Laus Deo

Catch Up, Not Keep Up

2012-02-20T08:19:00.000-08:00

Good Morning!

The sun in shining, the birds are singing, the ice is melting, so I thought it a very appropriate time to sit in the office and write a blog post. :-) I'd like to update you all on what's been going on the past few weeks, and also kind of give you an inside look at some other things we've been doing on the side.

As far as seasonal staffing goes, I've kind of settled into a routine schedule, along with my trailer mate, Kevin. Tuesdays we always check ice fishing equipment and repair any broken lines. This is a fun, but often tedious job because usually a lot of the lines need re-stringing and need fresh sinkers and lures on them. The best part of ice fishing equipment checking is the ride back up the hill. There's a fairly steep grade going up the hill, and We have to gun it to get the truck past the steep part, which is always fun, especially when there's a fresh layer of ice. :-)

Tuesdays we spend doing an in depth cleaning of the West Side Chapel and Old Headquarters. I've gotten to be a professional at sweeping the pews and underneath them. This always takes all morning, and occasionally, we've had to come back and finish a few things in the afternoon.

Wednesday is always another momentous day, because we have what we call Staff Fellowship time. We meet for an hour for a time of worship and teaching, followed by a fellowship lunch time afterwards. This last week was different because instead of fellowship and worship, we had a potluck instead. After the potluck, Kevin and I were in charge of creating an activity for all to play. We decided to have a staff wide bingo night, with joke prizes including a picture of Kevin, coloring books and a cap pistol, all from the dollar store. The staff really got into it, and the prize of the night went to Mrs. Boeve.

Thursdays are definately exciting because we get the schedule of who's coming up for the weekend and what our schedule is. It's always exciting for us to find out that someone from the summer or someone we know is coming to wash dishes, work in the kitchen, or work on the tubing hill. This weekend, we had a very large group of ex-summer 2011 staffers come and work this weekend. Kevin's lady friend Emily, along with Marissa Ruedel and Kristen Kutz came for the ladies. For the guys, we had Danny Simon, Ben Cooper, Tim Houston, Dave Houston (Who I now affectionately call my "fb buddy") and Stephen "Danger" Sovis. It was a great group of guys and girls to work with this weekend, and I couldn't help but wish they came up again soon! This really goes to everyone that comes up during the winter to help work. It's nice to see people from last summer and back home come up, but it's always sad to see them leave again. I was able to snap a quick picture of Kathryn, Me, Kevin, Danny and Ben before they left. What a good looking group!

Fridays always have an excitement to them. For us, it's the day that the retreats start. There's many things to do on Fridays, and it's a very full day. Usually the big thing on the list is running. Running is where we turn on lights, check hot water and lodges, and put up schedules for both sides. Some weekends we've had to do table tents, which is replacing the pictures inside the napkin "tents" with the weekend's theme. Then of course, there is always the fun job of shoveling snow if needed, and salting the paths. This usually takes all morning and most of the afternoon, but I usually get about an hour, maybe two in to rest before officially kicking off the weekend. Most weeks, I'll be a parking host from either 6-8:30 or 6-10:00. Snack starts around ten, and for the last three or four weeks, I've been leading the "Icebreaker" as we call it, and occasionally the sponsor meeting as well.

Then comes Saturday and Sunday, which are retreats. That topic, my dear readers, is a whole new world. =)

They say that all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy, and in this case, Jack's name is Reuben. Last weekend, we had the chance to go to Boyne Mountain with part of a school group, and we were able to ski the whole day for just $14, which was a great blessing. I experienced going down my first double black diamond there, and two staff kids and I, Alex and Daniel, decided to go July on February and ski without our shirts on, with shivering results. =)

On another note, since we've been up here, Kevin, Cody and I have been doing a Bible study with a couple of staff kids, as well as 5-6 guys from Fairview. We've been going through the book "The Measure of a Young Man" by Gene and Kenton Getz. We're about done with the book now, and it's been great being with the other guys from Fairview, and getting to know them. There's been talk of doing another bible study on another book, and I hope it continues.

I would really appreciate prayer from all of you, specifically in a few things.

First of all, that God would continue to provide for my financial situation. It's looking like I'll be coming home for about two weeks in mid-march, and then coming back through April and May, and then transitioning into Summer Staff as May ends and June begins.

Secondly, pray for Kevin and I. We're going down to Jackson, Michigan to New Tribes Bible Institute, and Spring Arbor University with Dave Douglas and Dan Haines to "recruit" summer staffers. So pray for us as we travel down there, and as we talk with students about camp tomorrow.

