Hello,

We are now in our last month of camp, here at El Porvenir. It has been very good.
Staying fit is not hard to do. The food is good, but we do a lot of walking and work! Walking all over the place. Doing hikes, including a trip to the top of the 10000 mountain above us, on a 13 mile trek, and going on runs.
Camp of course keeps us busy, but when we are not doing that, we are doing other projects too.
I recently got the parts to fix what turned out to be a failed electrical component on one of our quads.
Another big project has been to do stucco repair on one of the old buildings. Cutting and splitting firewood when not doing other things. I run a commercial mower to keep some of the grounds looking nice, and I do what I call rock farming. Lots of rocks are always growing, and I dig/pick them up and relocate them to make it easier/possible to mow.

This past week, the staff here has been doing a lot of food service/kitchen service. Most of us spent at least 6 hours a day in that department, preping, cooking, serving and then cleaning! Rebecca has been able to help a lot in cooking. I had fun taking down a tree in camp, near a cabin/powerlines. I climbed up with ropes, and took it down, from the top down in pieces.

The big excitement for us has been the arrival of a couple non-functioning laptops from a friend. It is a fun challenge to get them running again. I have fixed one, and it is really good to have my own laptop again! It will make things much easier now.
The second laptop is a little more challenging, and I am awaiting some parts I ordered to see if I can fix it.

Dean and I have begun a forest thinning project. The goal is to thin 20 acres in the next couple weeks.
Sound easy? Not really. We have marked the trees that will be kept(Mainly big, estabilished trees) and now are taking the rest of the trees out, by dropping them, and then limbing them, and then bucking them into 6-10 foot sections. Nothing will be left sticking up off the forest floor more than 2-3 feet.
The goal is to slice and dice that downed tree up, so it is scattered on the forest floor, so it will quickly decompose.

It is lots of work! It tends to be hot, wearing all the PPE (Personal Protective Equipment). There are many rocks sticking up, which you might not easily see, that are just waiting to tear up the chain. We keep the saws extremely sharp, as we want as little effort to cut as possible, as we are weilding some big saws for hours. At the end of the day, we are sharpening the 2-4 chains that we used.

Almost all the staff just completed various runs and walks for the Fiesta Run. 5k run and walk, and 10k run. Both Rebecca and I had fun. I did not place, since I was not really running officially, as my packet/run number did not arrive in time.

We are enjoying our time very much. People ask if I like it here, and I tell them that when I was growing up, the thing that I looked forward to all year, was when my Dad would take me fishing in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. I just loved it up at higher elevations.

So I say to people, I am very blessed to be able to live and spend some time actually being at high elevation!

It has been around a month and a half of camp now. We have around 15 people on staff, and I find it a challenge to work with them everyday. I know that it is something that I can do better at. One of the things that I am doing is keeping a notebook and writing dow
n things that I appreciate about everyone. And then writing a letter to them praising them for the things that I appreciate.
This will help me value them, instead of dwelling on the negative. God has gifted all of us, and made each one of us. And He does not love someone else less than me.

This week, I have been asked to be the camp nurse for 90+ youth, 4th-5th grade. I need to keep track of medications, and fix the scapes and cuts as they happen. To pray for us, consider the following things:

As camp goes on, we need grace to live with each other.
That we continue to do to the best of our ability what we came to do. (To serve)
Know what direction to take as we near the end of camp. We have a couple different options.
That the people and campers/youth that are coming to camp will leave with a better understanding of who God is.



























THE TRUCK

We are really blessed to have it!
(Hermit's Peak is in the background)
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