School groups 101

Hi Folks,
As you may or may not know, this is the middle of a busy school group season at Shekinah. Teachers from all over are bringing their students for a day or two of retreat at Shekinah. These camping retreats are a great way to celebrate the impending end to the school year and get a taste of what summer will be like, spending time having fun outside. The school program at Shekinah has a number of angles for learning ranging from teamwork, leadership, confidence building, nature studies, camping skills, ecological appreciation, spiritual growth and all manner of different flavours that teachers bring to the table. Bringing a school group to Shekinah creates the opportunity for meaningful outdoor education. We hope to be an important resource for the teachers who come here.

On the flip side of the coin, school groups are very meaningful to Shekinah. We appreciate the life that the students bring to the camp. As the school program director at Shekinah, I have a specific appreciation of teachers who are dedicated to bringing their class here year after year. When I started this job, Kristy left me with a written sheet of advice. On it she noted that there are some teachers "who have been doing this for quite some time and have their trips down to an efficient art... it's a beautiful thing". These teachers are a joy to work with and make my life much easier in this job. One such teacher is Diane Beaule from Venture Heights Elementary School in Martensville. Within my first month of school programming in 2013, I saw her run a 2-day camp like a well-oiled machine. I noted she looked very practiced and comfortable in the role. At the time, we were rebuilding the chalet from the flood and Diane walked around the corner and was greeted by Carl Wiens who was working on the rebuilding project. The two talked like old friends and I realized then why Diane was able to get so much out of her time here. If she has been bringing her class since Carl was the director here, Diane and Shekinah go back a long time. Longer than any other teacher still bringing their class here today. This year was the last camp before Diane's retirement from Venture Heights and I got a chance to ask her about her time spent here at Shekinah. No-one has a perspective exactly like hers. Through the years, the school program has seen different activities come and go and different directors sit in my chair and fill this job. One thing I hope though is that long standing supporters of Shekinah realize how much we appreciate them. We appreciate Diane and her dedication to outdoor education. We appreciate parents who send their kids to camp every  year and invite their friends. We appreciate annual Timber Lodge retreats from church groups and quilters and scrap bookers. It is through you that Shekinah's vision is fulfilled.
-Curtis

Vounteer Bonanza!

Hi folks.

The last two weeks have been busy with spring cleaning and preparations for summer. We have had a few different volunteer groups go through to give us a hand and they have been greatly appreciated. It began with 3 eager students from the Ecoquest program from Saskatoon. They were here for 3 days and covered a bunch of jobs from raking gravel to cleaning windows to grounds cleanup. They came on a school placement and I think they had a great time getting outside of the classroom setting to do some hands-on learning. Their energy was certainly appreciated and if you make it to Shekinah in the next few months, you will benefit from the work they put in. 

The second group to make their way through was a volunteer chainsaw gang. They braved the snow to help cut firewood for the upcoming seasons and got a lot of work done! We worked through the bush along Coyote Fairway to pull out standing dead logs and buck them up for firewood. This is a big job every year for Shekinah and it was very rewarding to see those stacks of wood at the end of the day. And it was rewarding to see people with close ties to Shekinah back here helping out with this ongoing tiresome yet thankless job. 

 

One of the wood stacks from Saturday

The most recent volunteer group was part of the Rosthern Junior College Alternative Learning and Service Opportunities program. 12 students gave us two days of their time and energy. We got really muddy as we dragged the water bloc sections into submission and got them folded up onto pallets. Then we set to work on the massive task of dismantling the collapsed coverall building and moving its contents into our brand new pole shed. We got a ton of work done there as well and it is well on its way to being cleaned up.  These students were able to serve God with their hands and remembered what it feels like to get a sun burn even though they didn’t travel to warm southern destinations like some of their classmates. 

 

Before

After

Every time we have volunteers come to Shekinah, I am absolutely blown away by the amount of work that can be accomplished in a short time. I am humbled by how slow it would take me to do the same jobs by myself or with just the Shekinah staff yet we finish the jobs in a few short hours with a volunteer crew. I hope these volunteers also got something out of spending their time here and I believe that the work we did was very rewarding. This certainly will not be our last volunteer days of the year so if you feel like this is something that appeals to you, stay in touch with us here at Shekinah and we can connect you with an opportunity to serve that suits your time and talents.

Hope to see you soon.

Curtis

Spring Melt 2015: A damaged road and could today be the day the river goes?

For everyone in Saskatchewan you will know already how nice the weather has been. The snow seems to be disappearing at a rate we are happy with when we think back what everything looked like this time a year ago or even two years ago. After a couple really long winters we deserve to outside and enjoying the sun in March, after all it’s nice to remember that not every winter seems to stretch into April or even May.