Also, please keep praying for the teens that are coming this weekend and next. Last weekend we had both sides completely filled with Jr. High and Sr. High students. These next two weeks are going to be completely filled again. If you would, pray for the students, the sponsors, and the speakers that are coming up these next two weeks.

Thank You for reading this blog post! I know it's been a couple weeks since my last post, but it's been pretty busy here. I hope to have another post out next Monday so stay tuned!

Laus Deo,

Reuben

2012-01-29T13:08:00.000-08:00

Good Afternoon One and All!

After two busy weekends, it's good to sit back and reflect. It's been a very busy two weekends, with many stories, and many blessings. Though I don't have many pictures to post this time, I will make it up next week with a torrential flood.

These last two weeks, my biggest project was creating a video template to use for the Sr. High and Jr. High teen retreats. I can't count the number of hours that was spent making a three minute video, but if I had a dollar for every hour I worked on the video, I'd be able to take a hungry family of four out to lunch, to say the least. =)
Needless to say, I finished a working project last Wednesday night around 12:45 in the morning. The way it works is that after a working template is finished, then after the campers have turned in their pictures and videos, we go back and replace clips and pictures with media the campers give us. I'm not sure if anyone has ever used Corel VideoStudio X4, but if you have, I'm sure you feel my pain. Somehow the audio and video never quite lined up, which made all the projects take about twice as long as they needed to. Anyways, we had a working template finished on Wednesday night.

Since we only had one copy of the video editor, Jeremy and I decided to take turns. The campers turn in the pictures and videos Saturday night at supper, and then we have until about 8:30 Sunday morning to have the videos done. We agreed that he would work on the video until 12:30ish in the morning, and I would have the early morning shift. Thankfully, Jon bought another copy of the program, and we were able to work simultaneously, but even so, the video finished rendering at about 4:30 this morning. You can see it in the box below, and I've even included a little blooper reel that didn't make the final cut into the video. Enjoy!

Other than that, many other things have happened these past two weeks. I worked with Mike Baker this week hanging up two bearskins in the West Side Chapel, and there is a miracle story to go with that as well. Just imagine scaffolding and heights, and use your imagination. =)

This week was also unique because we had Sr. High Campers on one side, and Jr. High campers on the other side. Because of this, Jon and I were in charge of creating an ambush to fill up about an hour in the afternoon, right after lunch. The planning itself didn't take an incredible amount of time, but still, it was nice to plan an ambush period. =)

The snow keeps coming, and we have a good base on the ground! The last two weekends we had all activity areas open, Praise God!

As we go into the next weekend, I would appreciate an and all prayers you can spare =) Specifically:

--A Praise that God is providing for my financial situation, and that he will continue to provide
--A Thanks that I am back to good health and staying that way!
--Pray that God would provide for this summer, as we have applications for summer staffers coming in now!
--Prayers that God would lead me as I decide on my plans for this spring and summer, and further on to which College I'll be attending in the fall.

As always, I would love to hear from you all! I love getting letters and mail and anything you'd be willing to send!
We give all praise to God for the great things He has done!

Laus Deo!
Reuben

Teen Retreat One!

2012-01-16T19:07:00.000-08:00

Greetings!

Another week has past, and as I stop and reflect on the prior week, I can only say that I got through it only by God's grace. While it has been a wonderful and truely unique week, It has been one of many challenges that I could only have gotten through by Grace.

But enough of that, on to the week!

The big project for this week was the Barakel sign. It was a rather spur of the moment idea by Jon and Jeremy it seemed, but most of Wednesday, and literally all of thursday, Kevin and I traced letters, and then painted them on to five slabs of wood. The words "Camp Barakel 2012" and a Blockhouse took what I estimate to be a total of 31 man hours on Kevin and my part to complete; out of those 31, 19 of those were mine, and 7 of them were overtime hours. We began the tracing on Wednesday afternoon after a few technical difficulties, and began painting thursday morning. Jon and Jeremy wanted it done by thursday night so that it would be dry in time for the retreat on Friday, but at the end of our work day, there was still much to be done. I came back after supper and continued painting, and needless to say, it was done by Friday morning. My head didn't hit the pillow until a little before 2:00AM, but the sign was done.
I think me staying up until 2 had something to do with Jon and Jeremy hinting that we wouldn't be able to have it done by Friday, something which I consider to be an outright challenge. This goes without saying that the new sign looks spectacular!

This is what the sign looks like with a very morphed out Marr Baptist Church in front of it!

Marr Church in their Morph Suits!

It ended up looking very beautiful, but the only way that Kevin and I were able to get it done was by God's grace and strength. We hope that as campers see this sign, they will be reminded that God has blessed Camp Barakel. And Lord willing, we are planning on keeping this up all year round! So if you come up this winter, spring or summer, you can look forward to seeing this!

