Day 2 of the trip

Onto the next day of our Wonders of Saskatchewan trip...





From there we went on to MJ
And things there were going ok
We saw a moose that was big
And owls that "dig"
On Donya's 23rd birthday

And underground we did go
To see the Al Capone show
And Gus made us laugh
As did all of the staff
I do think everyone should go!





In Regina we ate lots of food
It put us in a very good mood
In the front we're all smushed
And then Donya blushed
Then we spent that night in the hood.

time travelling by facebook

A year ago today I set my facebook status as follows...

"Can't see the light yet in this ever darkening valley she's walking through but ...knows it's there, and that He'll get me there. onward and upward!"

I remember so clearly how lost I was this time last year. God is so good! He's done some amazing things in the year since then. It was cool to be reminded.

The Wonders of Saskatchewan, Day one!

Ok so a "few days" turned into a bit longer, my apologies. However, here we are now! This was the first day of our trip...


We started off in Debbie's parent's kitchen with a map and a penny. We thought maybe we would drop a penny on the map and make that our destination. Not so much. After a bit of discussion we sort of figured out where we wanted to and what we wanted to see. So off to the Dairy Bar we went for slush and ice cream
and then we headed to North Battleford. We didn't leave until almost 7ish so we planned to spend the night at Debbie's brother's place and then really started our trip the next day.

In the morning we really started out trip...

*I was reading from "The Book of Nonsense" inspiring us to write limericks about our trip, enjoy*

There was a lady of Loon Lake

Who was one day chasing a snake

She wanted to ring the bell

And she did it quite well

til the Krydorians chased her away

So we went next to Ft. Carlton

But there was no way for us to get in

So we were sad

And some were mad

And said, "I'm never going to Saskatchewan again!"

We crossed the St. Louie river

At first it did make us quiver

Once we were aboard

We opened the door

and waited impatiently for dinner.

At Batoche we had our own tour guide

and went on a golf cart ride!

There was a guy there

Who gave us a scare

Cuz he came out of everywhere!

And what's more, we all had some fun

As we saw where Riel shot a gun

We saw houses and wells

And rang old door bells

and of weird art we sure saw a tonne.

At Watrous we drove down main street

a church cleaning lady there we did meet

She led us inside

Where we did abide

and saw stained glass that was really neat...(and old!)

So we went down to Manitou Park

So we could go swim in the dark

In salt waters we float

Though we're not in a boat

In that beautiful Manitou Park

We spelt in a tent not for three

And we all slept very cozy

We lay side by side

It was stuffy inside

So in the car slept Joni-Lee!

the great escape

Well I successfully ran away from life for a few days. It was fantastic! I went on a whirlwind trip with my friends Debbie and Donya. We called our trip, "The 7 wonders of Saskatchewan tour" only to discover that Saskatchewan is a vast province...thus we stuck to the South East part. We saw some amazing things, met hilarious people and had great adventures along the way! We put a lot of miles on Debbie's granny car! It really was wonderful, you can expect a short series of blogs dedicated to the trip over the next few days.

You know what else though? When you run away from life, everything you were running from is still there when you get back. Waiting to be dealt with.

Today is just one of those days. You know the ones...where you just want to curl up in an unknown location and hide from life for a a while? Yep that's what today is. I don't even have the mind to create a title or a label for this post. I just want a hiding spot, some good music and a large glass of chocolate milk.

SBBC 2011

What a summer, what a summer! I went into the 2011 camp season expecting God to do amazing things and let me tell you He did not disappoint me! I guess what I'll do is give a week by week rundown here...

Staff training:
I find staff training to be such a blessed time. I mean for me the people of SBBC are my family, so staff training is like a family reunion for me in a lot of ways. I get to see the people that I don't have opportunity to see very much and we spend the week together worshipping, praying, learning and having lots of fun as we prepare for the summer!
It never fails to be a week of growing closer to the people I love. This year we did most of the traditional things...having a float in the parade, going to the July 1st fireworks, setting up the tent, having a beach afternoon, spending time together in cabin devotions, enjoying campfire...it was all really good! Our theme verse at camp this summer was "The LORD your God is with you, he is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you, he will quiet you with his love, he will rejoice over you with singing." [Zephaniah 3:17]








Kids One:

I was the program director for this week which means: I was in charge of keeping the schedule, making sure everyone was where they needed to be when they needed to be there; I dealt with an discipline issues that went beyond what the cabin leaders could deal with; I was the "front man" most of the time...it's a position I enjoy and this year was amazing!

