CHRISTMAS!

Christmas in Rochester was incredible. It was short but oh so sweet.

I flew back very early in the morning at 6:00am on the 22nd from Denver to Atlanta, then to Rochester. The journey however started at 2:30 in the morning with a 2 hours car drive with Stu Nelson and Kayla Fletcher! They got up early for me even though their flights weren't till 7:40!

The flights were uneventful and I was picked up by my Mom and surprised by my sister, who I didnt expect to be picking me up. Went home and met up for a awesome dinner with Alex Jorgensen, Courtney Combs, Scott and Abby Rice, with a brief visit by my friend Jenny Rietz. Great to be with people who are so close to my heart and have live life with me for so long.

The rest of the time was crazy busy but great. Met with some good friends quickly and alot of time with family. It was a great Christmas. I flew back on the 27th to Denver and road back to Fraser and got home at 2 am so I left at 2 got home at 2 crazy!

While I was at home I really felt like I learned alittle of what the Lord has been trying to teach me over the past few months so I will try my best to share!

My entire time out here and the road trip out I felt like the word that most described my time was Solitude.

My road trip was suppose to have a companion for most of my drive. However all the people who originally thought that could, ended up not being able to make it with me. So as I have said in a previous blog entry I made the trip alone. It was great and when I arrived at Crooked Creek I was glad to be around people again and work with people. However the Lord had different plans for me. He had a me placed on the Wood Mizor for two and a half months. Most of that time alone. I was angry for parts, didn't understand what I was doing because the work didn't seem necessary. However I don't know if any of what I did on the Wood Mizor is going to be immediately evident for me but that time was invaluable. It was time was I was constantly in Prayer and submission to the Lord. Often I was praying for Joy in him, Seeking His will, Constantly just communicating. That was good.

I recently switched into the kitchen and for me being a people person it is a much better fit rather than just working on a wood mill. However I realized that I went an entire day just working. No prayer except for my prayer for my lunch. I was going back words in the amount of time I was seeking Jesus. I was reading on the plane a book by Brennan Manning. If you don't know him look into him he is a very good author and a man in love with Christ. He says in a quote "I spent so much time doing the things that would please God that I had no more time left to just be with God." I think in Young Life I get really caught up in work sometimes and not in just being with him. Or seeking him. I dont know for certain if that is the main thing God is trying to put in my headlights and the reason for my solitude at work. But it was an awful good reminder of remembering to Pray continually while I am doing anything even in a place as busy as the Kitchen!

The Loft.

So about two months ago we decided to create a movie theater in our basement storage room.
We had to beds in there so we stacked a coach on top of them and had mattresses on the floor. We enjoyed it for a few weeks. However Sandy our house keeping supervisor did not love that idea. The coach would pressure point the mattresses thus ruining them. So we came up with an idea to fix this little problem. I drew up a plan and built myself a little loft. Here is a video of the assembly.

Thanksgiving in the WEST!

  My first Thanksgiving away from Family and Rochester. Not to worry though thank to technology I was able to converse with the whole family via skype! Thank you video Chat

It was a nice thing when you are a little home sick! But not to worry I will be flying home for Christmas and it will be spectacular.

As much as I miss home I am loving life out here in Colorado. It is a beautiful place and I work with some pretty awesome people. I also had an awesome thanksgiving full of Food, Football, and good conversation.

I spent Thanksgiving with 5 of my fellow interns, Grants friend Michael, the baker Kayla, her siblings, Kayla's roommates, and Stu Nelson food service manager here at CCR. 

We had Turky, Duck, and a TON of casseroles. I made some candied sweet potatoes.  All the casseroles had some sort of cheese and other deliciousness to it probably totally unhealthy but who said thanksgiving was about being healthy! There were many things I was thankful for this year. Time to enjoy more family on skype, Awesome friends, and an incredible life the Lord has called me to.  We all had a 6 day week and there was much snowboarding to be had. So Most of the interns and I spent all our time on the mountain. It was awesome!

 I am a blessed man. I wanted to let you all know last week I had to say out loud Ephesians Chapter One to my entire bible study. As I said in my last blog we are memorizing it. I only forget a few words and it was awesome. I cant explain the amount of things I am getting out of memorizing this scripture. It is very exciting and I will blog about it on a later date. Right now all my friends are bugging me to go to the Mountain so I am off to "shred some nar" 5 inches of fresh powder my friends. It will be a good day.

This was my view out of the windows at Stu's on Thanksgiving.  

