of Summer Update

Summer camp has ended and we are well into our conference season here at Victory!
August has been an incredibly busy month for Justin because we are short handed on the Guest Services front. Everyone has been wonderful about picking up slack but because August is one of our busiest (or the busiest) month for guest groups, it still means many hours and long days for everyone working. We are nearing the end of the month now and getting ready for blackout week, when we purposely schedule no groups, so that anyone who wants time off can get it.

Here's a quick recap of the second half of the summer!

Justin spoke at chapel here and there during a couple of weeks of camp. We had no scheduled speaker so the camp staff took turns speaking on different topics each night. I always love watching my husband speak because he may not fully realize it but he's a gifted preacher! :) I wish I could have captured the energy of evening chapel in a photo. It is awesome to have so many young people in one place and watch God be lifted high in singing and in talking about Him and in just having a ton of random fun! You know it's a good place to be when we arrive at Spruce Lodge and Grady starts yelling "CHAPEL TIME!"

I got to fill in at the gift shop and run espresso for several days. It is one of my favorite things to do around camp because not only do I get to make espresso and enjoy the incredible smells all day, I get to interact with campers and staff that I normally wouldn't see as much. I love talking to people and making them happy with coffee!

Evie lost her top two teeth over the last month. She now has an adorable gappy smile and she somehow still manages to say her S's the same and not lisp. She's preparing now to go into 2nd grade and she is counting down the days till we start school! Tonight we begin the AWANA year at church and she's celebrating the fact that this is her last year of Sparks and next year she'll be in T&T!

We capped off the summer with a formal staff dinner (which I didn't get pictures of because I was home sick :( ) and then a bonfire at the Matanuska River. It was definitely as cold as it looks and I for one was thankful for a huge fire to stand around! 

Both Evie and Norah got swimmer's itch this summer....TWICE. Once from both lakes here at camp. We then determined that neither lake was safe and so ended our swimming career for the summer! But seriously, don't let Evie's thumbs-up fool you. It was several days of misery each time they caught it, with endless itching and waking mom and dad up in the middle of the night to apply itch cream multiple times. What a huge bummer!

Another photo of the bonfire at the river. I'm not sure why they're out of order but I try not to wade too deep into technology because I'll never find my way back. :P

Early morning fog lifting off the pond outside our house. We had higher than average temperatures for June, a normal July, and a chilly August.

Norah shows her marshmallow at the river bonfire. She looks cold! Norah is about to start preschool which she's very excited about. She will get to do big-kid school time with Evie. She's also about to begin her second year of Cubbies.

The IDEA homeschool group had family camp here at the beginning of the month. It wasn't much of a retreat for us since we live here, ;) but we did get to do horse rides. The kids were super excited!

If you look closely you can see the blue lollipop smooch on my cheek from Grady's kisses. This boy just turned two! He enriches all our lives every single day. He is most definitely the clown of the family and loves to make us laugh. He is also a great communicator for someone so small and a very compassionate little boy! He always has a glint of mischief in his eye!

We had a nice hot day and the girls decided to do a lemonade stand. They made two whole dollars!!

A peaceful evening on Shallow Lake. There is no summer like an Alaskan summer!

Grady's first horse ride! This horse is named Gold Digger and is also the horse that Evie rode when she had her very first horse ride several years ago! Grady got a little nervous when we put him up there, but he was beyond excited and talked about it for a long time!

We took a family trip on one of Justin's days off and went day camping at Eklutna Lake. We 4-wheeled, hiked around a little bit, threw rocks in the lake, made mud pies, and cooked over a fire. It sprinkled rain on us off and on but it didn't stop us from having a fantastically fun day!

This little mama had her 7th birthday last week. We had a double party for her and Grady since their birthdays are 4 days apart. But we still put candles on every food we could and sang happy birthday several times on their own special day!

Evie made homemade party favors/thank you notes and a decorative hanger and sign. Perhaps she has a future in event planning?

Birthday boy shows daddy his ice cream. Notice the frosting on the cupcake is all licked off. ;)

Birthday boy is happy to be eating pizza for dinner.

Evie's dear friends Alison and Lucy at the birthday party

I'm not sure if you can tell in the picture but the trees higher up are yellow! We're getting an early fall this year and many of the trees around camp are yellow and the road is already dotted with fallen leaves. I'm not quite ready to let go of summer yet but winter is coming, ready or not!
All in all we had a great summer. I wanted to share a couple of stories from this summer. We keep a book in the staff lounge for counselors and staff to write the awesome things God has been doing over the summer. Here are just a couple of stories. Praise God for the awesome works He's doing in the lives of young people!


