Nordegg Fire Pictures

I have borrowed these pictures from various media sources to show you the fire. As of this morning the fire is still being held at the mine site and we are on 20 minute evacuation notice.

May 12 Evacuation Update

The community of Nordegg has been evacuated and we are currently under a 20 minute evacuation notice. Driving home from Red Deer today we could see the smoke like crazy over Nordegg and police cars everywhere helping people out of Nordegg. Thankfully the highway was not closed so we could drive past and get home. We have left everything packed in the vehicle in the case of being evacuated all we need to do is get Joelle, Liam, Keeha our dog and us to the vehicle and go. Troy is technically in charge of site evacuation but it seems like all the managers are working together on this one (they have never had to evacuate the camp before) so he will be staying behind with the Jeep to make sure everyone from the camp gets out and will meet me where we are told to go.

While we were in Red Deer today we went to church at CrossRoads and I couldn’t help but feel like the message was for us. It was titled when good isn’t good enough, a sermon based off Mark 10: 17-27 about the rich man entering the kingdom of God and how it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle. He told the rich man to sell everything and follow him, what he is looking for is our hearts to be His. This fall we felt God calling us to camp ministry and we answered with wherever you want us to be God, feeling that Frontier Lodge was where he was calling us we quit our jobs and moved out here. Now just 4 months after being here we are potentially looking at losing everything we have. Having the time to walk through our house a few days ago and choose to save things it is surprising at how little of our things we chose to save. Things we didn’t choose to take but wouldn’t be able to replace would be sad but our life would go on without them.  Even if I didn’t have the time to save those things we packed into the vehicle the most important things in my life I would still have, my faith, my God and my family. If we lose everything God is our provider and I still believe we are called to be here for this time, it might change what we thought it would be like but we have been called here for a reason.  

Living on Evacuation Notice

Early this week a fire started from a burn pile in the new “fire smart” safety area. (the government built fire guard) The fire got out of control and has been spreading towards Nordegg. We are really close to the fire it is around 1 kilometer away from Frontier Lodges property. Between the fire and Nordegg there is a ridge they are thinking might help as a natural fire break. As it stands right now we are on a 1 hour fire evacuation notice the same as the Nordegg community.

 

Sitting here writing this blog I feel like I am at an airstrip with all the air traffic that is flying right over our house. Liam is fascinated by the helicopters that are filling up their buckets from our lake. He announces everyone he hears or see’s, which today is ever minute or so. Today they have five helicopters filling up in our lake and six to nine water bomber planes flying around but are filling up from Lake Abraham since our lake is not long enough for them to fill from.

 

It is kind of a surreal feeling having all this going on and we are running programs like normal. We are going on a holiday in a week and a half so I spent the majority of today packing for that, mostly because we are on evacuation notice and need to be ready to go if we are evacuated. I also packed a Rubbermaid full with things to come with us for example our passports and any money we have in the house, baby books for my kids, our wedding album and other things like that. It is amazing how little went into the Rubbermaid, we have a house full of things we collected in our life time and most of the important things we managed to fit into one Rubbermaid. I only packed the things that are not replaceable like the baby books with Joelle and Liam’s baby foot prints in them, small things but memories that money wouldn’t be able to get back for us. Toys, beds, furniture call all be replaced and I am thankful for insurance that would help us get some of those things back if the fire burned our house. This really makes me stop and think what is important in my life like my family I am blessed to have. Everything else is just things at the end of the day and can be replaced, but my family could never be replaced. I am thankful that God is in every situation with me and is giving me little moments in the chaos that make me smile and not think about the what ifs. I know that what ever happen we are going to be ok, even if we are evacuated we will be together and God will provide whatever we need if we lose the camp and our house.

A prayer request from this would be that no one would be hurt or die in this fire. That the fire fighters can get the fire under control and put out before it gets much bigger, it is about 100 hectors right now and spreading since it is still out of control. For the town of Nordegg, for those of you who don’t know much about the small hamlet it was once a booming coal community and has been previously devastated by fires that left not much for historic buildings. The little church we attend there was built in the 30’s and a handful of other buildings managed to escape the previous fires. Nordegg is a tourist attraction out here in the summer and if the historic parts of the community are devastated by the fire it is hard to say what it would do for the community.  For the fire fighters that they have safety and discernment while fighting the fire both from the air and on the ground.

 

 

Big Horn

Besides Nordegg our closest neighbours is the Big Horn reserve that is about 15 minutes west from us. We have been running youth nights twice a month for the pre-teens and teens from there, we have been averaging between 20-30 kids a night with 6 of them coming to us from the Small Boy Reserve that is 1 ½ hour drive up the Forestry Trunk road. A father from that reserve is trying to keep his boys and some friends out of trouble so he drives them to the school at the Big Horn every day and brings them to every youth night we have had so far! True dedication from a father who loves his boys and just wants to give them the best chance possible.

