This past week our students went to Mission's Fest in Vancouver.  It was a great opportunity for them to explore both Vancouver and the many mission's opportunities that had information booths at the event.  The students also took part in a plethora of seminars ranging from presentations by missionaries and missions representatives to seminars by our very own Briercrest professors.

Enjoying some lunch while choosing which seminar to attend next

Erin and I visited the Briercrest booth and found our faces in the promo material!

While in Vancouver our students also got the opportunity to be a blessing to the Church where we were staying.  The students helped with some of the children's programs in the morning and then a team of students led worship for the main service.  

 Above is a photo of the team which was led by Trevor (on the left with the guitar).  The service was amazing; our students did a phenomenal job!

Mt. Washington Snow Trip!

Here are a handful of pictures from our amazing week on Mt. Washington. On the slopes and back in the chalet we spend wonderful times sharing, playing, working, and worshipping together.

Wednesday was an adventure trekking through the snowshoe trails. (Marissa Burns)

View from the Hawk chairlift.

Nicely framing the peak of Mt. Albert-Edward (which we conquered in September!)
from the top of the Boomer-Rang chair. (Nancy Pike) 

An interesting chair full of snowboarders.
(Michael Gordon, Kathleen Bergsma, Tanner Kooistra, Keith Sheppard, Trevor Martin) 

(Erin Lawrie, Hannah Ayton, Makayla Bryson, Erin Karklins, Kathleen Bergsma, Bec Rodda)

Taking turns preparing and cleaning up meals with Laura.
These guys were excellent grilled cheese flippers and cookie dough rollers!
(Matthew Wigmore, Graedon Rust, Tanner Kooistra)  

Relaxing and playing games in the chalet. (Viktor Karklins, Michael Gordon)

Looking forward by looking back

There won't be an update on the blog next week.  Why?  Because we'll be at Mt. Washington skiing, snowboarding and snowshoeing!  Next week the students will be loading up into vans and heading to the area where we did the Mt. Albert Edward hike for a five day snow filled adventure.  Rather than staying in tents we'll be enjoying a beautiful chalet complete with hot tubs for a time of wild adventuring, of great conversation and opportunity for growth.

This year students will be helping to prepare, cook and clean all of our meals under the very capable supervision of Laura Sherwood who runs the kitchen here at Qwanoes year-round.  It will be one of the may ways they have and will get to take part in leading on our out trips (it's not just a week's vacation after all!)

Being away for a week in such a comfortable setting also creates great opportunity for deep and insightful conversation as well as both planned and spontaneous times of worship.  I'm very excited to see what will come from this amazing opportunity.

Oh and then there's the skiing.

In case any of you staff, students, family or friends are wondering what is Mt. Washington like we only need to take a look back to see what we have to look forward to.  I've posted a few videos made by a past student (who happens to be my brother) of his time skiing last year at Mt. Washington.

This first clip is a video he posted on his blog which was a mashup of clips he'd taken throughout the season with a camera that can be mounted on his ski pole or his helmet.  It shows a variety of the best terrain that Mt. Washington has to offer.

Videos created and owned by Philip Karklins at www.PhotoByPhilip.com

To see more check out http://vimeo.com/philkarklins/videos

(All content is (C) Phil Karklins, do not use without permission)

This second video is for the park rats among us showing my brother Erik Karklins -another alumnus of the Kaleo program- as well as Phil again enjoying Mt. Washington's Terrain Park.  When you watch it make sure you don't miss the clean backflip off of a tiny jump; it amazes me every time!

Hopefully this will get you excited to hit the slopes or simply excited for our students who get to have an amazing experience this coming Monday to Friday.  If green circle is more your colour than double black you can always check out this video of somebody skiing for the first time and having a lot of fun with it.

There will be a lot to look forward to in the next update including how this trip went, the "One" Cowichan Valley youth rally the students are running this Friday, and the tale of a curious van that appeared yesterday with Pac Man painted on the side of it.  Be praying for physical safety travelling to and playing on the slopes next week and that it be a time of growth both individually and as a group.  See you in two weeks!

