Hay from Hay River! I've been up here to help build a Bible Camp for the summer!
I'm sorry I haven't really been keeping up with you guys. I don't have quite the dedication to my favourite websites as I used to, which is good for me in a way. But I feel I've sort of... cut you off by doing that. Please know that I still want to talk with you guys, and don't ever think otherwise.

I am really excited to talk about things that have been going on here.
So, I'm going to type out my adventures to you in my very rambly manner. If you read quickly, you might be able to get through alive. Also note there is no automated spell-check on this computer. Gasp.

The Dookster is currently located in the Northwest Territories right now. Hay River is like a bigger and more industrial version of my farm-towns, and it's the hub to the 9th largest continential lake (the Great Slave Lake) in the world. It's where the train track ends going into the Northwest Territories. There's a whole lot of rocks, trees, and water. (But you could say that about most parts of Canada, eh?)

I've been here three times now, but the third time has been the most charming.
"Man, it's great to be back up here. You can just step a few feet from town and you're in the wilderness! ...Oh, hey there mosquitoes! ...And sand flies. And Bulldog-flies. Please stop biting me in swarms and crawling up my nose constantly. :3 "

Nahh, it's not that ba-- Okay, it is pretty bad. It's rainy/hot bug mania season, and I've been bitten more times in the past two weeks than I have for a combination of summer camps in Alberta. But it's great all the same, and you get used to it after a while. ...Okay, you don't get used to it, everyone here just perseveres. It's awesome! (Or they wear bug nets. XDD)

Besides the bugs, there's so much more to this place than I'd ever thought or expected. Did you know there's massive, beautiful waterfalls up here? It's just a few miles out of town. The river that goes into the Great Slave Lake is just a few houses away from me right this moment, and it is beautiful. I've seen about two or three bears/a couple moose/foxes/porcupines/beavers just on the drives around here. And ohman the fresh fish from the lake-- it's the best fish I've ever had.

But anyway, my older sister Naomi moved up here last year, and has been a nurse for a good chunk of her life. She came up here because God called for her to. So she works at the local hospital and lives by herself with her two adopted dogs most of the time. I don't get to see her as much as I used to, but now I get to live with her in her house for the summer! She knows a lot more than I do about the Northwest Territories, and I am excited to learn more about it too!

ANDD THENN... Summer camp! Whoa. You'd think an old couple living on the land at the end of a river-bend would want to have a nice restful life, eh? But they're starting a camp for the youth in Hay River. I've heard from natives here that many of the youth are troubled and don't have much to put their energy into, so they confide in substances. I hope lots of those youth come join us! : D

I know there's a group of 10-15 formerly-in-jail youth that were some of the first booked to come. This will be for the older teen week- the first week- which has the most helpers coming up. (A large group is coming from Calgary, AB for that week to help be there for a good 35 or so campers. So we are expecting 60 or more people in camp altogether.)

I think this will be the start of something great... God works through whoever has faith, it doesn't matter what he/she has done before, or how good or bad people are thought to be.
I am so excited about the people here. Everything is a little new to me still, but they've been extremely helpful to me.
On my second time up here, I met someone who originally learned about the "neat little stories" in the Bible from a prostitute- and that person had a huge impact on my life.

Then I met the couple providing land and starting the camp, who work on the Hay River radio, and can't even begin to tell you how sweet they are. Gahh... <3

I also met a carpenter, who lives in a HUUGE LOG HOUSE just a minute away from the camp. He has been helping the camp out, and he has been teaching me how to do carpentry for the buildings, too! I just learned recently that he and his family had lived in a bus for seven years... (I got to see the inside of the bus, too. It's run-down now, but it's so cool. It had two levels in it. They had to crawl to move around in their master bedroom. He said it was great fun watching his young kids grow up to be too tall for the upstairs roof and have to start crawling. XD) Anyway, he told me how he had no money for those seven years living in a bus with his family, but he had faith that God would provide for him... And wow, did He ever!

And there's a young man working for camp for the summer with me, he calls himself a "city-slicker", but he has guts I tell you. He bought a truck with all his money and drove up to Hay River from Alberta to work here for the summer, all because of God's Spirit. His family doesn't believe, even... that's something I have never had to deal with. So yeah... We've been a team of newbie construction-workers for the past few weeks, and he is a blast to work with. (I learned that he used to play WoW, too... XD Awesome.)

Yesterday I was talking to another one of the carpenters during supper; an apprentice of the carpenter that I mentioned earlier. He was talking about how he and his wife had lived in a cult for over 17 years. He told me how the leaders held the participants on a tight leash, just because they were making a religion on the way they interpreted the Bible. He told me about the ways they would force people to go to the front and admit what things they had done to sin, which caused everyone there to put on a mask so that everything looked fine and dandy. >: Underneath that mask- he said- they could do nothing but go back to that very sin they were taught against for an escape.

He eventually grew fed up with that place after so long, but didn't have the words to describe what they were doing wrong. He couldn't stand up and talk about it with them without a precise message. After he read something in a documentary about religious cults, his mind was opened, and he printed out dozens of copies to give to everyone there. The organization split months later, and he began looking more and more into the Bible to see what it really says- and not what was interpreted.

Everything started to get a little clearer as he learned from the Bible that often striving to make ourselves perfect is what makes us fall. We get prideful and eventually we stop giving because it is a joy to give... and only becomes something we can count up on our "I did THIS good thing!" list at the end of the day. It becomes more and more about our own strength, and less about the fact that: Christ did not come into the world to judge the world, but that anyone who believes will be saved through him. If he did come to judge the world, we would be judged by the perfect standards we so often put ourselves up against. I know I am not righteous by my own strength any one bit, but by willingly stepping out in faith and not judging by sight, he makes me anew. With jubilance, and helps me through my struggles. All of them. Every piece of my heart. I may not know everything in the world... but I know that is the love I want to have for everyone.

ANYWAY, that guy was awesome to talk to, too. 8D

I know I probably sound like a kid who goes "...AND THEN... AND THEN... AND THEN..." but Vernon from Psychonauts talked a lot like that too! BONUS!

(I've been rambling off and on for the whole day... Naomi wants a turn on her computer. XD It'd be great if you guys still want to talk to me even after so long. : D I know you're busy with summer stuff too, though. ALL RIGHT! G'night! I'll probably be back out at the camp after sleepytime, and staff training starts this Friday! Then everyone else comes! Woo!)