The Book of Ephesians

I haven't posted in awhile but thats really because since the pool cover nothing crazy has been going on up here! We have had groups in every weekend of November. The groups numbers have been pretty crazy. Three weekends ago we had our first winter weekend and they had over 700 people on camp! It was nuts. I never interacted with anyone because I am still working in the maintenance rotation but all of my fellow interns told me it was just a nuts weekend. Cleaning up after it was pretty easy surprisingly  I believe it just means we had good leadership. Last weekend was a little less only camp of roughly 300 so pretty easy weekend for the most part. It was a wyldlife weekend which is middle school students. This past weekend just a few days ago we were back up to 600 people! The amount of laundry we  have to do for these weekends is ridiculous but still awesome!

I feel as if I am finally settling into things here in Colorado. For awhile I was struggling just having a hard time trying to figure out this community with new people that I live, work, and hang out with. But lately we have just seem to be meshing well. I believe it has to do with some of the things we are required to do out here. One of which is Memorize the entire book of Ephesians.

The leadership team always asks the interns here to memorize a LARGE piece of scripture. To KNOW the Lords word. I heard a incredible talk about this a few years back up at Saranac Village for a leadership weekend. A guy named Jerry Leechman was the speaker and he talked about "owning" books of the Bible. What he meant by that was knowing them front and back so well that you would not need to read at all from that book to teach on it. I thought it sounded awesome. In 2008 I worked up at Saranac and had to make 1 year, 5 year, and 10 year goals. One of those Ten Year Goals was to own some books of the bible. 2010 I have yet to "own" any of the books of the Bible.  So when we were asked to Memorize Ephesians (which we did get to choose as a group which scripture we are to memorize) I was excited!

However it has posed a very hard task. We are to memorize 6 verses a week and the  next week recite all the verses we are supposed to know. I am up to say them in two weeks and will have to spit back 24 verses. I am nervous just because I am up to 8 right now and it just seems a daunting task. Please be praying for me that I will memorize the Lords word. But as I am memorizing that I will not miss what he is saying with it. I worry sometimes it will just be memorization, but not taking the word to heart. I have gotten a ton out of the first 8 so far. Its incredible to have them pop into your head as you are busy scrubbing a toilet!

so far this is what I have memorized from NASB version of the Bible

1 Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus, by the will of God. To the saints who are at Ephesus and who are faithful in Christ Jesus.
2 Grace to you and peace for God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
3 Blessed be the God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ.
4 Just as he choose us in him before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless before him. In love
5 he predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to himself. According to the kind intention of his will.
6 to the praise and glory of his Grace which he freely bestowed on us in the Beloved
7 in him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses. According to the riches of his Grace
8 which he lavished on us. In all wisdom and insight


Hopefully by the end of today I will be at 12. By thursday I will be at 18, and by the following thursday 24. Pray for me and memorize along with me if you would like!

Pool Covers and Ropes Courses

After our awesome trip to trail west I was back on the maintenance team! A bunch of interns joined us on the maintenance team to build a cover for the pool. The cover will save an average of $5,000 a month. It took us a whole day to build the cover and number it for future interns to use and install.

It was a fun afternoon of gluing Styrofoam together and fitting it together like a puzzle. All and all we had 73 pieces most of them 8 by 8 foot pieces. On the right is what it looks like when installed. Myself and two other Maintanence people put it together having to cut it to fit perfectly. Then we covered it with a cut to fit pool tarp to keep kids from walking on it.

Besides making Styrofoam covers I helped build some steel frames  for the ropes course. They will be where the cable and create the safe place called a belay cable. They will be clipped into the cables and in harnesses of course!  I didnt do any of the welding but I cut up all the steal and helped do measurements. Not as cool as welding but I can't do everything. 

I used a Grizzly steel saw to cut it all. 

It took a little to move all the steel frames so we had to hook it to our giant fork lift. 

I also did alittle grinding and drilling for some steel light posts. It was pretty awesome to think of all the things I have worked on to help keep making camp excellent and keep costs down. Its been a hard but good rotation. 

At the end of the day of grinding and building steel frames Alyssa wanted to take a picture of the "working man"

Trail West Retreat!

Last week the whole CCR staff went on a retreat to Trail West another Young Life Camp in Colorado. It is is in Buena Vista, Colorado about 2 1/2 hours away from Fraser.  Trail West is Young Life's Family camp much different style then any other Young Life camp I have ever been to. It is basically a hotel that was built specifically with families in mind. It was awesome. That is their logo to the left

We left tuesday after about 4 hours of shoveling. Myself and 6 other guys piled into the smallest minivan ever created and left Crooked creek. It was a hilarious car ride that started out with us pulling over to help a car who was stuck because of ice in the road. We however did not think that if we stopped on the ice that it would be a problem. So we got ourselves stuck right next to the people we were trying to help....Embarrassing. After that we didn't really have any more problems getting to Trail West.