Our first week staff were wonderful! We has such a good week. Every time I turned around I could see God answering prayer and taking care of us in ways we didn't even ask for! Not only did we have amazing staff but the campers were pretty spectacular as well! They all participated in what was planned for them, they were good sports about it all and they really listened during chapel times. I was so blessed during this week by the staff and the campers that I felt like my heart was bursting most of the time.

Kids Two:
During this week I was scheduled to be camp nurse but due to an injury I wound up stepping in for our summer director for a week...it was a challenge. Mostly because I didn't really know what was expected of me as a summer director. However, I did have an exceptionally fun week! :) Our speakers during this week were 2 young guys with CEF who I wound up being trailer neighbours with. Let's just say they were fun to prank!
I also had the opportunity to work with my 2 girls that I've been spending a lot of time with(Kellie and Kaylynn), it was a really good week for the 3 of us to get to know each other in new ways and I saw them both just grow so much in their faith walk! God is so good! They spend two weeks working at camp in the kitchen this summer and I was just so encouraged by them.

I also celebrated my 27th birthday during this week and let me tell you, I have an incredible group of friends who love me so well! I was blessed with an evening of mini golfing, birthday cake and a surprise kidnapping that ended with fireworks! Plus I got the mini golf guys phone number...go figure! It was an excellent birthday celebration!


Jr Teen:
My first week as head cook and it was quite the adventure! The week before we had experienced a small power outage, about half an hour long, and as I watched the ladies in the kitchen I prayed, "Lord, please don't let the power go out on me during my week of cooking!" Well. Monday night brought with it a crazy storm! The winds were violent, the rain was relentless and the lightning was breathtaking! And one more thing, the power? She was out. We got everyone gathered into the chapel where we prayed and sang for the hour and a half until the storm subsided. Then everyone went back to their cabins and to bed. In the morning we saw the reult of the storm: our tent was down, we had a few trees around the property down and there was debris everywhere. The favor of God was on us that night because things really could have been a lot worse. As for me I was without power...for 44 hours! The power didn't come on again until Wednesday evening! However, Our summer director was spectacular and got some generators borrowed so that we could have 3 fridges and 1 freezer running as well as the water! Most of the time I even forgot that the power was out! I only took 2 pictures during this entire week and none of them have anything to do with the kitchen!
I wish I had a picture of the kitchen staff to show you because they truly were amazing, they kept me grounded when I started to stress!

Teen Camp:
Not gonna lie, my favorite week of the summer! I was finally a cabin leader during this week, which I always look forward to! We had an especially small teen camp this summer, only 20 campers and 11 staff members.
We had a great time though! On Tuesday we went on a 3 hour (one way) canoe trip which included a portage, chapel on top of a hill and a camp out lunch. On the way back to camp we encountered another storm which had us paddeling as fast as we could for any bit of land we were near! After waiting underneath our canoes for the storm to pass we continued on our way, it was a bonding time :)
I had a bit of a difficult time this year during teen camp. I had 2 girls in my cabin who I love dearly but they just did not want to be there this year. One of them actually wound up leaving camp on the Monday after supper which was a messy, emotional ordeal and the other stuck it out until Thursday night but she went home as well. I spent a lot of time fighting the lie that I'm a failure and I had let them down. God dealt with me though and reminded me that I just need to be obedient, which I think I was in both situations. Also during this week a lady on the reserve passed away and I was the one who had to tell a couple of her grandchildren that were at camp. That was tough but God's hand was on me. We went to the funeral together on Thursday and it was good for all of us to be there together. Other than those things it was a great week! The teens were ready to hear what our speaker had to share and they were full of awesome questions! I could so clearly see God working in them.

Yes indeed, it was a great summer! Thanks so much for those of you who were praying for us! And now to end my update here are some hilarious quotes from the summer...

"If you drink 100 pepsi's in your life you won't be able to have kids. But that doesn't matter for guys because we don't want to have kids anyway." Hunter, 10 year old boy
"I'm freeeezing! Sunshine...HEEEELP!" Morgan, 10 year old girl
"Joni is this garbage?" Craig Re: a corncob
Brooke: "You're breaking little girls hearts!"
Frank: "It's what I do."
"...and Lord I pray that we all die peaceful deaths..." Kara,13 year old girl
"Dear Lord please be with the pancakes as they go to their death, give them a sense of peace." Frank

back in business

And I'm back after an amazing summer of camp! Oh man, I want to tell you all about it but I'm waiting until I can load my pictures onto a computer and then blog with visuals! Until then here's a song and music video I adore, it's been known to make me cry at times. Enjoy!