Today I sat for a few minutes to ponder the summer and I am encouraged by the amount of kids that God has let us minister to. There were over 120 kids for our resident camp program and we have close to sixty more in our new day camp program. God graced us with safety this summer. We had very few accidents, and almost none involved campers.

God also gave us a great staff this summer. There was a small group from the Montreal area. They came a week before the campers to help finish the theme decorations and film a skit for the kids. We also had a great time bonding together as a team. It never got really hot this summer, and we had a bit of rain, but God blessed us through it all.

The first week of camp was almost perfect, the campers were well behaved and all of the activities ran smoothly. Chapel went great and the kids seem interested in what was said. There were a few first time professions of faith the first week. The second week was good as well, we had a couple of discipline problems, and it was a little harder to get the campers settled down for chapel, but all in all another successful week as we had a few more professions of faith. The third week, however, started out rough and only got worse. Chad and I felt that our whole week was consumed with discipline problems. We went from one camper to the next trying to get them to simply join their group. If we weren’t doing that we were breaking up fights or dealing with sick campers. We had no idea of why all these kids decided to act up at the same time. Luckily for us my wife Nicole has been here all summer taking care of the camper’s medications and doing our camp nursing, and we have had two lovely ladies doing all of our cooking for us. We also had a guest speaker who did an excellent job. After all was said and done I figured that we would just call that week a bust and move on, but God had other plans. Out of the ashes of what could have been a blown week I found out that we had more first time professions of faith than the first two weeks combined. Isn’t it amazing that God works miracles when we are at our worst. I don’t even know if you would call it a miracle. Things like that are just what God does. Week four was like week one. We had older campers that week ages 12-14. It was a blast. Chad and I got to shoot fireworks off the top of the climbing wall, what a blast…. (Sorry, that was lame). The kids were able to grasp some deeper concepts and had a much longer attention span. At first we were worried that they wouldn’t participate in the activities or games, but we couldn’t have been more wrong! They jumped into camp with great zeal. We played games and sang and had a great time. Several more campers accepted Jesus Christ as their Savior.

This summer’s journey has been amazing for me. That brings me to why I am writing to you. SCA Eagle Bay is in serious financial straights. I have written before about the loss of most of our support base, and how the addition of me to the staff has burdened the budget. To this point we have been able to rely on a surplus in the budget to make ends meet. Unfortunately, we have had to make several repairs and upgrades recently that have dried up that surplus. We have also been neglecting preventative maintenance to keep our spending down and I fear that will become apparent all too soon. I am asking that you prayerfully consider joining us in reaching the children of the Interlake area whether they are on reserves or farms or in small towns. If things continue the way they are going we will be facing a $23,000.00 budget deficit by the end of the year. This deficit is due solely to the addition of my salary. To give to SCA Eagle Bay or to support Jonathan and Nicole Welch go to www.scainternational.org or give me a call at 204-449-2293