When we left CCR there was 2 feet of snow on the ground. To get to Buena Vista you have to drive over a mountain pass. A unique thing about Fraser and Winter Park is that it bumps right up to the continental divide and the valley they are located in is kind of like a giant bowl. The weather moves in hits the divide and drops right onto us. So what I am getting at is that a lot of snow drops where I live. However, in Buena Vista they barely had any on the ground so all the snow gear I packed was useless.

The weekend was a great time.  I have been here a month but I had not  had an opportunity to get to know all the other staff yet.  The retreat really helped, we played a ton of games, had time to pray together, worship together, learn about Jesus and how to better show him to people at camp.

We read through Ephesians 3:13-5:15  it is an incredible passage. We read it in the context of accountability to each other as staff at CCR. In terms of us interns it was great to remember as we continue to live together we need to remember and learn how to deal with each other in Love, and grace because thats what the passage is about.

For me personally the scripture Eph 4:1 says "As a prisoner for the Lord, then I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received." It brought up the question 'am I?' So lately that has been my focus and prayer at work and with the interns that I am living up to my calling.

As interns we met to talk about the scripture and Brady Carter, one of my fellow interns, brought up 1 John 3:18 "Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth." That is how he wanted us all to interact together as we move deeper into the year. Not to get petty or angry but always to refer to that scripture. That is how we ended our retreat and returned to Crooked Creek for the beginning of Winter Camps! Stoked.

The Blizzard

Last monday we were hit with a snow storm! The first real snow of the year. A few weeks ago we had the first snow it put about 2 inches on everything over night however by the afternoon the sun had melted it! This blizzard however came to stay. Sunday we were told it was going to dump on us and the locals were right!




It snowed from about 8 in the morning till noon the next day. Dropping 16 inches of snow. Normally we interns are in charge of "moving the snow" as Kevin our snow moving boss puts it. What that means is we get up to shovel all the snow in the morning at 7 am so that guests and staff can move around camp eaisly However Monday we had a huge task of finishing housekeeping on all the dorms before noon on tuesday as we were all leaving to go to Trail West Lodge for a staff retreat.

This is a picture of my car in the afternoon after some of the snow had melted on monday. It was just the beginning of a storm that lasted for three days and when all was said and done about 2 feet of snow had dropped on Crooked Creek Ranch. It also provided us with some 70 mph winds which was cool to see because we didn't have to drive anywhere!

This is a picture of the center Circle bell and all the dorms the other interns and I clean once a week. Covered in snow

It snowed so much the following day, on tuesday. As we were removing the snow from all the walk ways so the plows could get to it, snow kept falling and pretty much looked like we did nothing to any of the sidewalks right after we were done! However we only shoveled the area once because we had a few days before guests arrived and a retreat we had to leave for!

Sunset on CCR

A few weeks ago we had a spectacular evening when the sun was setting behind sheep mountain. I took a bunch of photos but just got around to editing for posting. It was awesome night when all the interns took pictures of the sunset and then enjoyed a nice camp fire on our patio. I really enjoy Colorado.

Click on it to see it larger. Totally worth it. The Colors are not enhanced just stiched a few photos together

Maintenance Rotation!

I found out on my first day way back on October 2nd that I would be in the Maintenance rotation of this year long internship.

For those of you who are not really exactly sure what I am doing out here at Crooked Creek Ranch is that I am learning about how a Young Life camp works by working in various departments. For October and November I will be in the Maintenance Department. Come December I will probably rotate into another area such as food services or guest services.

I was really excited about the maintenance rotation. I was expecting to learn to be a little more  handy and help fix problems on camp. Now CCR is one of the newest camps. Only being 12 years old the stuff that other camps have to do during a winter to maintain the property does not happen as much. More new projects happen around camp. Two projects that are being worked on camp are, the new ropes course and a facade for the gym. Our old ropes course was deemed unsafe SO we are building a brand new one on camp! It is pretty incredible so far. The theme on camp is a Mining theme so our game room and all over camp looks like it used to be an old mining facility. The gym just looks like a gym so we are going to be putting up a facade on both ends to make it reminiscent of a mining town.

Now this is where I come in. My ideas of fixing things on camp were change quickly when I was told I would be in charge of the saw mill.

This is My Home

I have been sawing logs and turning them into lumber for the last month. Mostly I am making 6x7's  for the ropes course I am not exactly sure what in the construction they will be used for but I made about 50 of them.                         

