West Bank Bible Camp

Hey this is Ben, The week at westbank was a party and a half. We got the chance to do plenty of activities with the campers like climbing walls, paintballing, and tons of other stuff. The week was also a sweet time cause former RU member, Joel Henderson was the camp speaker. It was all around a great camp with amazing food and tons of sweet memories. I enjoyed paintballing the most, the campers seemed to really enjoy shooting at me for some reason. haha. Yeah it was a really good week and after our show we saw a few kids work through some issues in their lives. It was a super great time and the camp was a fun place to be. sweet times at west bank bible camp.
Ben Fairburn

Hello once again to our dear blog followers!
On the road again, on the road again!! After Circle Square Ranch last week, we headed HOME (well kind of) to Caronport! Home for me, not for everybody. However, the sense of familiarity was something to appreciate. In Caronport we were able to have a good amount of time to relax and rejuvenate for the last two weeks of the tour. However, we did take a good amount of time for meetings and some refining practice. You’d think after doing these dances for almost a year now that we would be pros-BUT believe it or not, we actually get worse at them. SO..this calls for some serious ‘cleaning up’ of our choreography. It was nice to return to the good ol’ green room. The familiar mirrors, green paint, clicky flooring (that likes to unclick on us as we dance), and lovely smell of BO and the flatulent members of the family, were of course refreshing to be around (well, we get the BO and flatulency anywhere actually..). But after 8ish hours we felt pretty satisfied after so much hard work, and the dances once again look rad and shiny clean!
Along with practice, we also had the earliest leadership meetings for next year that RU has ever seen-praise Jesus for His planning and grace! We were able to talk a little bit about what next year will look like, and begin to discuss roles of everybody as there will be at least 6 returning members of RU in the fall.
ALSO, along with being back in Caronport for a couple days means COMMUNITY! I love Caronport, and was so excited to have a few hours most days to visit a few people at least, and my personal favorite-we got to go to CHURCH on Sunday! We do get to go to chapels almost everyday of the summer which is sweet, but that is the first time since APRIL for me since I have been to a full and totally ENGLISH church service (as many of you know, I was in Korea for almost 2 months before this tour, which equals MUCH church, and LITTLE English )! And with my church family too! So I was SO blessed to be able to do that. Also, huge THANK YOU to the families of Caronport that so graciously provided and hosted us for meals while we were home. I love the church 
We’re back on the road again, we left Sunday right after church for Westbank Bible Camp, just outside of Swift Current, and we’re trusting the Lord for energy and strength for the last stretch of the tour. Pray for us please! Love you all! God is GOOD. Amen?
Jacee

Why not you?

Hey everybody!

Today is a day full of rest and bonding, and it's going great so far. The team is in a little rest period, as we have a few days off until we hit our last two camps! The last camp we had the pleasure of being a part of was Circle Square Ranch Bible Camp in Saskatchewan. What a blessing it was!

There were a couple first times for me 1)First time eating cream of wheat and 2)First time experiencing what's called the blob; a large inflatable tube that has one person sit on one end, while the other person (or sometimes two people) jump from a tower, hit the blob, and launch the unsuspecting victim high in the air.....soooo fun!!

At Circle Square, we had the opportunity to hang out with a younger age group of kids while they went about their days, which was nice to be able to share in the joy that they had for life, and for dance. The campers and the staff made us very comfortable, and made time to get to know us. Going to all these different camps and sharing your lives with other people is amazing, but having someone share their own life with you and what God has done or is doing for them is even more important...and I guess that is a big lesson to learn as well; that we are not just going to camps to make people's lives better or pour into them...but that the people we meet at these camps are there as well to build us up, and it's been great to see that in this camp.


As far as what we did, things went great. We had four workshops on Monday, with lots of kids attending and having lots of fun. We performed some pump-up dances when we arrived on Sunday, Want More on Monday and Lost on Tuesday, then left yesterday around noon.

