Of Lost Keys and Camp

It would seem that I am off to Côte d'Ivoire tomorrow flying from Portland to Atlanta, Atlanta to Paris and Paris to Côte d'Ivoire. It is going to be a long couple of days and I am hoping that we will actually be able to land in Abidjan. According to the news this morning there have been five police killed in a series of attacks in Anyama and latter in Agboville, two cities north of Abidjan. It seems that the motivation is not clear at this time. Keep that in mind as I hop on that flight tomorrow. The ruling party has called for the departure of all the French troops from the Ivoirian territory, saying that their presence is hindering the peace process. Most of the rest of the country is glad that they are there. It is one of those quandaries that persist in these kinds of situations. Stone casting seems to be the game these days!

We have just spent our second week at camp this summer, this time at the High School camp at Camp Tadmor that had a Green Acres theme. We had a blast hanging out with kids and counselors. It was a special treat to hang out with Jake Hendricks, the son of Luke Hendricks who heads up the Church Next movement of CB Northwest. Jake did a great job explaining what it meant for a kid these days to deny one’s self and to take up the cross. He was right on and a great inspiration to both Angelika and me. One of the less interesting things that happened last week was loosing my VW Vanagon key to the Samtiam River while cliff jumping on the South Fork of the Santiam. It only took one jump and that baby was gone! I was too chicken to go off the highest cliff and then finding the key gone kind of took the bluster out of my sails. I never did make the high cliff jump. We were able to call someone from camp to come pick us up. The next day I drove back with a second key that Angelika brought from home and got the old beater back up the hill. Needless to say, that made the top ten “Things Heard at Camp Tadmor” that week! Moral of that story is: If you want to enjoy an afternoon of cliff jumping on the South Fork of the Santiam River don’t let the old guy that drives you to the river jump off of cliffs with the key in his pocket. The River is fast, the River is cold and the River is deep. Only a fool would swim in such a stream with a key in his pocket. It is like when we skydive, we always ask our students if they have anything in their pockets that they don’t want to loose. Cliff jumping the South Fork of the Santiam is the same deal it would seem!

All told, aside from loosing my keys in the deep dark Santiam, camp came off quite well and we had a great time. We met some great kids and are looking forward to having some of them come and visit some day.

I do want to mention one project that we are working on currently. The association of churches that we work with in Côte d'Ivoire has a number of young men and women interested in doing biblical studies either in our own school or in other evangelical Bible schools and seminaries in the region. The association is going through some rather difficult times financially at this point although they are seeing God do some great things in their churches even in light of the current struggles Côte d'Ivoire is facing these days. If you would like to contribute to the Leadership Development Project simply follow this link and click on “Give now” and follow the instructions. Thank you for your interest in this project. The association currently has several pastors and church leaders who would be in seminary or Bible school right now if they had the funding. Help us partner with them in this endeavor.