I usually work alone but I have for the past week had the opportunity work with Mr. David Bleckley. We milled 30 6 x 6's this week and hundred's of 1 by ? which is all the extra wood that was not part of our 6X6s they will be used for the facade in the gym.

Working the wood mill is definitely a challenge for me. I am a people person and being out behind the shop generally by myself is hard. So please be praying for me as I still run the SAW MIZER. I am sure I am out there for a reason and probably to center myself on the LORD. I am grateful to use that time to pray for people, ministry, camp, and my time out here.  I thought about Isaiah 30:21 a lot "Your ears will hear a word behind you, 'This is the way, walk in it,' whenever you turn to the right or to the left." It reminds me where ever I am placed for the Lord that is the way and I need to walk in it.

All and all time is been great so far here at Crooked Creek Ranch. 

First day of Work

So After arriving October first we were given time to move in and get settled then we were invited to a meet and greet dinner at Brett Wingo's home, he is the Camp Manager here at CCR. We were given and orientation on saturday and sunday was supposed to be our first official day of work.

Sunday Oct. 3rd started off awesome went to Church at 8:00 then headed to Doug and Sue Freitas house for an incredible breakfast. We then got back to camp and were walking to work around 1:00 pm when over the radio it was announced that there was a forest fire on the back side of Sheep mountain, which is the mountain Crooked Creek Ranch is on! Interns were instructed to help escort the guests that were still on camp out of camp and to pack our car with an emergency travel bag. It was crazy.


Thats camp on the right of the photo and the very start of the fire. The photo was taken by one of our neighbors. However when I was helping people leave from the entrance sign you could see the 80 foot flames it was frightening

After we evacuated the guests from camp, all of Camp staff took there cars (now full of the belongings i really didn't want to burn i.e. my guitar.) up to the office. We were told that we weren't being evacuated yet however a reverse 911 call told us to prepare to be evacuated (a reverse 911 is when 911 calls you!). We all sat up at the office we waited to see if the fire would co me over sheep mountain.

The fire department jumped right into action to stop the fire. They had slurry bombers out right away that is what the red stuff is. Another photo by our neighbor he had a great vantage point

Helicopters used the tiny pond on camp to grab water to dump on it.






We watched it for five hours and because there is a lot of dead pine trees from a pine beetle that kills them everyone thought it would be a horrible disaster. Every time the flame hit a new patch of dead trees you could just see the smoke expanding rapidly pretty strange. The maintenance staff trained us with a trial by fire attitude....any who they trained us on how to run hoses if the fire did come close enough though as they were telling us to use the hand sprayer for the garden hose I thought we may not have a huge impact but I went with it. Luckily we never had to use them!

This is a picture by Alyssa Guidon from out in front of the office. As we watched waiting.

The Lords hand was here at Crooked Creek the entire time. Wind is really bad in a forest fire. It pushes the fire along otherwise the fire has a harder time spreading. That sunday the wind, which normally comes over sheep mountain heading south east, which would have brought the fire right on top of us was blowing north west. It blew the fire away from any houses or property. It burned up 520 acres of public land. No property loss.

We never did work that day...

The Intern team!

I arrived at Crooked Creek Ranch October 1st to begin a year of Life in Fraser, Colorado.


I will be working here until September 30th 2011 with 8 other interns. We will all be living, working, and spending most of our free time together as we no next to no one in town and thats just how it goes interning for a Young Life Camp.

From Top to Bottom and left to right.

Alyssa Guidon- from the great State of Washington, She loves to laugh and laughs at me a lot although she assures me its cause I am funny not JUST cause I say dumb things

David Bleckley- from South Carolina the tallest one of our group. Incredible dude who is constantly blown away by the Lord and always willing to share which I need.

Amy Morgan- A true Texan who loves Texas (I dont know if there is any other type of texan) She loves to hunt and fish and literally says the funniest one liners in the world.

SECOND ROW

Brady Carter- the man from Tennessee who is a true red neck in all the best senses. Shoots guns, builds cars, drives dirt bikes, but is also an artist WHAT 

Becky Comston- From Ohio and loves to play Volley Ball which is the greatest sport so we get along expect she usually crushes me at all skills in it even spiking. (only slightly embarrassing)

Savannah Simon- Arizonan who loves tattoos!  Everyone one of them is a significant story in here life. She is super in to adventure sports and journaling.

Grant Alderman - A man from Michigan who was the most mannerisms out of all of us but also one of the most laid back people I have ever met. 