In other news, this past week was a tad on the hard side for me. I've been fighting a cold since Tuesday, and hopefully, I'm beginning to lick it. The symptoms disappeared on Thursday, but were back in full force for the weekend. I had a little bit of an incident with some carbon monoxide on Friday night, and my voice was completely shot for the weekend as well, which makes it extremely interesting for doing announcement and reffing broomball games! =)

Today, Kevin and I went to Mio Pizza with two other staffers, Kathleen and Kathryn, and had supper with them and the three Linsley children. I must say, I'm addicted to these Linsley kids. They are just great. =) I'm looking forward to spending a lot more time with them as this winter continues. =)

This weekend was another weekend of firsts for me. This was my first time reffing the teen retreat broomball games, which was a great experience! This was also the first week that I did announcements! I must say, though my voice was cracked, I believe it's my destiny to talk in front of a microphone forever and ever. =)

Between late night skating and programming, and getting up early for ice hole drilling, I managed to squeeze in about nine and a half hours of sleep over the weekend, though I only cranked out three and a half on Friday night. =)

As I head into this next week, I would really appreciate prayers for many things!

--That God would provide for my financial needs

--That God would keep me healthy and keep my energy up

--That God would continue to use me for His glory

After much delay, I finally sent out my support letters today, and hopefully, the Post Office does a timely job of delivering them =)

Until next week!

Laus Deo!

Reuben Peck

2012-01-09T09:13:00.000-08:00

Greetings from Camp!

It's beeen twelve days since my last post and one very important change has happenned: I have moved to camp! January 2nd came around and amidst many last minute scrambling and packing, I managed to arrive in more or less one piece. =)

I'm staying in what we affectionately call "The Trailer" with two housemates; Cody Leonard and Kevin Pierpont. If you know either of these two great guys, you can find Cody's blog Here, or Kevin's website/blog here. Both are seasonal staffers like myself, although Cody is in the maintenance department.

This last week found us quite busy preparing for the first winter camp of the winter. Our first full day was Wednesday, and after staff fellowship time in the morning, (A time of praise and worship) we started our work. Like I mentioned earlier, I am working with Jon Ford in programming, and Kevin is working with a great guy named Jeremy Linsley, though both Jon and Jeremy are our bosses. The first day, Jeremy took us into the garage of the program department, showed us two unassembled broomball nets and with a smile on his face, promptly told us good luck and strolled out of there. It was soon thereafter that he tweeted about us. To quote him, this is what was said "Just gave kevinmp and Rueben their first job as Seasonal Staff... assembling new pond-hockey goals for broomball. Excitment abounds #fb"

Day two was filled with excitement as well. We work up before the sun and were treated to breakfast in Fairview by the full time staff guys. The rest of the day was spent doing little projects, but most importantly, we completely refurbished the entire human ice bowling set. The pins were in very poor condition, probably due to the account of too many campers sliding at full speed into them. We ended up completely rebuilding one of them and refurbishing the other nine. Needless to say, we were proud of our work when we had finished. =)

Friday was the big day, mostly because all of us here at Camp were excited for the arrival of east and west side campers. We were very honored this weekend to have Tom Harmon speaking to the fathers and sons on west side, and Doug Rutledge speaking to the College/Career fellows on East Side. What we were not exactly happy for was the high forties and low fifties temprature that we had on Friday afternoon. What little snow we had left on Friday morning was gone by the afternoon, and a very muddy camp remained. It would be a clear analogy to say that the ice rink looked like the top of a glass of ice water. =) Though we were pretty worried, the day cooled off and fortunately the ice froze over in time for some late night skating.

Saturday began early. I woke up a little before six and Kevin and I headed down to the lake to drill holes for ice fishing.

The rest of my day included mostly shadowing Jon in the daily activities so that I can run much of the program with him gone in the coming weeks. We ran many broomball games, as well as Thunder Express and a flag football game. My day rounded out by hearing an excellent message from Doug Rutledge, and then running late night skate. For those of you who don't know what late night skate is, it's ice skating and ice hockey that runs until a little after one in the morning. So for me, my day started at six and ended at about 3:30 in the morning. Talk about a long day! Today marks my day off, which is why I'm so glad to be writing this.

I've had mailings for many of you that I planned on sending out last week, but it seems like time flies by, and I am just now getting ready to put them in the mail today. Lord willing, you will get a letter from me soon!

