Business first
New at the CCI office (within the past month or two) are two new staff. Shirley (husband Abe) Banman has come on board to help us with the PR effort for this ministry. It's obvious that God has gifted her for exactly this kind of job and she has represented us well and the Missionfest conferences in Vancouver and Winnipeg and is currently putting together a Hymn Sing event for March 25. Come on out at 7 p.m. at the concert hall for a good time of singing and a little update.
Gerald Thiessen has also rejoined us from the glory days of WBC. Gerald is going to see the "Build it for kids" projects through to completion. What is "Build it for kids" you might ask.
We've been working at coming up with creative ways to raise funds for the ministry and this is one. It started with an idea from a church member and has turned into approximately $100,000 for the ministry. A bunch of local trades people and suppliers have offered us goods and services at or below cost for building a house. The house was sold and the profits will go to send kids to camp. It's been a pretty amazing blessing as it took little effort from us in the office and has had a huge impact on the ministry. Gerald is working toward arranging similar projects in other communities.As for Ray and me... Now we put our feet up and watch everything get done. JUST KIDDING! It's amazing how when you get a little momentum going how wild things can go. Right now I have a couple great big projects on the go. Kids 4 Kids is something that I'm working at promoting. A number of parents stopped by our booth at the Missionfest conferences asking how their kids could get involved in this ministry. Already I've been connecting with Sunday schools to present a fundraising effort where kids can collect their change in a cool little box and in doing so send kids just like themselves to camp. Want a box for your kids - give me a shout. Know someone who can connect us to a group of kids that might be interested - give us a dingle. Moreover I think this will be an awesome opportunity to build relationships with churches and individuals beyond the places we've connected already.
Ray is of course doing well and busy raising funds for the exciting spring that we have ahead. We're still shooting for 100,000 campers. It's a big goal but we have an even bigger God!
Yesterday I had the most encouraging time connecting with our Belize guy Alex at SBC (Steinbach Bible College). Together we had the opportunity to present to a number of students who are interested in helping out in Belize this summer. I see some really great potential on the horizon and I'm really confident that the Belize project will really take off in the next couple years.
During this time I also had the opportunity to meet with a church leader from one of the Mennonite communities in Belize. It was so great to hear his perspectives and reports as many of the youth from his church helped us out with some of the camping programs in Belize last summer.
As it looks right now I'll be preparing to spend some time in Belize again this summer so you can place your hot sauce orders now (I'll take an extra bag to accommodate this time).
Personally...
People often ask how things are going and if only I could fully relay the tremendous blessings and some of the real challenges we face in doing what we do. Many of them are just so hard to describe. So many times I just want to dance for joy (that might be an interesting video to link to my blog) and other times I find my self in tears because I just want to escape some of hard things God has called us to do. Surprisingly, many times this happens (several times) on the very same day.
So am I crazy? Maybe that's not the question to ask. Am I on quite an adventure? Most certainly - I'm just not terribly thrilled with all of the landscape. An incredible place of refuge I've been finding the past couple weeks is in a much revitalized prayer time. The Lord is certainly using our son Jace to rejuvenate my prayer times in the early hours of the day - it seems God is a morning person and He best speaks before 6 but the past couple days He's waited till around 7 which has been nice. Anyway, it's been good to hear His voice a little more clearly and He's been sustaining me (us - Terri's really been travelling this journey with me as she's been teaching me a bunch of what she's learned over the past weeks). I must say it's required a little more faith action on my part but God's really been faithful. I'd love to tell you more but this is where one on one comes in a little more handy. But please keep upholding us in your prayers as we certainly, fervently and regularly pray for you!
