Wilderness Northwest Blog

Day Camp 2006:
As always, Day Camp is the most exciting , intense, and challenging week of the summer at WNW. This year we were filled up within 2 weeks of sending out camper applications. Fortunately we had enough staff resources to enlarge the program and allow 70 campers to sign up. What a celebration with 35 adult staff and 8 CIT’s! We used a very challenging curriculum designed to help kids build a foundation of faith following salvation. Bible-based lessons involved subjects such as: Is there really a God? How did we get the Bible? How old is the earth? Did God create in 6 days? What is compromise? Our intention is to go beyond good Bible stories and demonstrate there is an important and trustworthy basis to believe what God specifically says in the Bible concerning history, science and lifestyle.

Let’s eat!!!:
Two local churches used our camp facility for their annual picnic. Folks enjoyed the great food as well as tours of the camp to see the different ways our facility is utilized. Thanks for your support!

Fall Parties:
Mason County Christian School in Shelton has regularly been a source of volunteer work crews in the spring and fall. We always look forward to their hard-work and enthusiasm for doing the “hard labor” of cleaning the grounds. We thank David Roller for bringing the Jr. High and Misty Niele for leading the High Schoolers up here.

New Roofs:
After finishing the new cabin roof in June and the pump-house roof in August, we tackled a remodel/re-roof on the Training Center in September. We appreciate the efforts of Jay Zelen, Ray Canterbury, Kara Weed and Alan Reimann in this project. We also thank Pastor Tim Roth and family from Port Orchard who made the unfortunate mistake of vacationing next door at the Refuge during a week of work. They volunteered as the “tear-off” crew and got us going to a great start.

Fall-2006

Yo people, let’s get to work!!

That would be considered a “loose paraphrase” of Nehemiah 2:17-18. Now understand, I am not Nehemiah, and Wilderness Northwest is not the wall around Jerusalem. But, it does provide an inspirational principle as we face a massive rebuilding project at WNW.

Nehemiah returned to Jerusalem from years in exile to find the walls in ruin and disrepair. So what he actually said was, “Come, let us arise and build.” People got excited and he organized them into teams under the management of constant prayer to a God who delivers.

After 26 years of operation, heavy use and a moldy climate have had quite a toll on our facility that is mostly wood and largely exposed to the weather. To put it simply-much of the cam is falling apart! The camp board of directors has been meeting throughout this year with the purpose of refining our vision, mission and goals. We will express our entire plan at greater depth in the next few months. But the quick overview has a breakdown of 3 phases as we determine God’s future plans for WNW.

Phase I is to “Rebuild and Restore” the broken walls. If many parts of the facility are broken, unsafe, and unusable, we are unwilling to open the gates for camp in 2007. Not just because of liability, but because we cannot do the things we desire to do in program and simply because it does not honor God in presenting His ministry. The problem for us in this phase is that we find fewer volunteers each year, but also lack sufficient funds to hire people to get the work done.

Phase II is called “Enlarging the Borders” and involves major construction of a multi-purpose teaching center, restrooms and upgraded cabins. A new master site plan is forthcoming.

Phase III involves “Enlisting Personnel” to carry out the new programs that will fulfill the vision on Wilderness Northwest, and glorify our God for another 25 years hopefully. What you will hear in the next few months will sound aggressive and crazy! Nehemiah was laughed at by his own people, but he was eventually successful.

We will trust God for a great work and the raising up of resources to tackle Phase I. We will have to finish rebuilding and restoring in the next 6 months before moving on to Phase II. So get in touch with me if God moves you to help us kept he front gate open for 2007. IT would be so exciting to get a call from Eliashib and his brothers, or maybe the men of Jericho, or the sons of Hassenaah to come and begin the restoration. (We are also open to receiving help from any one of the ladies out there. Nehemiah had some cultural restrictions.)

We are introducing a new bi-weekly blog at our website if you want to keep updated with what is going on at: www.wildernessnw.org If you send us your e-mail address, we can send an automated note whenever we update.

Hello Camp supporters!

 This is our first attempt at posting some of our news and information on a blog system. We hope to keep putting out information and getting regular input from you.  We are learning the system, so let us know what we can do to improve it and help you to understand what Wilderness Northwest is doing.  Following is our current newsletter on the happenings at WNW.

The staff at Wilderness Northwest