The past three months have felt like a roller coaster in ministry. This summer was a great summer. We were blessed to see 262 campers as a part of out Alpine Program. There were a total of 728 campers total that made their way through Victory this summer. As the director of Alpine camp I had the opportunity to work with many wonderful staff. We were a little short staffed this summer, but that just added to the blessings when God took over and showed his glorious power. There are many campers that need to be prayed for, so if you read this and would like to shoot up a little prayer for those hard lives they went home to please do so.
Mid summer there was a challenge thrown into our ministry. The program director who I had been working with since I came on staff full time left the ministry. This left a large hole that was hard to fill. We were able to stick together to finish off the summer. Working without a program director had its biggest effect on me after the summer camp program was over. This meant that a job that was done by one full time person and one half time person (me) would now have to be accomplished by one half time person(me). it has made for a busy, and stressful two months. On the list of things to accomplish were filling in life guarding for a couple of large groups that rented out our facilities, taking down waterfront and all our large water toys, and general cleaning up around camp. This is a big task for a couple of people to accomplish let alone one person who works part time. God has again showed his power through it all, and I packed up the last summer item this morning... and there was much rejoicing... yay!!!
The busyness is not over. Throughout the fall we run retreats for our campers as well as for new people we want to introduce to camp. For the next three months we have one retreat a month for different age groups. The first two will give us a great opportunity to follow-up with many campers from this summer. The third one is the one I am most excited about. This year we are partnering up with Anchorage Youth for Christ to co-host a retreat. This will give us a wonderful opportunity to get many new faces out to camp, and that makes me very excited.
On the church side of our ministry here in Alaska I have also lost a co-worker. Marlin, the pastor of Glacier View Bible Church for the past 24 year left the church at the end of August to follow God's call. He is the only pastor Glacier View has ever had. He is also a great person to work with. This has left me as the only employee of Glacier View Bible Church. It will be interesting to see who God will place in my life in both the program director and senior pastor roles. That can also be a prayer that God will bring the right person and that the person will come soon. These are both roles that will help make my life a little easier if they are not vacant.
Thank you all for keeping us in prayer, and God bless.
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