Summer 2017

Life has been a blur... As I look at who my page is subscribed to I see many pages just like this one of people we have served alongside these past 9+ years and relationships we have had and miss many of the people that God has used here at Victory for a season and is now continuing to use in other places all over the United States.  But sometimes for my own selfish reasons, I wish God would stop calling people once they are serving here in Alaska, and that they would stay here forever....

Anyways, I opened this blog to give you an update on our summer/year!

Last May marked the end of Aaron and I's 9th year serving at Victory Bible Camp as year round staff.  Aaron has served in numerous roles during that time, and if you have been following our journey you know that he has been a site director at summer camps, a lifeguard, Program director, and now Doulas coordinator.  He has helped in numerous side jobs as well, from kitchen help, Gift shop designer and project manager, housekeeping, and other day to day jobs that come up when he is needed.  But currently he is in an even newer role for him.  In January Aaron got asked to help with the purchasing at camp.  In the past he has often done town runs to pick up stuff camp needs (all groceries, maintenance, housekeeping, gift shop stuff gets picked up on a weekly town trip, and he has often been the driver for that the past few years).  But now not only is Aaron picking up the items that camp needs, but he is also in charge of purchasing it.  This has been a fun new role for Aaron.  He is good with numbers and has always enjoyed figuring out how he can save a few bucks, so he tackled camps purchasing head on.  He has since made a many changes to who we buy from, what products we use, and how we get them to save camp thousands of dollars.  It's been fun to see how excited he can get over buying paper towels & toilet paper😊.

This Summer Aaron still lead the Doulas Groups as well.  He had 2 teams from Western Michigan.  Zion Reformed Church and Covenant Community Church.  We had a great time as we shared Alaska with these teams of youth.  Aaron's program is centered around servant leadership, and we worked hard all day, then Aaron spends time each evening sharing from God's word with them, and showing them our community.  These groups did a lot around camp, and were such a blessing!  They Cut and stacked numerous cords of woods for our wood boiler, did a lot of brush clean up around camp, helped in the kitchen, painted conex buildings at church, cleaned buildings...  So much work that we are thankful for the young willing youth that was able to give to camp this summer!

CCC youth on the Glacier the first day in Alaska

 CCC youth next to the HUGE woodpile.  All this wood was donated by someone in the Valley that was clearing land.  We were just responsible to go and get it.  It will heat our Main Lodge for over a year and save us around $30,000.

Raylee and Skyler with their friend Avery that came up with CCC youth and her parents for our first Doulas group.

Zion Reformed Church at Ranch camp, Day 1 of Being in Alaska.

Zion Reformed Church cleaning up camp and splitting dead trees that had fallen in the woods so we could add them to our woodpile and fire rings around camp.

The end of group 2 with Zion Reformed next to the massive wood pile of cut, chopped and split wood.

Not only did these youth impact the operations at this camp, I know many of them grew closer in their relationship with God, the Creator of everything, while they were here. And that overall impact is what the true goal of our ministries is.

This is a brief update on our summer and lives, but many other things happened at camp this year as well.  Summer camp still happened this summer at Victory, Aaron's new roles mean that he is not a part of the day to day that is summer programs at Victory, but we did get to observe how God was working from a distance.  There were numerous decisions made to follow Christ and re commitments of many kids to follow Christ.  Camp this year was only 5 weeks (down from more weeks in past years, helps us conserve resources and fill up camps better). But we had more campers this year then the past few year...  = more kids heard about Christ this summer at camp. 😮YAY!

Kicking off Fall...

Yes I said Fall, it is here in Alaska already...  leaves are getting yellow and red hues and Raylee started Kindergarten already.  Aaron has switched back to his schedule of 2 days a week at camp and the rest at church and we are getting ready to kick off youth group again.

Please pray for our family as we start up a different kind of craziness then summer holds.
1. Pray for our Fall youth group season.  That we would be listening to God in what we do and have an impact on the kids we get to work with for the 7 years they are in our youth group.
2. Pray for Raylee as she starts Kindergarten every day and Skyler as she stays home and "babysits" me...
3. Begin to pray for our 2018 Doulas Groups.  We have one that is booked for next summer and 3 more potential slots.  God knows who should be here, and is already preparing those groups.

If you would like to meet up with us and hear more about our ministry this past year, please send Aaron or I a message.  We would love to connect with you and share our heart hear at Victory and the Glacier View Community.  Your support and prayers have been so crucial to the ministry that we have here at Victory, Glacier View, and in Alaska.  And we truly value your support.

Thank you!