We have the day off today, then we get to practice tomorrow. Tonight we are going to see Step Up 3D as a team, dressed to the nines in Hip Hop, and can't wait!!

Until next time,

Jesse

PS- Title meaning here:
A song I heard from Alli originally, then made alive at this camp.
"Do the robot....Jean Paul Chenoupier....Ahh! Banana....Hey Diddly Diddly Diddly....Yaba Daba, Hoggy Doggy....Escidily-ot 'n dot....Bobo Scadeet 'n dot....and why not you?"

" WOW that is so cool!" at Camp Arnes...

Hello once again friends and family!


It’s Shereen back on blogging duty to report all the amazing things God has done this week at Camp Arnes! So we arrived Sunday afternoon after a pretty long drive from Caronport to a very hospitable facility. Let’s just say we were pretty pampered all week and blessed in so many ways by the Arnes staff and volunteers. We were basically given hotel rooms with our own bathrooms and laundry service. This was all fine and dandy but some of us were feeling a little discouraged because of not being in the cabins with the campers, so connecting was a little difficult. But nonetheless God gave us amazing opportunities to connect with some kids in our dance workshops! So back in Redberry we had about 20 kids who signed up for every workshop, at Arnes we had 2 kids in the morning workshop and 3 in the afternoon. We prayed A LOT about how to do these workshops and seeking God’s will in them. And let’s just say they turned out to be AMAZING!! The morning workshop consisted of 2 girls who were very optimistic and gave us the marvelous idea of doing a NINJA DANCE! Might I add that this dance turned out to be EPIC and we got the chance to perform it before our big show. The afternoon workshop consisted of about 3 special needs kids and their helpers. These special needs kids were such a blessing to our team, and we cannot express how much we appreciated these kids. They were so amazing and absolutely loved music and of course the dancing. God especially gave me a huge heart for these kids and just watching them dance brought us soo much joy!

So on Monday night we were scheduled to do one character from our show “Want More” and perform at chapel. The night proceeded with some worship but what we didn’t know was that there was a huge storm going on outside! All the kids were either in the Wigwam ( chapel) or the dining hall. The storm caused the power to cut out during worship but everyone continued to sing and praise God without music! So since there was no power we couldn’t perform but God had other plans. When chapel was over we went outside to quickly find out that the storm had knocked over trees everywhere and even lifted half of a roof off a building! There was quite a bit of damage but all of the kids’ cabins, the Wigwam and the dining hall were safe! Nobody had a clue that all of this was going on during chapel, but even then God kept everyone safe!

Another cool thing that we noticed at Camp Arnes was the amount of DRAGONFLIES everywhere!!! All summer we have been eaten alive by mosquitoes the size of cats and have been praying that God would send dragonflies to eat them! And He did! These dragonflies overpopulated the whole camp and we never had to worry about mosquitoes or mosquito spray. Praise the LORD!!


And thanks to the Arnes staff many of us got to the opportunity to get over our fear of HEIGHTS! They had an amazing high ropes course and zip line. They were UNREAL! They were about 20 to 30 feet off the ground, and once we were harnessed in we had to climb the pole all the way to the top and concur different obstacles. They were soo much fun and we were soo incredibly blessed by the Arnes staff.

Well that was our week in a nutshell, God did incredible things and still continues to do so! We would really appreciate if you guys could pray for strength and energy for the team as this camp tour is coming close to an end, and also a zeal to serve the Lord in whatever He calls us to do. God is good and this tour is proof of that! Thanks for following the blog and your prayers! We greatly appreciate it!

