4 January 2026

 

Happy New Year! This is a quick report of not only the July trip to Shawanaga but also the winter trip that we just came back from.

 

 

The summer 2025 trip was a wonderful week of Bible teaching, singing, Bible memorization, and enjoying God’s beautiful creation in rural Canada. The weather was great—a little on the hot side, but that was OK. I kind of miss it more now. We met in a church building in the middle of the village, which is really nice but does not have a kitchen, plumbing, or HVAC. For those reasons, it is not possible to do a winter camp there.

 

For the three-day winter camp, we met in the Healing Center, a little further away from the village center. It is a wonderful building with everything we needed—bathrooms, a modern kitchen, a large gathering room, and heat! Temperatures were dipping below 0 F while we were there. We had a similar program to the summer, but we took on some different roles. This time, Areli played the box drum, and I led the evening Bible Study for the teenagers. We stayed at cabins about a half-hour from the Healing Center. With the road conditions and the distance, we ended up staying the whole day at the meeting place and only went home after the evening activities. Thankfully, there were some quiet places to put our little ones to sleep during the afternoon. We finished the camp with a New Year’s Eve party complete with food, board games, caricatures, and a Bible quiz game.

 

We are thankful for all that God did during our time there and for safe travel through freezing rain and treacherous conditions, especially on the way there.

 

Here is a video summary of the winter visit: