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!