Your sister in Christ,
Shereen

A week to chill, kill, take a pill, and be still

Hey Everyone! It’s Sammy here!
You know in the bible when it says God knows what you need before you even ask him… well I am pretty sure that coming into this week God knew that we were in need of some serious rest and family time, because before we knew it camp #6 was no longer in play… thus leaving our team with a week off to fully rejuvanate. So after returning to Caronport the team all dispersed in different directions. Adrian, Jacee and Jesse all headed off for Alberta. There Jacee was able to reconnect with a lot of her extended family, as she joined them to celebrate her grandparents surprise 45th anniversary! Jesse was also able to surprise his parents…which followed in a flow of joyous waterworks (hehe sorry Geri). Jonah spent sometime with his cousin and also spent sometime back at his reserve. Not only that but he came back sporting a nice new haircut, some fancy shorts and a really brown tan:> Shayla headed off to the lake, wakeboarding, fishing and spending some sweet quality time with her sister and brother in law. Shereen also got to go home where she relaxed and hung out with the fam. As for me I was so pumped to have my two buds Ben, and Alli roadtrip it out to S’toon with me for what was to be a week of a lot of laughs and adventures! Going home although I knew would be fun would also be somewhat hard. As many of you know my family has been through a lot these past two weeks as my Step mom Dawn passed away after her battle with cancer. First off I just wanted to say thank you all for all your prayers and support for my family. I have never truly understood what it meant to be a part of the Body of Christ until this summer. To know that there were at least 3 camps praying for my family, parents and friends of R.U., my church family, various people from all over the map, and I am sure many more that I was unaware of, is unreal. I can’t explain how I have been feeling this past two weeks except to say that the power of prayer is huge and God has given me so much peace and acceptance of the situation. So thank you so so much. I think my family really enjoyed having the three of us there too. We were able to spend time with all of my siblings. Quading, playing video games, jumping on the trampoline, biking, and having a campfire all while chasing the little ones around. That to say we were very tired by the end of the day. Hey I rhymed. I believe God is teaching us all a lot this summer. If I could share one thing that I have really learnt from this past month is that Jesus is my everything. There is no way I would have been able to come back to camps the way I did being physically, mentally, and emotionally exhausted without God giving me a hopeful, and focused spirit. I also believe that Dawn lived those 7 years of battling cancer not because her physical body allowed her too but because her spirit was always “rarin to go”. 2 Corinthians 4:16 says, “ Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, inwardly we are being renewed day by day.”
Thank you for your support!
Sammy

Redberry is the Best!

Well, we have hit our half way mark! And boy has it been an adventure! God has blessed us more than we ever thought He would. We have many stories of heart breaking situations with teen campers and their glorious victory as they surrender their lives to God and desire to follow Him. God has been so gracious to our team in allowing us to be part of this tour, to meet incredible camp staff, directors, and campers. Each week at camp has given us unbelievable memories, lasting relationships and challenges at which to overcome and grow stronger from. He has been so faithful by giving us the rest we need and the perseverance to continue on when we are exhausted. We all consider it a privilege to be tested and tried for our King in order to bring Him Glory and develop our character.
We are currently at Redberry Bible Camp, North of Saskatoon, SK. We have just spent an amazing week with some incredible campers and staff! We got to experience a small glimpse of God’s power through a incredible thunder/rain/hail storm! This caused a flash flood and a river to run through the middle of our camp! Check out our website for the pictures! Refinedundignified.com
But even greater than the power in the storm, we were able to witness the power of the Holy Spirit in the hearts of campers during the response time after the performance of our full show of “Lost” on Thursday night. I (Adrian) spoke after the show about hiding and how good this generation is at settling for things don’t satisfy, I talked about John 10:10 which says that the theft comes to STEAL, KILL, AND DESTROY lives and I asked them if they felt that their life had been stolen, then I told them the good news that Jesus came to give us TRUE LIFE, LIFE ABUNDANT.
Alli and I led worship and invited campers to come forward for prayer. It was apparent that the Holy Spirit was present! Slowly campers came to the front and soon the whole place was crying and seeking repentance. After an hour of this there was an awakening and the whole place became a dancing celebration! God is SOOOO good! And we are so blessed that He allows us to be able to be a part of His plan and to be able to see the fruit first hand is an added bonus! Hearing testimonies from different cabin leaders the next day, we were excited to hear we had a handful of NEW brothers and sisters in the LORD, and far more who rededicated their lives to God!
Keep praying for us, many of us are sick and exhausted from pouring out into the lives of these teens but God is so faithful, we know He will provide exactly what we need. We have been able to relax this weekend, resting by the pool, doing a half-way debrief of the tour with the whole team and eating really good food. The college camp that was planned for next week was actually cancelled so we have been given the whole week off. We have decided to go our own ways and meet back up as a team next Saturday and head out to Camp Arnes, North of Winnepeg. Thank you for your support, we couldn’t do this without your prayers! God bless.

