To those coming to January Winter Camp

Hello Friends!!
I am so excited for camp TOMORROW!! I have a little bit of information for you:

1. Drop off is 7pm Friday, pick up is 2pm on Sunday. Please remember that the normal driveway is closed because of our construction site so you have to enter off the bottom road down by Shelley's house and the beachfront. Please feel free to be in touch if you need more info on that!

2. We will be outside playing in the cold this weekend!! There is potential to get wet SO please be sure you bring a change of clothes and WARM WINTER CLOTHING!!! I hate to tell you but you are indeed human and as are prone to frostbite and cold weather exposure!!

3. We have an opportunity to help a member of our CLTD family this weekend who has been struggling financially. We will be collecting money on Friday to purchase grocery cards to help out. Please mention this to your families and if you are able and feel called to help out one of our own please bring funds on Friday. We can accept cash or cheques (made out to Camp Chestermere).

Stuff to bring to camp: Bedding, towel, extra clothing, WARM CLOTHING (ie Winter jacket!!), toiletries, towel, notebook, pen and Bible, money for Pumba's, work ethic, sense of humor, desire to learn and grow!

As always, please feel free to be in touch if you have any questions!!

Blessings all!!

- shelley

Happy Monday! 
I do believe it is a snow day for many of you - at least in Chestermere!! The Trans-Canada highway was closed for awhile there (trust me - I was stranded in the city on Saturday night!). The drifting snow was too much to contend with. The joy of living in Alberta! Really, we have become wimps though. We live in heated houses (most of the time! I keep losing my heat) and drive in heated cars and busses. We have warm brand name winter clothing to guard us against the cold and go about life largely unconcerned with the cold - not a lot changes because it is winter besides out hobbies and outdoor activities. We have actually made winter into a tourist destination with our skiing and winter activities. I suggest we are wimps because we whine about the cold but do we really know cold? Even in the past few years winters have been tamer than they were even 10 years ago. Consider what it was when the first settlers came and planted themselves here: no running water, no indoor plumbing, no heat source besides a fire, no big houses, no parkas or Sorel® boots to protect their bodies from the cold! Heaven forbid - no pizza delivery or even a Safeway® for convenience!! 


Okay, enough about the cold! On to some God talk!!


I was reading from Galatians this morning and decided it was worth sharing. Today's reading comes from the Message (which is considered a paraphrased version of the Bible. A guy named Eugene Peterson took the Greek and Hebrew Bible and translated it into the language we most commonly use today).
The book of Galatians was written by the Apostle Paul (who has a really cool story! He started as someone sent out to kill Christ followers because they 'were trying to destroy God' [at least that's how the Pharisees saw it] and God struck him blind [for awhile] and showed him a better path, so to speak! Paul was one of the forefathers of the Christian church - he went around and told people about Christ and started churches all over the place. This guy walked distances you'd never dream!!). This book is a letter to one of the churches he founded and this is one of the chapters in that book (letter). The italics are my thoughts to you.


Galatians 6
Live creatively, friends. (I love that call!!) If someone falls into sin, forgivingly restore him, saving your critical comments for yourself. You might be needing forgiveness before the day's out. (We are all dirty, rotten sinners, are we not? Who are we to judge??) Stoop down and reach out to those who are oppressed. Share their burdens, and so complete Christ's law. (You know - 'Love your neighbor as yourself') If you think you are too good for that, you are badly deceived.

 ^4-5Make a careful exploration of who you are and the work you have been given, and then sink yourself into that. Don't be impressed with yourself. Don't compare yourself with others. Each of you must take responsibility for doing the creative best you can with your own life. (We need to look at ourselves and consider where we need to grow - "An unexamined life is not worth living" - Socrates)

 ⁶Be very sure now, you who have been trained to a self-sufficient maturity, that you enter into a generous common life with those who have trained you, sharing all the good things that you have and experience.

 ^7-8Don't be misled: No one makes a fool of God. (How can you fool someone who knows your thoughts before you even think them??) What a person plants, he will harvest. The person who plants selfishness, ignoring the needs of others—ignoring God!—harvests a crop of weeds. (Luke 12:2-3 says, "The time is coming when everything that is covered up will be revealed, and all that is secret will be made known to all. Whatever you have said in the dark will be heard in the light, and what you have whispered behind closed doors will be shouted from the housetops for all to hear!" (NLT) Even if you live one way on the surface, the 'secret' life will come into light. I have seen it happen over and over again!!) All he'll have to show for his life is weeds! But the one who plants in response to God, letting God's Spirit do the growth work in him, harvests a crop of real life, eternal life.

 ^9-10So let's not allow ourselves to get fatigued (tired) doing good. At the right time we will harvest a good crop if we don't give up, or quit. Right now, therefore, every time we get the chance, let us work for the benefit of all, starting with the people closest to us in the community of faith.