Third Row

Alex Phillpot- A great friend of mine who interned with me at Saranac the Last two summers. She has an incredible heart and loves people well.

Myself of Course

These are the 8 people the Lord has placed into my life to live, learn, and grow together. Please pray for us all that we would constantly push each other to the Lord and Love each other well! 

The Journey

A lot happened between accepting the internship and me actually arriving at Crooked Creek Ranch.

I managed to Graduate with a B.S. from Nazareth College in Rochester, NY

I worked at Young Life's Saranac Village on the Guest Services team. 

and finally I took a three week long road trip to get to Colorado.

The trip was meant to see some people who have influenced my life and also see and experience the Lord creation! It was an incredible road trip.

Started the journey Sept. 9th leaving Saranac Lake to head to Rochester, stayed in Rochester for five days until the 14th Hanging out with great friends and family the entire time. It was hard to say good bye to two very important places to me in less than a week but life goes on!

From Rochester I drove to Philadelphia and visit my good friends Tim Barnes and Christian Mikesell ran into my CIA buddy John Turman. Bummed around there for about five days just enjoying the time. Then drove down to Atlanta to hang out with the Fortier brothers and family. Lots of good times happening in Smyrna, GA definitely played some Vball.

From there the road trip got a lot longer with the driving but totally worth it. Drove 15 hrs from Atlanta to Austin, TX to go  wake boarding with Branden Stathes. He told me the drive wasn't bad and when you have books on tape it really isn't!

From Austin It took me two days but I drove another 17 hours to Phoenix Arizona where I hung out with Sarah Anderson and went to an Arizona State University football game. Unfortunately the Sun-devils lost!  The following day I headed to my main destination THE GRAND CANYON. 

The Canyon is one of those places even though it is full of tourists on the rim, it is a must see. 

It was definitely a spiritual high to be there in God's Creation. It seriously takes your breath away. Definitely a place I would like to return to one day.

I was at the GC for two days first night I looked out over the rim. The second day I walked 6 miles into it!

Originally I wanted to go to the Colorado river in one day and back up to the top but there multiple signs that warn against this. Seeing as I was hiking by myself I figured I would take it safe and not head the 9 miles to the river but go as far as I could. 

I took the Bright Angel trail which is supposed to be one of the more popular It also has about every 1.5 miles a drinking fountain and bathrooms which is super convenient. 

I made it to the check Point called Indian Garden which is a strange oasis in the desert terrain of the GC that was 4.6 miles down. Then I was talked into going out to Plateau point which was another 1.5 but when you get there it was totally worth it.

It was so incredible to see such a beautiful place and sit in the realization that God created both this and us and loves us SOOOO much more than the Grand Canyon. Crazy. 
Ephesians 3:19 "and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to the fullness of God." 

A Pilgrim

There are a number of reasons I chose the title Pi'stis which is the Greek for Faith. Faith has been the key word to my life over last 6-8 months. Since the day back in early March when Stu Nelson called me and asked me whether or not I wanted to be a year long intern at Crooked Creek Ranch a Young Life Camp. That day was the day I realized where the Lord was calling me for the next year. I believe all the things God has taught me over the Last six years were leading me to that point where I could either answer Gods call or say no. However he said "Ian, will you follow me out west? Will you leave your family, your friends, your mentors, and even your dog... and trust me?" That may be the short version so if you want the long one you will have to ask me! 


I have never lived away from Rochester, or Saranac Lake the only places I would call home. All the spiritual and family support will be striped away. However when God speaks to you one must answer him ya know? So I chose the word Faith, definition "conviction of the truth of anything, belief; in the NT of a conviction or belief respecting man's relationship to God and divine things, generally with the included idea of trust and holy fervour born of faith and joined with it" Least thats what the internet tells me is the definition of Pi'stis and I LIKE IT!

I also used the word Pilgrim, mostly cause I dig the word. It has some incredible meaning behind it but I have always thought of it as a person on a journey for something real. I am trying to be Faithful to Jesus by coming out here and taking this pilgrimage if you will. 

Two definitions 

1. a person who journeys, esp. a long distance, to some sacredplace as an act of religious devotion: pilgrims to the HolyLand.

   2.

a traveler or wanderer, esp. in a foreign place

3.a newcomer to a region or place, esp. to the western U.S.

So i see myself as a pilgrim out here.

All of these apply to me in some form. I wish this time for me at Crooked Creek to be full of rich community with the 8 other interns I live, work, and hang out with. Also that this year would be full of me choosing to be Faithful to the Lord. Thank you for reading a little about what is happening in my life and sharing it with me.