This past week I had a really difficult bunch of campers who came from some tough family backgrounds.  Two of them were sisters and the older one struggled with an eating disorder.  She told me she didn’t believe in God because when she had prayed that her parents would stay together, He didn’t answer and they still divorced.  Throughout the week I kept on telling her that God loved her no matter what and that even if she didn’t believe in Him, He would keep pursuing her.  Dori and Hail also talked to her a lot and at the end of the week she rededicated her life to Christ.  I could definitely see a change in her at the end of the week – when other campers started arguing and crying; she’d pull them aside and ask to pray with them.  Also, in our last cabin discussion, she got up in front of the campers and talked about what God had done in her life that week and how He saved her.  She’s still a work in progress and it broke my heart that she and her sister had to return to a really difficult, broken home, but I know she’s in God’s hands.  Praise God for His reckless love!

I’m writing this because I feel that God wants me to.  I’m activities and one time while I was at a campout doing a game I sat down next to a girl.  She was one of the Adventure girls in week 6.  We started to talk about our families and she shared about her past.  She has had a hard background and I asked her about if she believed in the Lord and she said she believed there was a God, just because her grandma said so.  I told her that she has to do her own evidence.  I sat with her on the porch for lunch the next two days and we had a solid talk about God, life, etc.  On Thursday evening she rededicated her life.  I was so thrilled.  I gave her a Bible and she has already been reading and showing in her actions that she is a new person.

Mid-summer Update

                           

We have reached the midway point of our summer camps already! It's unbelievable how fast the time flies by!! It has been a great summer so far. We've been very fortunate to have avoided the smoke from Alaska's hundreds of forest fires. We are thankful that God has been gracious enough to allow us that! We are also in prayer for other camps who have had to cancel or had their camps threatened.

Evie goes for her first ride on a dirt bike with our friends Evan and Elizabeth, who are engaged. Evie and Norah love giving Evan a hard time any chance they get! We laugh because our kids go into wild animal mode any time these two come over. :) I think it's because they love them a lot.

We've never had actual portraits of our kids done; we usually rely on snapshots, even for framed photos at home. But it's crazy how much time I let slip by sometimes without really capturing their little faces on purpose! .....*Ahem.....a year*......so we did an (extremely) amateur photo shoot the other day. Here's Grady being his regular impish self.

Thinking he's such a big boy!

My pretty Evie is growing up so fast! She went to her very first week of camp at the end of June and had a blast! (Though I don't think she slept much!) She is a deeply philosophical soul and always asks me questions I have trouble answering. Right now she's decided she'd like to be a teacher when she grows up...or a professional dancer. I think she'd excel at both!

Here is my feisty, spunky, intelligent, deeply intellectual, soft-hearted, crusty-shelled, creative, driven Norah. I would need so many more adjectives to describe her! She is learning nowadays what it means to be a big sister to Grady and set a good example, and she is becoming more and more of Mommy's helper too.

Being goofy. You gotta have at least one of these shots!

On Sunday afternoons, when new campers come, everyone waits outside Miracle Lodge with music, a bounce house, and dancing and playing to meet the incoming campers and the bus. Norah usually contentedly draws with sidewalk chalk for around an hour!

We have two boards in the chapel where, at the end of the week, campers are invited to write down what God has taught them during the week, or write whether they've made a decision to give their life to Christ or rededicate it. It's wonderful to see the numbers of small papers growing and covering the boards each progressive week!

Daddy isn't home a ton in the summer, which means we usually go out and about to find him! But when he IS home, he's in high demand! When I took this picture, all three were yelling "MY Daddy!" (Grady's in that awesome mimicking stage where he'll repeat anything the girls are saying!)

We went on our staff trip last week, to Seward, with the summer staff. Hopefully it was a time for the counselors and other staff to renew and refresh, and reflect on what has happened so far this summer and how God wants them to continue to serve Him in the second half.

 It was awesome to walk down by the lake today and see one of the counselors sitting out of the game to talk one-on-one with her camper and overhear her telling about how Jesus came to be the ultimate sacrifice for sins, the Lamb of God, once and for all. In the midst of real life and running around playing games, God is changing lives here! And I am so thankful He does!

Here are some ways you can be praying right now:

-Pray for health and energy for the summer staff. Right now is when a full month of late nights and early mornings, combined with mental and emotional stress (or just plain busyness) really catches up to everyone! Pray for a deep sense of purpose, and for the Holy Spirit to give motivation to those who are struggling!

