Ready for Fall

We’ve officially entered fall! This is my favorite season at camp, at school, and personally. It definitely isn’t sweater weather or anything here yet, but the mornings and evenings are cool and the days are mostly under 100.

We ended summer on a high note with the wedding of one of my former campers. It was a sweet, God-honoring wedding. The humility of the bride and groom was evident and many people came to show their love and support for the couple. We are so excited to see how God works through them!

After summer we took a vacation to San Diego with several other staff families. We had a great time! We went to the zoo (and the splash pad at the zoo) as well as the children’s museum. We also ate lots of great food – even a catered taco truck! Check out our password-protected post here if you’d like to see more pictures. Feel free to contact us if you’d like the password; we simply ask that you not share it with anyone.

We had about a week of work before our Ministry Crew showed up. During that week, we were able to host part of our new crew and our new family that is helping out at the school. We love having people in our home, and it is such a blessing to be able to get to know some of the people that serve alongside us! We have a good-sized crew this year, but we don’t get many chances to know all of them, especially since we both work on smaller or more isolated teams.

School has started and is in full swing! We’ve completed three weeks, one of which was a lot of orientation, drills, and spiritual emphasis. With so many new teachers, as well as my own transitions to new roles, it has been a bit of a slower adjustment period than it has been in the past for me. I am so thankful for the help of the Bowman family though, as they have jumped right in and tackled teaching several classes live that would otherwise have been video classes. They are doing a great job, as is Miss Alina, our Defined intern. She is somewhat familiar with the school already, since she worked with us for a semester last year, but she has more responsibility this year. Again, I had several helpers come out before school started to help me get ready, which was crucial because I definitely would not have been ready at all without them.

Brad is continuing to button up the Ministry Connect house – just waiting on a propane tank. His crew (Tyler and Caleb) is also continuing to work on another staff house. What he’s been really excited about lately though is his new tool trailer! Camp was able to purchase a small trailer that Brad has made into a mobile tool container and work station. He was even able to weld a hitch for it! This is an enormous help for him to be able to bring bigger tools to a job site and leave them there rather than hauling and storing them every day or leaving them on the site. He has it on his current project, which is remodeling the Broken I bathrooms. These are the oldest bathrooms on property; they have only had minor improvements made to them since the late 1980’s. The goal of the project is to create four single-use restrooms. Gone are the purple and gold women’s restroom and the single-stall men’s room! Woohoo!

Finally, we were able to enjoy a visit with Brad’s parents this past weekend. It’s always sweet to watch them interact with their grandson and see his love for them. We will get to visit with my parents at the end of the month; this will be the first time all of my family has been together since our wedding in 2019! We will also meet our nephew for the first time.

God has been and continues to be gracious and kind to us. We are thankful for the opportunity to serve and love the people here, and we’re thankful for you as part of our ministry!