Kahquah Family News February 21, 2012

Dear friends

I trust that your family day weekend has left you feeling more refreshed as you re-enter the schedule and commitments of the “everyday”. We had somewhat of a break this weekend, but Paul, Heather, Nancy and I worked from Saturday morning until after breakfast Monday hosting a family retreat for 5 families who belong to a home church at the Oakville Meeting House. It was a lot of fun, especially because these families were familiar to us from family camp, but had never even seen the camp in winter. We had lots of snow for the kids to play in, and, after noticing how much the families enjoyed themselves, we decided to set aside the Family Day weekend next year for a Family Camp-style winter retreat. We hope that many of our family campers will embrace the idea of a late winter getaway to snowy Camp Kahquah, complete with times of teaching, fellowship, and family activities.

We were pleased to welcome Chris Finkbiner , our camp treasurer, as our guest for the weekend. Chris and Nancy spent from 9 AM to 10 PM Saturday finishing up the camps finances from the 2011 year. I really appreciate all the Board members, but want to express my great appreciation for Chris in this, his ninth consecutive year of service to the board. That’s an amazing number, considering he’s only in his early 30”s! Thanks for your faithful support of Camp Kahquah, Chris.

Nancy and I also had a delightful visit last Thursday with Elise Robitaille and Trent Simons, the pastors at Covenant Christian Community BIC in Penetanguishine. . It was good to spend time getting to know more about each other, and our ministries. Covenant is a thriving church of two hundred, offering two morning services, and led by the only female lead pastor in the BIC. They are also unique in that they serve a predominantly francophone community.

Covenant has become the source of a growing number of children, family campers, and cabin leaders. We came away from our visit with the idea of locating an additional bus stop along highway 400 in order to serve the growing number of campers from Penetanguishine and Midland. We were also inspired to find ways to meet the unique needs of single-parent families in the BIC, and to find ways to integrate newer families into the close- knit atmosphere of family camp.

We began accepting registrations for camp on Feb 1, and I’m pleased to announce that 61 campers have registered in the first 20 days! This compares to 26 registrations for the same period last year. We’ve also had an excellent response for CREW and LIT, with 14 CREW and 5 LIT applications. Many of these youth have been waiting years for their chance to apply. If you know of a young person who is thinking about applying for CREW or LIT, please remind them that the registration deadline is March 15.

This weekend we welcome another 62 guests, this time from the Mennonite Community Church of Stouffville. We are really pleased, and want to thank God for the size of groups joining us this year, as last year a few of our weekend groups had less than 20 participants. With this group we have already passed the rental revenue earned from all of 2011, with much more to come from two long-weekend bookings.

                                                                                                                      Prayer needs

• Please pray for the committees of the board. The Site development committee and the Capital Campaign committee are both meeting in the month ahead, and could use your prayers as they make important recommendations to the Board.

•  As mentioned in a previous family news, I have written to the Ryerson Township Council requesting a reduction of nearly $15,000 in property taxes. They meet this evening, and will be looking at our request for the first time. Your prayers are coveted.

‘til next week

Frank