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Enrollment 1996 1995 Campers 780 656 Boys 360 293 Girls 420 363 Accepted Christ 101 100 Rededication 102 111 MB Church 158 180This summer for our Bible Exploration we used the material written by Derrick Mueller of Bethany Bible Institute. The material is based on Psalm 23.
This year we scheduled our camp into smaller age brackets. This worked well for cabin groups, speakers and on program. For the "Lookit N Do" ages 8-10, the theme was "Where's Waldo". The group games were based on finding Waldo. For our Huzzah camp ages 10-13, the theme was "The Search for the Caramilk Secret" led by Rory Tate of the circle research team. Each group game was introduced by a skit.
Two ministry groups helped out this year; "Vision" from Concord College out for one week and "Impact" from BBI for three weeks doing drama, music and speaking.
A new venture was the Music Arts Drama and Design camp designed for children to participate in the fine arts (e.g. art, choral music, classical dance) as well as other camp activities. The MADD staff ran these activities and we supplied the counsellors. Campers were encouraged to use the creative skills God had given them. We intend to run this camp again next year.
Another new camp we ran this year was the Allergy and Asthma camp. *The Allergy and Asthma Association of Alberta asked us to run this camp. They brought 89 children and about 20 professional medical volunteers. Each cabin of 5-7 children had their own medical volunteer. One camper was taking 14 medications three times a day. This was a challenging week, but the Lord saw us through the week with no medical emergencies.
At this year's Teen Camp, we planned special events each evening. These included a coffee house, hot tub and nacho night, a Mission Impossible theme, and the last night was capped off with the Homemade Jam. The college and career group from Forest Grove MB Church in Saskatoon performed "Toymaker and Son".
Paul Isaac
*The Allergy and Asthma Camp hosted by Camp Evergreen was the centre of some controversy this summer. The controversy was carried briefly in the Alberta media, focussing on parents' concern that they unwittingly sent their children to a Christian camp.
Camp Evergreen occasionally rents out its facilities to other organizations. The Allergy and Asthma Association of Alberta (AAAA), in turn, was looking for a host facility for its annual camp for children with severe allergies or asthma.
It was agreed that the camp would provide the staff, (with Christian counsellors) and be in charge of the program, but AAAA would bring in extra medical personnel to attend to the specialized medical needs of the campers.
After the camp, some parents objected to the overt Christian program of CE, accusing the camp of unfairly indoctrinating children. The parents complained that they had received no advance information stating that CE was a Christian organization.
CE officials, however, say they made it clear to the AAAA that CE was a Christian-run camp. Director Paul Isaac said he had sent 200 brochures which outlined the camp's Christian philosophy to the AAAA for distribution to the parents of campers.
AAAA did not send the brochures to the parents. Instead, they sent the brochures back, but assured CE that they would make the parents aware of the Christian nature of the camp, according to Isaac.
KH
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