Adrian

Ranger Lake!

Hello all!
Well it's been a lovely tour so far! So intense, super rad, energy-draining, and incredible!
Last week we were at Ranger Lake Bible Camp, close to Saskatoon. We did daily workshops, did dances at each night chapel portraying our different characters, and did a big show at the last night! We got to stay in our own cabins this week (girls and guys) which was an unexpected but really nice break after Madge Lake. That week was really incredible for me, especially because 6 people i went to highschool with were there, most from my grad class of 2008! Most I have seen since grad, but it was just really great to reconnect with old friends! It was also a challenging (good challenging) week, as we weren't in cabins with campers this week, we had to be really intentional about connecting with campers. I sat down with one cabin at lunch the first day, and was hooked right from there! I spent my week with this great cabin of girls, mostly eating meals with them and hanging out. I connected really well with one girl who was special needs in the cabin, and she was such a sweet heart and blessing to me. I was also asked to lead a morning devo in that cabin, and I really believe God spoke through me, the topic was His love for us. Broad, I know, but it was so good! One girl in that cabin, comes from a really rough background and life, came to know Christ this week after our show which was INCREDIBLE to hear! I ended up getting some food poisoning for the last couple days we were there, right after our show, but God made me well pretty quick. It was an awful 30 ish hours though.
Before coming out to Redberry Bible Camp, where we are now, we took a detour and took the team to my grandparents cabin at Jackfish Lake. We spent the day at the cabin, swimming, resting, burning, and eating food. It was a really restful Saturday! My Grandma' prayer before we came was that we would each receive what we needed there from the Lord. It was SO good, and an extra special blessing for me because I got to be at my favorite place in the world, see my Grandma, and have her meet my team this year because she hadn't yet! God is so GOOD and He KNOWS what we need, seriously.
And now we are at Redberry Bible Camp, which you will hear all about later!
Blessings everybody! Please continue to pray for us, especially energy and health as most of the team is sick but still going hard! We have a week off next week, so that will be good for rest!
Your fellow servant in Christ,
Jacee!

Emergency Prayer

Sammy’s stepmother passed away unexpectedly at 3:30 this morning. Sammy is with her family today so we just ask that people pray for comfort for the family. Also pray for peace and wisdom as decisions will have to be made in the near future. Thanks in advance for your continued prayers.

Madge Lake Bible Camp

Hey its Ben, Last week we were at Madge lake bible camp and it was really sweet. I got to counsel with a guy who was only a year older then me but had spent this spring smuggling bibles into various countries. It was pretty cool to hear the stories. Every night at chapel we did one character of our show “Want more” then one person on the team would share their testimony and how it relates to the character. For the character Tony I shared my testimony and it went really well. Afterwards I was able to connect really well with a camper and he related in very different ways to my testimony so that was super cool. On the last night of camp we did our full show “Lost” (prodigal Son). After that we had worship led by Alli and Adrian which went past 1:00 in the morning. Campers were crying and changing their lives and kids came to Christ including the guy I was able to talk to the night before. It was super sweet to see people changing their lives. I was able to pray for a few campers that I got really close with. It was basically a party.

SABC Baby!