-Pray for our barn manager, Doug, who has had bleeding on his brain and a past surgery, and now has the same issue arising again. He goes for surgery next week and there a lot of unknowns for when he comes out. Pray for health and strength for him, and his biggest prayer request was that he can be a good witness for the Lord to the doctors and nurses he meets. Pray for peace and reassurance for his family. Pray for the doctors to have wisdom that's supernatural. Pray also for Caleb, a staff member here who will be taking Doug's place for the time being.

-Pray especially this week for an unnamed camper who is heavy on my heart right now. This camper is very unreceptive to the gospel and doesn't like to hear about Jesus. Pray for God to break into this camper's life! Pray that they will have a desire to know who Jesus is! Pray also for a gentle heart and patience and discernment for this camper's counselor.

-Pray for other camps that have been affected by the forest fires. Pray that the forest fires can come under control of the fire fighters, and pray for safety for those working on containment. Pray that it continues to stay away from VBC!

Thank you for all your prayers! They are so needed! Isn't it amazing that we can come before the God of the universe, make requests, and He hears AND answers us?!

June 21st Update

We are smack in the middle of summer camps right now here at Victory! We had a great orientation week with the summer staff, and we are now preparing to begin our third week of camp! The weather has been amazingly warm with almost every day in the past week or two hitting 80 degrees. While this is great for swimming in the lake, it's not so good for forest fire hazards. But the kids and I have sure been soaking up the sun. :)

Coming out the front doors at Miracle Lodge. What a beautiful day!

The poster for our theme this summer. I've gotten to write skits again this summer to be performed at Frontier Chapel and it's a great theme to write about! Our theme verse is Romans 12:2.

Everyone getting into the music at chapel. Grady likes to sing a line from one of the songs over and over again. This week is our largest yet as far as camper numbers, so chapel will be exciting!

Last Friday we got to take in the horse show and watch my sister Jessie in her class routine! Yeah for Ranch Camp...it's always had my heart!

The kids with our friend Kelly, taking in the show...also playing in the sand and climbing on the corral...:)

Saying goodbye to campers after a great week. I get the privilege of leading a prayer group of summer staff girls and it's always wonderful to hear the stories that have happened in each cabin through the week, and also tough to hear that some of the kids are going home to regular life and it's going to be hard for them. Good thing we serve a mighty God who hears our prayers.

We journeyed into Hatcher Pass with the summer staff yesterday and went on a family hike. I guess it was our way of celebrating Father's Day with family time since we won't see much of Justin today. He drives the bus to pick up campers and it makes for a long day!

If you look closely you will see the stream winding its way down the mountainside hundreds of feet below!


Some ways you can be praying right now:

-A praise, first of all! I am feeling much better these days. I still have a ways to go to 100% health but I am praising God for his healing and faithfulness!

-Pray for two of our summer staff, one who has had to go home with a broken foot but would like to be able to return before the end of the summer (and whose help we could really use!) and one potential staff member who is from out of the country and is waiting on a visa to be able to come to camp. Pray it will go through quickly!

-Pray for safety at camp, as always, with work teams, at the waterfront, on hikes, etc.

-Pray for the summer staff to keep a good focus and a heavenly perspective. We have a great group of young people this year but the enemy doesn't want to see camper's lives changed and will use distractions and frustrations to knock us off track.

Thank you for your prayers! They are so valuable! We hope you're enjoying your summer!

May 7th Update

We are well into spring here at Victory! We finished up AWANA clubs at church last month with a party and the grand prix car race. Here Evie works on the cars we carved.
We have moved from guest services season into hosting Outdoor Ed groups for schools for the next couple of weeks. After that, our leadership staff for the summer starts coming in, then we'll be into orientation and summer camps! Evie is getting to attend camp this summer for the short week and she is beyond excited! I'm excited for her too, because summer camp was always the extreme highlight of my summer as a little girl and I love it when my kids get to experience the same things that brought me joy!

We had a lot of very weird weather in April...hailstorm after hailstorm moved over us the last couple weeks of the month, with bright sunshine in between, and some snow too in the mix! The skies couldn't seem to make up their mind. In this picture we got a quarter inch of hail that froze into a bumpy sheet of ice! Strange! May has been much milder with temps in the 50s and even up into the 60s some days.