 In the summer we run a free Native camp to reach out to the kids on the reserves in our area, it is such a popular week of camp it has been the first one to fill up every summer. The camp is looking into running a second camp for the Native kids because it is so popular and we have to turn kids away. Another really neat thing we run is a 3 month Adventure Bible School twice a year and they are looking into adding a free spot for one of the kids from the Reserve. That is a prayer request we have, that the second week of Native camp will work out for next summer and that it will be possible to offer a free spot in the Bible School program to one of the Reserve kids. They are hoping that it will open up some local ministry with in the Reserve by giving Biblical teaching for them to use in Bible study ministry there.

A few weeks ago two of the ladies from the Big Horn connected with Jess one of the staff wives here and one of them asked how to become a Christian! The ladies are eager to learn more so they are going to meeting with Jess and myself for Bible study once a week if it works out to go through the book of John. I am really excited about the Bible study with these ladies; both of them are fairly respected in their community at the Big Horn and this could be a huge opportunity to minister with them to the community. One of the ladies mentioned that maybe we could do a yoga night with women only and use it to talk about God with them! Really cool and exciting!

 

A few pictures from our youth night

 

Ice In The Water

It is finally starting to feel like spring outside, the snow is melting again and it is NOT forecasted to snow this weekend. We have had about a foot of new snow every weekend for the past 5 weekends. The kids are loving the warmer weather and all the puddles and mud that come with it. This week spring staff training began where the brave souls spent a day on the river on a cool 5 degree day. They started that day by having to literally “break the ice” the launch site had about 8mm of ice coating the water. They spent most of the day paddling and some rescue techniques at the very end of the day. The bus wouldn’t start when they wanted to come home so Troy went to meet them with booster cables to get the bus going. When Joelle asked where dad was I told her what he was doing and she would say “Oh daddy is rescuing them so they need him” I am so glad she is so understands sometimes.

 Showing the ice in the water

The launch site

 The North Saskatchewan River

 Warm up and info time

Claudius, Johannes, and Cameron

 

Spring is comming?

Looking out our window and seeing all the snow that has fallen over the past week it is hard to believe that our spring staff are arriving this weekend for staff training week! I think we have more snow right now than we did on the day we moved here in December. A few weeks back we went to Camp Caroline for a staff retreat before the summer busyness begins. I was blessed to be able to attend every session with the staff and have a better chance to connect and learn more about everyone. The focus on the retreat was Unity, purpose and blessings. I was challenged by a speaker that came in and was talking about unity and challenged us to step out of our comfort zone for the sake of unity. It was a good reminder for me to get out there and do things that I am maybe not good at, don’t really enjoy doing, for the sake of working together as one staff for the purpose of God’s glory. It also challenged me as a mom to try new things for the sake of my kids and giving them experiences to help further build into their lives. I want them to grow up to be adventurous and kind people not afraid to step out and do things even if no one else does it. I came home from the retreat looking forward to a summer (or spring when the snow melts) full of crazy adventures with Joelle, Liam and our little one when she arrives in August, and the opportunity I have been given to be a part of summer camp ministry again.

Liam enjoyed the pool at Camp Caroline 

 

If we let her Joelle would have been in the pool every second of the day 

 

 

Easter and a touch of pink

It has been a busy few weeks here. Right before Easter our furnace was broken, so we had two very cold nights. We had a space heater that we put outside of Joelle’s room for her and we bundled Liam up in his snowsuit because he moves around too much in his sleep and I was worried he would be too cold. Thankfully having small children under the age of three is considered a furnace emergency and they came out right away to assess the problem and came back the next evening with the parts to fix our furnace. We were lucky that the furnace repair guys were working out in Nordegg and at the end of their day they came by to help us.  

Liam sleeping in his snowsuit

 

 I had my 20 week ultrasound of our newest wee one. Our baby was moving around a lot making it a bit of a challenge for the tec to get the measurements she needed. The tec told us that everything looks good, a nice thing to hear after having two emergency ultrasounds early on to see if the baby was doing alright. I was a bit worried when the tec kept on saying the baby is moving so much because we were hoping to find out what gender our little bundle was going to be this time. The baby surprised me and was cooperative for us, we are adding a touch of pink, a little girl to our family in August. Joelle is really excited about having a baby sister she has even picked out names for our little girl. Tinkerbell (this I know comes from the newest Tinkerbell movie where she finds out she has a sister, makes sense) and her second most verbalised one is Monie Laka, this one I have no idea where it comes from. It amazing that she can’t come up with names for her toys besides blond baby, gaff, oh so cute baby gaff, monkey, baby monkey ect. I think her vote is for Tinkerbell because she has started talking about our baby using the name Tinkerbell.

 

 

For Easter we went home to Troy’s parents place and brought Johannes, Claudius, and Patricia with us. They are from Germany and working with us for a year. It was a weekend full of fun, driving, shopping at West Edmonton Mall where Troy and Johannes went bungee jumping! Troy said it was terrifying and seemed so un-natural to jump off the platform. He was glad he did it because it was something he always wanted to try.

Troy and Claudius on the roller coaster at West Ed Mall

 Troy Bungee Jump!

Troy right before his jump

The kids had a blast looking for Easter eggs with our friends.

 Joelle and Johannes on the hunt

 Patricia fell in the snow trying to get and easter egg

 Liam LOVED looking for the eggs and eating a few along the way

Claudius and his find

 

It has been a good few weeks!