 ^11-13Now, in these last sentences, I want to emphasize in the bold scrawls of my personal handwriting the immense importance of what I have written to you. These people who are attempting to force the ways of circumcision (A certain religious act that God called Abraham and his people to perform. It was a physical action that showed their dedication to the Lord) on you have only one motive: They want an easy way to look good before others, lacking the courage to live by a faith that shares Christ's suffering and death. All their talk about the law is gas. They themselves don't keep the law! And they are highly selective in the laws they do observe. They only want you to be circumcised so they can boast of their success in recruiting you to their side. That is contemptible! (The book of Acts shares a debate about whether people needed to become Jewish before they could become Christian. The prayerful decision was 'no'. Christianity is about a relationship with Christ, not religious acts. God's people became more concerned with the acts and forgot the relationship. That was what Jesus was fighting with the religious leaders of his day).

 ^14-16For my part, I am going to boast about nothing but the Cross of our Master, Jesus Christ. Because of that Cross, I have been crucified in relation to the world, set free from the stifling atmosphere of pleasing others and fitting into the little patterns that they dictate. (Paul is suggesting that if we accept a life following Christ we have been crucified as well. Christ was hung on the cross for all to see - crucifixion was meant to be humiliating and to put people on display. Living as Christ followers can make us stand out as different, which can be humiliating when you're a teenager but is a rather small price to play for what Christ did for us!!) Can't you see the central issue in all this? It is not what you and I do—submit to circumcision, reject circumcision. It is what God is doing, and he is creating something totally new, a free life! All who walk by this standard are the true Israel of God—his chosen people. Peace and mercy on them! (Yay!!)

 ¹⁷Quite frankly, I don't want to be bothered anymore by these disputes. I have far more important things to do—the serious living of this faith. I bear in my body scars from my service to Jesus.

 ¹⁸May what our Master Jesus Christ gives freely be deeply and personally yours, my friends. Oh, yes!

AMEN!! Now, Go live it!

Hello friends!!

Please forgive me for not updating this blog sooner. It is amazing how life can get away on you, isn’t it?

I hope you all had a great Christmas vacation and that going back to school has not been too terrible an experience!! I loved seeing many of you at the mall on New Year’s Day! I love that you all continue to get together support one another! Keep it up!

So, as we start a new year allow me to outline a few things for you:

CLTD Winter Weekends – the following are the remaining dates:

·      January 28-30

·      February 25-27

·      March 25-27

·      April 29 - May 1

inFuze – January 15^th. A one-day conference with keynote speaker Justin Bills (Eldon will also be teaching a break-out session!). All Mentorship participants and those over the age of 15 are welcome to attend this event. Please feel free to invite your friends! http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=179276152083894&index=1

The 2011 CLTD brochure will be mailed out soon! (I just need to get the printed!) The following are the dates for this summer:

·      Apprenticeship – June 26 – July 15 (The first week is staff training!)

·      Mentorship – July 17 – 29

·      Sojourn – July 31 – August 12

·      Sojourn – August 14 – 26

Youth Volunteers – Last summer Camp Chestermere decided to start up a program called Youth Volunteers. Some of you may have participated in it! It is the idea of a work crew made up of those who have finished Sojourn who would like to return to camp to help out and learn more about the background work of camp. More information will be made available to you as it is organized. Something to think about!!

Alright, all! As usual, people feel free to be in touch! We leaders are here for you, praying for you and love the chance to get together with you if you wanna chat about life, any issues or just hang out!

Blessings all! I hope to see each of you this month!

- shelley

Hello friends!

I would like to go over some of the things we discussed during the October Winter Weekend so that those who were not in attendance can still learn and those who were there can be reminded. Today I shall look at our chat on:

Participation

You know how at school the same thing is taught year after year to each group of a particular grade? It’s like how you began to learn multiplication in grade three and so did all of your siblings? Yeah, CLTD is not like that. Your leaders get together each week in the winter to pray and chat about what to teach for the next Winter Weekend. In the spring we do the same thing for the summer sessions. Sometimes we teach what has been taught before but not before praying and revamping it as needed.

You may ask, “What do I care?” but did you know the time and effort it takes to do this? The first session we taught on the last weekend took a combined effort of 10 hours between Emma and myself. One session (that ended up being two because of the great discussions!). Yes, it is my job, but I am the only one on the team that actually gets paid to do this outside of summer. Everyone else is either working full time elsewhere or in full time school. I sit down at a coffee shop and tell the Leadership Team (we call it Ute Comm in the winter), “Our job is to prepare a banquet, making it the most enticing possible and invite others to partake in the celebration of it.”

Again you may wonder why I want you to know this; why I think it is so important? We are here to share faith with you, which we believe is the most potentially fulfilling endeavor one can seek after. But perhaps we have a bias. We know Jesus.

However we cannot instill this in you. We can only prepare it and present it to you, making it look the most inviting we can. Take for example if Emma and I (who are know for motorcycle riding ;) rather than for our domestic traits) lovingly baked you delicious cookies. We can buy the ingredients, take the time to bake them and lay them out for you. We can welcome you to come and take one, but we cannot feed them to you. You need to choose to come and take one. Once you have one you need to choose whether to put it in your mouth and chew it. You can also decide to take a cookie and only eat the M&M’s. (Too bad for those of you who missed the weekend! We actually brought in home-baked cookie that we made!)