The melt at Shekinah has historically brought some challenges. Well, challenges is probably an understatement if we are thinking back 23 months ago to the day when the waters rose to unmanageable levels and pianos floated and you probably know the rest. So how is melt 2015 going for Shekinah?

Through the month of March we have been watching and speculating as to how things would go. Certainly there have been a number of factors in our favour. There is certainly not the snow accumulation that we have seen in previous years and the warm temperatures have led to a slow melt. All this is good for us and it was a couple weeks ago now that we saw the river start to rise and the creek that runs down into the river start to flow. The river has come up about 5ft from its winter levels and this recent stretch has not seen any significant rises in water levels even though the creek is now becoming more of a raging torrent.

And then unexpected happened! It is after all Shekinah right? On Friday afternoon we walked outside to find a raging torrent in an unexpected location. Coming down our road! With deep channels already carved out by the water we went looking for the plugged culvert or the spring that had popped up, but that’s not what we found.

What we found was water draining out of the field at the top of the hill and flowing “downstream” along the road. After some assessing we knew we needed to do something, but the question was what exactly? We decided to build a dam and divert the water to the other side of the road and hopefully create a new path down the side of the hill rather than our road.

The road was already a mess but we could potentially mitigate the situation. So we put down gravel only to see the torrent sweep it along in its path. Eventually we scraped up some mud and dirt off the road and put it in place. This worked. We were able to divert the water and we got lucky. We would like to claim that it was deliberate, but it wasn’t because the water we diverted flowed perfect to a culvert and so we did have to get it across the other “up” road.

Down by the office the water was pooling on the sidewalk and threating to breach the threshold. While we had diverted the bulk of the flow it was still gathering momentum further down the hill as water was running down the side off the valley to collect with whatever was managing to seep through our dam wall.

The following video shows us building the second dam on the down road to drain the water towards a culvert. This time we knew what we were aiming for.

We were reminded (not that anyone at Shekinah can forget) of the power of water and the damage that it can do in a very short period of time. As that memory gets entrenched in the banks we began monitoring the river for the duration of the weekend. The question looming, when will the ice go and what will it mean for us?

This Monday 30 March 2015 we are wondering if today will be the day. With big pools of water on the ice and the channel Reddekop island completely open the signs are there. The water did not rise overnight, but there were lots of really loud cracks that were heard coming from the river yesterday afternoon. Today could be the day and if it goes we hope and pray that the river ice is rotten enough that it simply breaks down easily and ice jams will not be a factor. But with Mother Nature you just never know what the next surprise will be… Watch this space.

Field trip - what I learned

Hi Folks.

Last week, Nick and I (Curtis) had the opportunity to spend some time at the CCI Canada-SK conference held at Redberry Bible Camp. There are two main ideas that have stuck with me since leaving there. The first was an answer to a question of how we measure success at our camps. One participant made the point that we have to compare goals back to our mission statement. At Shekinah that mission statement says “Shekinah is to be a place where all who come have the opportunity to experience the glory and presence of God”. The second concept I am stuck on is the idea that everyone who comes to your camp should feel blessed. This includes campers, parents, staff, plumbers, delivery people, and of course, volunteers!

It is no secret that Shekinah, like every camp, depends heavily on volunteer help and it is our hope that every volunteer who comes here not only feels blessed but has “the opportunity to experience the glory and presence of God”. In fact, I believe it is true that volunteers are in the best position of anyone to experience God’s presence here at Shekinah. As a volunteer, you get the chance to make a contribution of your time and talents to the building of God’s kingdom. Shekinah is hardly the only place where service to others is part of kingdom work and the benefits of volunteering anywhere are numerous and live-giving. Serving others helps to provide a perspective on our role in the world; it fosters humility. It gives a feeling of making a difference. It demonstrates the love of Jesus we want to share with the world. Paul Bailey, the speaker at the conference we attended, noted that people who volunteer have a longer life expectancy and report being generally happier with life.

Serving as a volunteer at Shekinah can take many forms. You could help in the kitchen during camp, pitch in with spring cleaning, help us tackle the ongoing task of cutting up firewood, donate time and talents to future building projects, help out with fundraising or recruiting efforts, or spend a week at camp as a CIT (if you are between grade 10 and 12). You might even get the chance to try something for the first time or develop a new skill, friendship, or attitude. There are loads of ways to get involved and I encourage everyone to consider if serving as a volunteer at Shekinah is something for you this year. Come, spend some time with us, and experience the glory and presence of God.

