Rained On, But Not Rained Out

WOW. What a week! or a couple of weeks... We just got back to Bradford after a great adventure across Canada. For pics see my facebook, but I'll recap that quickly before telling you about Eagle's Cove.

We spent 4th of July in WA, left the next day and drove all the way up to Jasper National park Alberta. Nope that will take too long to write that way: Jasper to Banff saw a bear and some "Elkibou," Bang! (Banff is french for Bang you know) oil change in Calgary, nothing in Saskaetchewan, oh, except an ice cream stand and an accidental visit to Alli Peck's college! Awkward farm visit, Bang! lake winnepeg, rain, eating at a casino, more rain, kakabeka falls, no moose, Thunder Bay.

We got to Eagle's Cove, which is about 30 min outside Thunder Bay, ON, friday night thinking we would have a few days to settle and prepare for camp, as we were the 1st week of camp. But this was not so. We were the 2nd. I met Bera and Bonita, the directors, as well as Kya, their 7 mo old Phyrrenese guard dog (she's gonna be a beast when she's full-grown) and Bonita informed us that the Reserve that was to bring up most of the campers cancelled on us. We prayed about what to do regarding that and sunday decided to run "play days" at a few low-income housing complexes in Thunder Bay that Tina and Stephan (a swiss couple who'd lived at camp last year and were back for a month this year- with the cutest kids) had connections with. The rest of the time we got to do some more discipleship type stuff with the Hub staff who came up from Bradford to be the camp staff for the week (they are mostly college-age).

We had 2 days lined up-tues and wed.-so monday we prepared (brainstormed activities, built games, etc) and then went into town to pass out flyers at the 2 complexes. Up until this point we had had fairly great weather, sunny, a little wind, but nice. Tuesday we awoke to dark skies. OK, to make a long story short, we got a thrid complex for Thursday and every single day we woke up to rain, prayed, went ahead with the play day and saw no more than a little misting the whole time they went on. Wednesday's play day we were really praying for sunshine, and while the cliouds still covered the sky, I met not one, but two little girls named sunshine. God is so funny isn't he?

We held staff devos every morning and evening and it was just so cool to see the Hub kids 9they aren't really kids, but ya know) learning and being challenged and being wiling to serve even though it was in a totally different capacity than they had planned. Last night we got some attacks by the enemy, but God just spoke through Jodi, addressing it in devos and we ended the night with a really awesome time of prayer. No one could have expected this week to go the way it did, but God had an amazing plan that was so much better than ours. Keep praying that we will always be sensitive to his direction.

Prayer requests:
-Angelo was not able to go because of his seizure. He is doing well, but the Dr.'s don't know what caused it. However, his absence gave the Hub staff a great opportunity to step up and they knocked our socks off.

-4 more weeks of camp-energy and focus

-Kelsey is not deathly ill like last year, praise the Lord, the antibiotics we got her after verdugo and the rest she was able to get at lakeside really got her back up to par.

-I am looking very much forward to getting to encourage some younger girls who might not be campers at the next 2 camps we'll be at We're just doing the music (and of course Jodi is speaking), so I won't have a cabin.

-keep my cabin from verdugo in prayer. there were some very hurting girls in that group and it just broke my heart.

-money: 1. we usually pay to go up and help at eagle's cove, but because there were no campers, they told the 4 of us we would not have to. 2. generous people sent Jodi and Patti money 3. we found a stack of cash at home we'd forgotten. God is so good.

thanks so much.