Messy faces and happy smiles! Grady is saying 2 or 3 new words a day and speaking small sentences, and surprising us with some very funny things he has to say. Evie is getting restless with school and is very ready to finish! We'll see if we can finish the 1st grade strong in the next 2 weeks! :) Norah is excited to be a preschooler in the fall and is very proud of her own school workbook that we got her. She has started the first few pages already because she just can't wait! 

As you can see, it's not green yet here, but the moose are out looking for food anyway! This odd combination of a mama and yearling and a young bull were moseying through our yard the other night. Soon we hope we see some tiny ones running around. Calving season is almost here!


Here are some ways you can be praying right now:Praises:
-We have had several male counselors apply for the summer! We have come very close to having to run camp for only girls so this is a huge praise! We still need 2 or 3 more so thank God for providing these and join us in asking him for more! :)
-My health seems to finally be on the upswing. It has been a long and confusing journey and I know God is not finished yet. Thank Him for a beginning of healing!

Prayer Requests:
-For the program staff as they finish writing curriculum that will become the Bible studies the campers and counselors go over together each day. Pray for God-inspired writing and teaching that provokes the camper's minds to think about who God is, and their relationship to Him.
-For the entire camp in general as we head into the hectic, amazing, crazy, wonderfully tough summer season. It is not for the faint of heart. We love it and the awesome works God does in that time, but it does put stress on families especially, so pray that each family will get the much-needed time together this summer, while also being able to serve the campers and staff as we need to.

April 10th Update

Our little crew is getting so big! Evie is about to finish 1st grade, Norah will begin preschool this fall, and Grady's vocabulary has become huge in the past month or so!

 

Justin and two friends went to Glennallen to get their caribou tags and threw their guns in just in case they saw some, even though they didn't expect to. They found a group of them right off the highway! Now our freezer is full of caribou! What an awesome blessing! Grady wasn't so sure about the big animal in the back of the truck, though.

Yes, there is a caribou carcass laying on top of my reclaimed barnwood dining table...yes, it looks ghetto...it's how we do it in Alaska. The body froze a little more than we intended while it was hanging, so we had to wait for it to thaw for a few hours. In the meantime the men played video games. :) The kids were fascinated by the animal in the dining room!

Our kitchen turned into a meat processing center for about 8 hours! We got around 90 pounds of meat. Here is our friend Mark who shot the caribou and kindly shared most of it with us!

Evie was a good helper when it came time to grind the meat! She wanted to wear gloves and made lots of faces, though. :)

A couple of weeks ago Norah slipped on the ice outside the church after Awana club. She got a good sized cut on her chin but didn't have to have any stitches. This was a few days after getting a 2nd-degree burn on her foot from our toyo stove. She was a tough girl through it all!

Raising their hands when I asked "who wants to dye Easter eggs?" We spent the holiday at my parent's house in Kenai.

Gathered around the kitchen table

Gray showing off his egg

Norah put herself to sleep on the pew at church Easter Sunday

Norah and Max are thick as thieves! They have almost a twin-like connection even though they are uncle and niece...but it's probably because they have birthdays 10 days apart. :) When we visit Grammie's house they play nonstop together.

We woke up Easter morning to snow! 

Family photo

Today is April 10th and the snow is quickly melting, but it obviously isn't ready to let go of this mountain altogether yet. :) 


We were able to meet with several people and families who support us while we were in Kenai. What an encouragement it was to relax and visit! We are so thankful for all who give regularly so that we can continue ministry here, and especially for prayers.

Here are some ways you can be praying right now:-A praise: through eliminating the foods she's allergic to, Norah's eczema has vastly improved! Pray that we can now be faithful to her special diet so that her digestive system can heal and we can lessen or even eliminate these allergies. This includes taking some supplements that Norah doesn't like...and when this girl sets her mind against something it's very difficult to get her to change it!
-Spring time is when Justin's programming schedule really picks up. Between springtime promotional events for camp, interviewing and hiring summer staff, and figuring out the summer Bible study curriculum, Justin and the whole program team are kicking into high gear. Pray that they will have energy and clarity as they make decisions for this summer.

-There have been some issues with the ministry office that have caused some stress and tension here at camp. These are things that have been discussed and worked on for months now, and this weekend the board will be meeting to hopefully resolve some things. Pray that issues will be settled and God will be glorified in our ministry!

-We are in great need of male counselors for this summer! Please join with us to pray that God will touch people's hearts and lead them toward serving here. And if you know any college-age guys who would enjoy serving God in a wilderness setting, send them our way!