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