2015 Summer Camp Staffings

It seems as though things have been a bit busy around camp lately, and so you may have noticed we haven't posted anything in a while. Now that we're getting back to business-as-usual, it's time for some updates from us to you. This post is all things summer camp! Although the past weekend didn't feel too much like spring, there has definitely been a change of seasons in my mind. While winter seems to be all about preparing to prepare for camp, spring is when I feel I can finally start concrete planning... And that has begun! We already have over 20 campers registered for camp and all of our counsellors have been hired! Hiring is a mix of emotions: there is something so unique and life-giving about reading applications, meeting with people for interviews, and hearing the wonderful things each reference will say. But it is also a bit of a stressful time for me, as it's important to and affects a lot of people. I'm often uncomfortable with the pressure and responsibility I have... And so I pray. I pray that God is with me, and with the applicants. I pray that God will guide me to hear each individual through the process and the needs of staff and campers. And at the end of the process (both this year and last), I reflect to see that God is with us, working through time to provide camp with a variety of skills and passions needed to run. And then there are always the accreditation's that are needed. With a smaller staff, it's always been a worry of mine to find a certified lifeguard. This year, we're blessed to have one applicant with her NLS certificate. A new thing we need counsellors to be certified in is our climbing wall and flying fox. You may remember last summer we were unable to offer our zipline as an activity because we were preparing to build a new one, along with a new climbingwall. They were both built at the end of last summer, and 3 of our returning staff are already certified to operate both activities. This training is something we offer to our staff, however scheduling is sometimes difficult to coordinate, making this a puzzle to work on in my mind. But enough about the process, I'm sure you're all interested to know who our counsellors are for summer 2015! So here they are:

Nora Pederson (3rd summer), Meghan Wiens (3rd summer), Jenae Funk (2nd summer), Brita Pederson (1st summer), Matt Schellenberg (3rd summer), Ryan Wiens (1st summer), Dylan Longhurst (1st summer), and Brandon Janzen (1st summer).

Saying that I'm excited for everyone to come to camp is a slight understatement. I want so badly to see the staff and volunteers working and having fun together. But before counsellors can come to camp, there's still a lot more preparation that needs to be done. So, I keep working on the preparations, but I've been letting myself pause between tasks to picture in my mind what this summer might look like with this new group. Interestingly enough, I can picture every staff member out here, using their individual talents for camp.... Regardless of how many times they've been to Shekinah, or how many years they came to camp, I can just see it being good. 

-Katie

Nature will continue to surprise us

Hi Folks. Curtis here. 

As the winter has become more advanced, I have become increasingly appreciative of this season. There seems to be no end to surprises and unexpected encounters. Even by late February, when we think we are sick of seeing nothing but snow and cold and wind and darkness, nature gives us a peek into something completely new and unique.

Two such events occurred for me today, Friday Feb. 27. As I was working on finishing up clearing the last of our most recent snowfall from Tuesday, I was standing in the office getting on all my warm clothes to go back out again after lunch. I looked out the front window and thought I saw a dog standing on the road. A quick double-take had my eyes confirming that it was indeed a lynx! Having several people comment to me that lynx tracks had been found at Shekinah this winter, I was not entirely surprised by the idea that a lynx would be calling our fair camp home, but I was very much caught off guard to see it casually strolling up the driveway past our window in the early afternoon. I ran outside in my double-socked feet to get a better look at it and it continued walking away from me up the driveway. Nick and Katie also got a decent look at it and there was a significant buzz of excitement for quite some time in our little office as we soaked in the experience we just had together.

The second surprise came a few hours later when driving the tractor back up towards the shop to park, I noted the large amount of ice building up on the creek. I quickly grabbed the camera and went back on foot. The first place I went was the green gate crossing. The sheet of ice covering the crossing there seemed to be almost at ground level on both ends. As I walked out onto it, I could hear the sputtering of water nearby downstream and the muffled gurgling of water beneath the ice underfoot, strange sounds in -15 degree temperatures. The ice seemed quite solid though and I walked around for a few minutes before putting my foot through the ice into water. Time to move on.

The second area I explored was around the suspension bridge crossing. No gurgling water here, only the complete silence of solid ice and the occasional muffled groan as I apply my weight over a section where the ice has formed over some underlying snow. My usual mark for the thickness of the ice is at the suspension bridge itself. Those who are familiar with it will recall that the cables suspended from each end droop in the middle to just below (for me) shoulder height. As you can see in the picture below, the ice is built up so high that, when standing on top of it, the aforementioned cable barely tickles my ankle. This is truly remarkable for me to witness. The temperatures have been cold the last weeks and yet liquid water continues to flow over our creek in the middle of winter, slowly building up that sheet of ice. 

I am anticipating a possible rise of the ice over the suspension bridge cables. I would say I would be surprised to see that but the lesson I learned again today is that, just when you think you know what nature will present you with, you will again be humbled by the diversity and complexity found in our wild spaces. I like to think of it as a glimpse of the glory and presence of God. And those moments are the ones that keep us coming back to Shekinah.