Like stated before… God is great indeed!

Shayla here. Southern Alberta Bible Camp (SABC) was the shortest camp of our whole summer but definitely one of the largest. With three separate camps running and over 100 staff members it gave a much different feel than the smaller, intimate, very involved previous week. Different yet still so good!
With less responsibilities through the day we had an opportunity of taking some down time, do laundry, and to encourage and build relationships with staff and others that may have been over looked otherwise.
While at SABC I was able to reconnect with so many we worked along side at the ‘Identity’ youth conference in Lethbridge that fall. One of the girls I’ve stayed in contact with and been praying with was a cabin leader. She invited me to come share within her cabin and help lead devos.
I met a sweet, eight year old girl, who was asking to borrow slippers with the most endearing lisp. She introduced me to her cabin and friends and I was soon enjoying a meal with those younger girls, which was such a treat to me! The nurse Valerie, as well as John and Abby, continued to be a major encouragement to me and the rest of the team while at SABC.
You know those times when you are drawn to people and you have no idea why, but later it proves that it is a total God thing. This was a 14 yr old boy for me, who had a genetic disorder making him appear as though he was 8, was passed down in the foster care system, and was volunteering at SABC as base staff (dishes, cleaning, etc). He was led to the Lord by one of his foster parents but currently with a family who let him come to camp because they knew he was religious. My heart broke as he opened up sharing some of the things he had faced, including contemplating suicide a number of times all prior to the age of 12. He continued to share that 2 years ago he had given his life to God. We were able to pray for him and over him before we left. God has placed a very soft place in my heart for that one. So often we face challenges in our own lives that at the time we may not be able to understand, but later its through those experiences we are able to relate and minister to those that are facing something similar. It is true that ‘God works all things together for good.’
We had a packed last day at SABC. Two, hour and a half workshops, a fun show for pre-teens, and our full ‘Lost’ show. Throughout our time at the camp our prayer was for unity and that God would use what we had to share as a tool, an encouragement and a challenge. After the show the speaker Matt shared with us that the show lined up perfectly with the messages he had planned to share with the campers the rest of the week. God knows!! ☺

Please pray for:
- Challenge of fatigue, for health, strength and travel mercies.
- Continued unity as we learn more and more about God, our team, our purposes and ourselves.

A Perfect End, and a Perfect Beginning!

Yo Yo!

God is GOOD! Amen!

Hello everyone, the tour is going great, and blessing after blessing has come our way when we left our first camp, then arriving at our second. We had the opportunity to hang with the staff at Camp Silversides for a night and this morning, which was saweeet! And last night, God gave us the perfect send-off; picture this:

Your hanging out inside the dinning hall when it starts to rain...you look outside and you see that it's a light rain, and the sun is shinning at the same time. You go out and stand in the rain, then you run to the dock, cause you want to see the whole scenery...right? SO while you're about half way to the dock, you look to the right, and see two full rainbows...and I'm talking one super bright one that had extra colors (Ben- "There's Teal in that Rainbow! Rainbows don't have Teal in them!!") And then another larger rainbow that was like a large shadow of the first one...it was simply amazing!

THEN, we left the next day, and drove over to SABC, right near Little Bow Lake, and got settled. Some of us went to go check out the beach after we started our laundry, and met John, the Maintenance Chief of the camp. He was like "You guys must be the dance team...wanna go wake boarding??" And we were like "YES!" So we raced back to tell the others and had a "perfect setting," as John said "for a wake board session". So we spent the afternoon wake boarding and having a blast!! The campers for this camp come around seven tomorrow, and the team is really pumped to meet new people, connect with more kids, and grow in new ways. God has so much more for us and the kids we'll meet, and He wants whats best, and has the best plans set up, we just got to keep the reins in His hands.

