Vancouver 2010 Olympics helped Qwanoes take camper safety and health to a whole new level! How could that be? You might ask, well let me tell you! Qwanoes was one of 200 organizations across Canada chosen to receive complimentary Automatic External Defebrillators (AED’s) from a company called Medtronics as a legacy of the Vancouver 2010 Winter Games.

At Qwanoes camper & staff safety and health is of utmost importance. So as a part of Health Care upgrades for this summer we were able to add two AED’s. We are very thankful one was fully donated and we had the opportunity to be part of the Olympic legacy program! One of the AED’s is located at the waterfront and the other one is located at our Health Care Centre. Although it has never happened – if anyone suffers sudden cardiac arrest they can now be given immediate assistance. I hope we never have to use our AED’s, but it sure is a big comfort to know we have a high tech piece of equipment right at our finger tips if we ever need it!

Juniors #3 is in full-swing and we are coming to the close of another great day! Campers are just finishing up Q-Town and will soon be heading to Mug-Up for a snack and then off to the Treehouses and cabins for devos and bed-time!

Talking about Treehouses I actually was part of a Treehouse adventure last night! I was a little bit behind the group, so as I made my way across Lost Canyon, I started hearing the excitement echo in the distance and all the chatter of excited campers. It was fun to see so many flashlights shining all around  shimmering against the trees and down into the canyon! I made my way onto the suspension bridge and peered up into the bottom of one of the giant tree houses. As I grabbed the ladder to stable myself, someone looked down at me and said  “Come on up!” So up the ladder I went to see how all the campers were doing. I asked one boy camper that was bedding down for the night what he thought of this whole experience, and he said confidently back to me “it’s pretty cool, I’m not afraid.”  I asked him if he looked out the window yet, and he said he hadn’t… so he grabbed his flashlight, dashed quickly to the window to look out and shine his flashlight on the ground to see how far up he was… and then I heard him say “whoa dude, we are so high up! Awesome! Wow!” He then looked back at me with his eyes full of wonder, but still with a look to let me know he wasn’t afraid, he then crawled a little more carefully and slowly back to his sleeping bag.  What a memory making night for these young adventurers!

As I said good night to all the campers, I couldn’t help but see how one of the girl cabins were doing in the treehouses. As I got closer all I heard was giggling and 10 little girls talking a mile a minute.  I yelled up! “How’s it going up there? What do you think of all this?” All I heard back was a big loud “AWESOME!” with more and more giggling that only little Juniors girl campers can do.  What a grand adventure!

It was Greylocks Magical Extravaganza tonight, so that means there was plenty of campers with faces painted, testing their strength on the horizontal bungee and mouths full of the sweet taste of cotton candy.  That’s right it was carnival night at Qwanoes! Always a great night with so many great carnival games, and challenges to join in on. It’s always fun to see campers darting back and forth trying to decide what to do next!

Youth Camp is coming up next week and we can’t wait!

“Rock Your World Concert” was last night and it rocked! It actually rocked “heaps” as many of our New Zealand staff members would say. There were campers and staff jumping up and down everywhere, Russ and the Quixotic band were playing some of the best Q-Town songs from the past 15 years, Kick Flip Cafe was cooking their famous build your own Q-Dog, the Tuck Shop was in Q-Town full of treats and more!! I asked Carson from Cabin 29 what his favorite part of the concert was and he said this: ” I love the song ‘Light the fuse’, my favorite part is when the fireworks go off back stage during the song! It startles me every time, but it’s so awesome!” Campers love the concert and hanging out together listening to great Christian music that shakes their soul!

We are right in the middle of the last day of Junior High #4 and it has been a fantastic week so far.

I was just out on the main field as the big race was about to start! This relay race is as epic as it comes as it involves almost everyone at camp and a good portion of the whole camp property! Campers and counselors spread out from the challenge course all the way to the tip of the Aqua Park to get ready for the big race called “To Infinity and Beyond!” I asked Stevie-G what the race course looks like for today and he had this to say: “Well we start off at the qrok tower and then onto the marshmallow toss at Club Coco, then off to the challenge course followed by the chariot and pop chug on the main field, the race continues down to the beach with a kayak and tube race, up the stairs, back to the main field where the water relay awaits and then for the grand finally a team pyramid!!!! It’s going to be a great race!”

We have a little bit of time before the race begins as the blue team is still getting ready…let’s take a walk down to the start line to talk with some campers!  Caliegh is in Cabin #1 and she is on the blue team,  I asked her and a friend beside her what the strategy was to win the race and she had this to say as she looked over at me with excitement in her eyes: “Run fast, don’t trip and have fun! I can’t wait!!!”

Stan Parker our camp speaker is in the race too! I caught up with him at his section of the course and I asked him if he was ready to make his team proud and what he was thinking about to get himself ready.  Stan had this to say: ” If I had one tenth of the energy of one of these campers I could power a generator that could power the world with electricity forever!”  I love camp speakers! I asked Stan what he has been enjoying most about Q-Town times with the campers, “I love sharing how incredible God’s love is and how he loves each and every one of us in a very personal way, it’s been a really awesome week and I’m loving every minute of it!”

Ok, it’s almost time! The camp counselors are cheering on their campers, the campers are rearing & ready to go, counselors are ready! Stevie-G is about to start the race!  And they’re off! What a race!! You’ll have to ask someone from Junior High #4 who won! But I can say this – Stan, Carson and Caleigh made their team proud and ran a great race!

What’s next? After a tasty lunch the campers will soon be at Open Activities from the challenge course to Qwanoes Beach.  Something else special coming up this afternoon is our weekly skateboard competition with campers impressing the judges with every trick they know!