Seriously though, we are encouraging and challenging you to take in our banquet; to engage fully; to open up and be willing to be changed, to challenge yourselves and seriously consider what is being taught. It is easy to sit and listen to what we are saying, but much more of a difficult task to actually let what we are saying (and more importantly what Christ is saying) to shape you – to change you for the best.

You have something to offer the group that is special and unique that no one else can give. 
What you have to suggest or question can help me to grow and question too! We build sessions in a way that asks you to participate. We want to hear from you! CLTD is a safe place to put in your two cents. Please! Partake in sessions! The more you’re willing to join in the more you’ll grow!

BTW, CLTD is about growth, not perfection. The starting point is where you are. You can’t start a journey a mile down the road – you have to start where YOU are now. Anticipate potholes, and falling on your face – this is not something anyone will do without scrapped knees, so to speak. This journey is yours, unique, and different than anyone else’s. Don’t expect it to be like mine or Emma’s or Jeremy’s. We all experience God and faith uniquely with different ups, downs and struggles. But... TOTALLY WORTH IT!

Come, be who you are, where you are in your journey and life and share what God has given you to share. Together we can build something magical! Be a part of it! And remember what I told you the first day of your CLTD session: You will get out of CLTD only what you put in.

"To risk nothing, 

is to risk everything." - Plato

“Only the person who risks is free.” – Leo Buscagalia.

For those of you who were at the September get-together, here is the link for one of the videos Emma and I were telling you about where someone took an old Jesus movie and dubbed over it: 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HfBR8nV4e8Q&feature=related

Please know this - some people feel these videos are insulting to Christianity.  I believe that Jesus has a sense of humor and smile at Himself. I, by no means, have any intention of being insulting - just silly.

Blessings all!

- shelley

PS - The offer always stands guys - it you need prayer or support in something, let us know! We also like to go for coffee!!

;)

Faith is stinkin' hard - even for non-believers!

I had a friend who used to say how hard it must be for atheists to believe in nothing. This morning in my quiet time I found this:

The believer can only perfect his faith on the ocean of nihilism, temptation and doubt; he has been assigned the ocean of uncertainty as the only possible state for his faith. On the other hand the believer is not to be without faith.

Just as we have already recognized that the believer does not live immune to doubt but is always threatened by the plunge into the void, so now we can discern the entangled nature of human destinies and say that even the non-believer does not represent a rounded and closed existence. However vigorously he may assert that he has long left behind him supernatural temptations and weaknesses and now accepts only what is immediately certain, he will never be free of secret uncertainty.

Just as the believer is choked by the salt water of doubt constantly washed into his mouth by the ocean of uncertainty, so the non-believer is troubled by doubts about his unbelief, about the real totality of the world which he has made up his mind to explain a self-contained whole. He can never be absolutely certain of autonomy of what he has seen and interpreted as a whole; he remains threatened by the question whether the belief is not after all the reality which it claims to be.

Just as the believer knows himself to be constantly threatened by unbelief which he must experience as a continual temptation, so for the unbeliever faith remains a temptation and so a threat to his apparently permanently closed world.

- Joseph Ratzinger Introduction to Christianity

Make a Difference - Operation Backpack

Hello friends!

Last weekend we had the first CLTD Winter Weekend of the 2010/2011 season and it was great! Thank you to all of you who came out! There were three groups that came together and everyone seemed to get along and have a great time together. I appreciate everyone’s willingness to get involved. You guys rock!!

Let me share with you a little about a ministry we serve: StreetLight. According to Maria, who heads up the ministry, “StreetLight is a mobile drop-in centre in the form of a fifth-wheel trailer and it reaches out to the homeless youth in the downtown Calgary core.”

It is a sad but true fact that there are kids who live on the streets in Calgary that are safer there than at home. It is a nightmare that few of us can even comprehend.

Every Christmas StreetLight runs Operation Backpack. “StreetLight has designed Operation BackPack as a way in which the community can get involved in meeting a survival need. We ask the community to buy backpacks and fill them with items in which homeless youth need in order to survive. At Christmas time, StreetLight goes out and hosts a big open-air party for all the homeless in Calgary and we hand out backpacks, a hot meal, coffee, and most importantly, HOPE for a better day.” Says Maria.

Last year CLTDs, staff and friends of Camp Chestermere collected over 50 backpacks for this cause. I am encouraging you to pray about participating in this cause this year. It can cost a bit to collect everything for these backpacks so you might want to get family and friends involved. These packs can make a difference in the lives of young people in huge ways. It is easy for us to confuse need and want in our day-to-day lives. We might think we ‘need’ a new ipod but anyone who goes without the basic needs of food and shelter on a continuing basis would beg to differ.

Backpacks are due at the Youth for Christ office the first Friday of December. However, I would be more than happy to help you get them there. You can bring packs with you to the November Winter Weekend, drop them at the camp by December 1^st or get in touch with me to come and pick them up.  For a brochure, drop me a line and I can email one to you.

We can make a difference in this world, friends. We just have to choose to do so!

Check out the StreetLight Blog: http://streetlightcalgary.blogspot.com/