A Rolling Stone Gathers No Moss

That seems to be the case with our students as they dove right back into classes!  The students came back with wild tales of shooting down Christmas trees, wonderful family gatherings and trying to balance the desire to sleep all day with doing pre-course work for their upcoming classes.  One by one the students all returned to camp by planes, trains and automobiles (well no trains but we did have a few ride in on ferries).  

Once they arrived the students dove headfirst into Pauline Epistles with Professor Carl Hinderager.  

If you look closely you can see we have a few visiting students joining us this week.  It's been a great opportunity for some locals who are currently doing courses long distance through Briercrest to do a few mods here locally as well.  While anybody can take advantage of this opportunity it's been very advantageous for those working on or going to be working on a degree from Briercrest.  We even have a few this week who have done several classes with us in this way so far so it's nice to see some familiar faces.

Carl has been challenging the students all week to look at the epistles (letters) of Paul with a level of depth that many of them aren't used to.  I spoke with a student the other day who was starting to see how reading these letters as whole letters rather than scattered verses out of context makes a huge difference in terms of understanding.  Instead of disjointed thoughts Paul's works become much clearer and much more challenging as you can't hide from the verses you don't like!

We're very blessed to have Carl here as this is the first time Pauline Epistles has been a part of the Kaleo program roster.  Seeing what an impact it's had in just a few days it has clearly been a great addition

Keep your eyes peeled as we look forward to more wild adventures including our big Mt. Washington ski trip, a journey to the mainland for Missions Fest and the upcoming youth rally here at Camp Qwanoes our students will be running for all of the Cowichan Valley!  Be praying that the students can get right back into the swing of things academically, can once again throw themselves into the ministries they are involved in, and that they can slow down enough to take all of what they're learning in.

Yesterday was a very full day which included a number of Christmas themed activities.  We went out and found a Christmas tree after making some home made ornaments for it.  We also had a Christmas banquet and talent show in the evening. 

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Here you can see a random display of talent even before the show started!

As you can see the results were a small army of wonderfully personalized ornaments.  They now decorate our tree quite nicely. 

These were some of the lovely people I shared a table with at the Christmas Staff and Student Banquet.  As you can tell, Aloha wasn't quite as dressed up as Kathleen.

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I caught a clip of Tanner playing at the talent show; just a taste of the incredible wealth of talent that was displayed.

These are just a little snapshot of the wonders of the day. We're all very excited as the Christmas season is nearly upon us. Soon the students will all be home with you, family and friends, to celebrate Christmas. Blessings on you all, and to all a good night!

The last few weeks have been full of excitement.  One of the highlights was the Ladysmith Light-Up.  This event had thousands of people flocking to the town of Ladysmith to see the main street lit up with decorations and watch the floats go by.  Since it only started after the sun had set the floats were all decorated with a myriad of lights which made it one of the most unique parades I've ever seen.

Here's a short clip of one of the floats going by.

The night also ended with a fireworks display which most of the students said was the longest and highest quality fireworks show they could remember.  

Ladysmith is also where Erin and I attend church services on Sunday mornings.  We were quite surprised this past Sunday to see the previously dry road we took to church looking like this on the way back.

 While this truck seemed particularly brave I was not and went back to find a detour.  You can see from this shot that the entire road is submerged with only the white line marking the shoulder being visible.

Last of all today is the end of No-Shave November (being the last day of November).  There have been a large number of moustaches floating around here at camp and I added to their numbers if only for a day or two.  When asked if they would be keeping their moustaches for December as well some were torn while others like Trevor (a.k.a. "Mom") are looking forward to getting rid of their creepy moustaches.

Erin is also very excited to see this moustache go away, although I can't understand why?

Yesterday we went on an exciting out trip: caving!  Even though the weather wasn't favourable we still thoroughly enjoyed our time exploring the depths of a cave in the Parksville area.  As you can see there were lots of places to explore and many of the students would often challenge one another to fit through the narrowest paths.  

(Photos by Alisha Penner)

Whether seeing true darkness for the first time or enjoying the thrill of adventure our students thoroughly enjoyed getting to explore these caves.  It was nice for me too as I tried seeing if I could still move about the cave as easily as I did five years ago.  Although wet, cold, and tired as they returned to camp there were a lot of smiles and fond memories made.