As a side note- I grew up going to this camp, and it's a huge blessing to be doing ministry here this weekend- being able to give back to this place that has been a huge part of my life. Camp is where big things happen; Camp is where kids come closer to God, where they can be themselves, where they can open up about things that they never would normally, and RU has a huge opportunity to be a part of that!
Pray for freedom this weekend for kids, and that God will use us as transparent and real people, not distant, VIP super stars!

Thanks for all your support, we are all in this together. PS-love you mom and dad! haha

-Jesse

"Finally Brothers, offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God- This is your spiritual act of worship" Romans 12:1

WE'VE ARRIVED!!!

Hello to all the family and friends of RU!! It's Shereen here just wanting to give you some updates as to how the tour is going! Sooooo we arrived Sunday afternoon to a wonderful welcome by the Silversides Camp and quickly made friends. However.....within the first 10 minutes Ben sprained his ankle from playing basketball. He thought his ankle would be healed within 24 hours but that did not happen. He's slowly making progress but it is still uncomfortable and painful at times. With that said we are trusting that God will heal him in the right timing, therefore we are asking for much prayer for Ben's injury and that the Lord's will would be done. Another thing you guys could be praying for is Adrian's talks. He is speaking twice a day at this camp for about a week so if you guys could be praying that the Lord will speak through him and soften the hearts of the kids listening. And also that God would give us the rest and strength that we need to continue in this ministry because we are getting really tired really quickly!!
But personally I am absolutely loving it here! The weather has been amazing and the kids and the staff are such a joy! We are so blessed to be a part of this team and work along side the staff.
Thank you all soo much for your support and encouragement! We could not do this without you guys!
Your sister in Christ,

Shereen :)

And so it begins...

Here we are! The Lord is so good, and His provision and blessing has been so evident in my life during the past 2 months. We all got here yesterday (actually, we're still waiting for Jonah), and it's so encouraging to be back together again.

Today we had our first day of BOOT CAMP - a testimony to how much we actually kept in shape this summer... but we're definately getting back into the swing of things.

We just had a meeting to discuss possible camp skits, and teach eachother camp songs...and we're PUMPED! Honestly, this is so exciting for all of us. And on a more serious note, we also shared personal stories of how we've been influenced by counsellors at camp, and ways that we can do that for the kids that we meet this summer. "How can we live out Christ" is what we've been discussing...

GREAT NEWS: Jacee is officially joining us for this tour, which was a complete surprise, and she didn't even have things figured out until last night... but now she's coming!

This morning Jacee was able to share about what she learned about prayer while she was in Korea. (She just got back from a 7-week-GX-dance-missions-trip-tour in Korea). Have you ever heard of "Korean prayer", also known as "behive prayer"? Basically someone shares a prayer request and everyone prays at the same time instead of taking turns. SO COOL! We'll be doing more of that I'm sure...

Here's a cool thing: I wasn't even planning on doing this camp tour (I really wanted to go treeplaning), but God told me that He'd get more glory if I did this because I need money, I didn't know how I was going to get it, and that He'd provide. AND HE HAS! Trusting in the Lord and jumping into the unknown with Him is so excitig. THANK YOU to everyone who has given to us financially, and who has been faithful in thier prayers for us.

I should probably go to bed (another day of boot camp tomorrow!), but we're in the midst of making a blogging schedule so someone can write every 2 days. So you'll be sure to hear from us again soon!

Alli Peck (who is so excited about what God's going to do this summer!)

Well, Not yet...

Okay, so it might be April 3rd and we are very far away from July, but I wanted to start this blog so that we could be ready for our adventures with this amazing team come June 20th!
Just to let people know we are going to be traveling across Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba and joining up with some amazing camps and doing our ministry through dance for the kids THE WHOLE WEEK OF CAMP!
We are going to all come back to Caronport June 20th and start our boot camp for a week to get back into shape for touring and then we have our first camp up in Alberta, at Camp Silversides!
We cant wait! Keep checking for updates come July!
Blessings,
Adrian