As we head in to another work week, and another camping weekend, please continue your prayers that the needs of camp would be met, as well as our financial, physical, and spiritual needs as well. God is good and has and will continue to provide, and I cannot wait to see how he takes us from here!

Laus Deo!

Reuben Peck

January 3rd Countdown!

2011-12-28T19:26:00.000-08:00

Whew! What a week! First of all, Merry Christmas! I say Merry Christmas because though the holidays are gone, the spirit of Christmas should remain in our hearts. And hey! Only 361 days until Christmas 2012! I could tell you all about what we did for Christmas, and how blessed it was, but this is about Barakel news, not Christmas news =)

This week was my shopping week. It takes only a step inside a store to realize how badly things are needed. Not wanted mind you, though that tends to happen, but needed. I didn't realize until the cold weather finally set in that I lacked adequate Pants, Gloves, Hats, Coats, Jeans and many other winter things that I somehow lived without last year, by skill alone I may add. =) In the end, I realized that no matter how low you set your budget, you always seem to go over. Stocking up for the whole winter is quite costly, and I am feeling the pain in a very real way, but my pain is temporary, and I consider myself blessed that I actually will be able to go through this winter with things like gloves, a coat and other things; something many people in Michigan will not have.

An update on what I will be doing at Camp is in order now! In my first post, I wrote that I was going to most likely be a programmer, but I didn't shed any light on what that involved. I was very vague. =) To update though, I am going to be the West Side Programmer, or the Co-Programmer, however you may see it. I am going to be working very closely alongside Jon Ford (Who is the head adult programmer for the entire West Side Program, as well as being in charge of the Young Adult Program Staff program). The west side will be home to primarily teen retreats this winter, which will range from 7-12th grade. This is both a concern and a blessing. Blessing because that particular age group is very relateable to me, as well as being a high energy group, something that will be very enjoyable. It is a huge concern however, because for many of these high school students, their walk with Christ is not where it should be, and for many campers, they may not yet even be saved. So please, please pray for these campers, that God would touch their hearts and breathe fresh life into them.

As well as being a programmer, I will be helping out around camp as well. Since retreats only take place on Friday thru Sunday, Tuesday through Thursday and Friday morning are times for intense maintenance sessions and cleaning. There is never a dull moment during those days, I hear.

Some other good news I hear is that during my time, there will be many opportunities for Bible Studies, local outreach, and other ministering opportunities that I will be able to get involved with while I am there. The Seasonal Staffers, including myself will be doing a Bible study, based off of the book "Disciplines of Godly Man". After we are done with this book, I'll write a review =)

To close this blog post, I would ask you to pray for these things:
1) That the teens that come to camp this winter would come to know Christ as their Savior
2) That God would give me strength to do all of my work, quickly, cheerfully, and completely.
3) That God would provide for my financial needs
4) That God would bless my time at Barakel, and that he would be glorified through my service.

Until I Write Again,
Reuben
Laus Deo

The Pre Laus Deo Event

2011-12-14T18:54:00.000-08:00

Before I begin, I want to explain a phrase that I care very much about. The phrase is Laus Deo, or All Praise To God. This phrase alone is the reason that I feel called to work at Camp Barakel this winter, and I'm using this as the backbone for my entire time. I pray that through this experience, I will Laus Deo, and that through my time, you all who read this will Laus Deo as well.

That being said...

These past few days have been a crazy time for me, what with the busy schedule that I seem to follow. It probably sounds horrible to say, but my countdown has been counting down to Friday morning, the day my last final is finished. God has blessed me in so many ways this semester, giving me friendly and helpful classmates to help get me through these four months. The last four months have extensively involved mostly either school, or working at Grand Traverse Pie Company in East Lansing. School is wrapping up this Friday, and my last day at Grand Traverse was last Saturday. I know this is quite disheartening to all of you who were hoping to become benefactors in some Pie before I quit.

Probably the reason you are coming here is because I directed you here because this is my official blog and video blog for my time as short term missionary staff at Camp Barakel. It's true, I'll be leaving January 3rd to start, and I'll be there at least until mid march.
I could really use some prayers right now. I've got a lot of things to wrap up before I head up north. The truck that I'm planning on taking up needs a regular maintenance checkup, as well as new snow tires for the winter, as well as a host of other things. If you think of it, I would appreciate your prayers about my financial situation. While Barakel is not expensive by any means, I will be having expenses for food, gas, winter clothes and other things while I'm gone. I'm looking forward to see how God will provide, and your prayers would be greatly appreciated. More importantly though, pray that God would be glorified. Money takes a very far second place to glorifying God. If nothing else, may God's will be done. I hope to update next week or the week after, so stay tuned, and Laus Deo!
Reuben