Thanks Junior High #4 campers for a great week!

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Lots going on at Qwanoes right now with all activities open and filled with campers! I just walked across the main field which is looking nice and green right now from all the rain by the way… as I was walking I ran into one of our camp counselors all the way from New Zealand! It’s great to have Phil on staff as he always has a smile for you and you can just see he loves his campers to bits.  His passion for campers and life is almost as contagious as his accent! Phil had this to say about being here at Qwanoes: ” I love being here, the experience of sharing the gospel with kids is awesome, the community, the adventure, it’s all great! It’s a sweet place with sweet people, I love these guys!” referring to his campers as he grabbed them for a big group hug (see picture.)

On the other side of the field is Ice Cream Island! Campers love ice-cream on a nice hot sunny day, so that means there is a lot of ice-cream floating around right now! Talking about floating, Ice Cream Island even serves floats! So good! We just got a new flavor in called Banana Fudge, very tasty!

Right behind Ice Cream Island I can see Jon Morrison our camp speaker!  Campers are grouping up together practicing their memory verse for the week and getting ready to recite it to Jon for cabin points! I asked Jon how the campers were doing with their verses and he had this to say “They are doing great! It’s always fun to see what kind of actions the girls will come up with to help them remember what comes next!”.  The kids love Jon as our camp speaker, one of the kids just told me ” I love when Jon tries to rap, it’s so funny! And I’m learning so much about God too, he’s stories and picture drawings are a fun way to explain things and I like that”.

Off to the skateboard park! Did you know that the Qwanoes skatepark is practically brand new as it was built last year. There are campers skating every which way, it’s a good thing that it’s a very big skatepark! I asked a couple campers named Troy & Noah what they thought – ” The best! I love all of it! But my favorite is the stairs & the launch!” Troy said he comes to the skatepark every day during open activities and he “wouldn’t miss it!”.

Shae and Sarah are also having a fun time at the skatepark, Sarah is in the Skate Club and she had this to say: ” I love Skate Club! Before this week I wasn’t very good, but now I am much better, I really love the Fun Track through the trees!”

An exciting Q-Town and Concert are planned for tonight! Campers love to rock out to Q-Town music and jump around.  Kick Flip Cafe at the concert is featuring “build your own Q-Dog”. Our “Q-Dogs” are delicious and why wouldn’t they be with lots and lots of ingredients to choose from! Nacho cheese, grilled onions, jalapeño, bacon bits, sauteed mushrooms and grilled pepperoni! Soooo good.

If you were to walk the grounds of Qwanoes right now, you would notice a few things going on around you that aren’t quite the same as all the other weeks in the summer. It’s Family Camp at Qwanoes and what a special time to see dad’s playing soccer with their kids, mom’s taking a ride on the screamer with their daughters and families growing closer to each other every day! Camp is a special place where activities, games, Q-Town and just being outside as a family, brings families closer to each other in a very special way.

A story about a dad and his kids… I was just outside a moment ago watching a pretty “intense” game of soccer with a bunch of dad’s and their boys.  I had a good visit with one of the dads on the side lines as I had a chance to ask him what made Qwanoes so special to him and he simply said this:  “I don’t get to be with my kids very much during the week, and this time with my boy right now at Qwanoes brings us together in a way like nothing else quite does, we just love it.  At the end of the week my relationship with my son is way closer, and as a dad that means the world to me”. As we we continued to watch the soccer game unfold in front of us, he paused and then said: “I have a daughter who I took on a double biscuit ride behind the boat yesterday…and I will never forget her face when she looked up at me from where she was sitting, water spraying all around us and she said… daddy is this real? Is this really happening?  She was having such a an amazing time she couldn’t believe it was real!! And I got to be a part of that moment, I didn’t miss it! That’s what I love about being at Qwanoes… moments like that”. With that… off he ran back into the soccer game to make more of those memories that will last a life time with his son.

At the other end of the field I saw Ben Reynolds checking out the action in the challenge course. Ben was on summer staff in 1998 and 1999 as our Q-Town music leader and we are glad to have him back all the way from Nashville to be a part of leading Q-Town for the adults this week! Ben always looks like he is contemplating something as I often catch him looking off into the distance with a coffee in hand. I of course had to ask him what he was thinking about and he had this to say “It’s been really neat to come back as a former staff member after all these years and see how the camp’s activities change, facilities change and the summer staff change, but the heart of the camp still stays the same… Christ has remained at the centre of everything and that’s what makes this place so special”.  As a former staff member myself from 1998, it’s surreal to see Ben on the stage of the old Q-Town stage in Club Coco singing “It’s a Good Life” … It is so neat to hear all the changes that have happened in Ben’s life, but one thing just like Qwanoes has remained the same, he too has kept Christ at the centre.

Tonight is a special night at Qwanoes! Well to be honest, every night seems like a special night to me! The gong  just went and that means it’s dinner time for the kids, that’s right just the kids!  Later tonight there will be a special banquet just for the adults, it’s covered in secrecy and I can’t even tell you what to expect, but I know it’s going to be good!

Looks like I got ahead of myself!  Before the banquet everyone will come together at the fireside for another great time together. We have silly skits, funny songs, and a really rich time together praising God and talking about how God’s love is out of this world!  You never know what’s going to happen at a Qwanoes fireside, sometimes we even have special guests who show up from other countries like Lunksvia! So far we’ve met their bobsled team and seen a cooking show that involved cooking & aerobics at the same time!

There are still two more days left of Family Camp and it’s going to be awesome! And then Junior High #3 starts on Sunday!