What are those leafy things? Are they TREES?!?!

Well, it's been almost a month since I last wrote in this blog. During that time I've managed to make a trip to a sister NLOMA camp in Iowa where we discussed new opportunities in outdoor ministry. A very large opportunity was actually presented to Camp Dixie at that time. I can't tell you what it is yet, but check back sometime soon after New Years. We may have an announcement regarding a new ministry opportunity for Camp Dixie. But enough of the teasing.

Time sure does fly when you are busy. It's actually a common misconception that Outdoor Ministry is very relaxing during the month of December. Sure there are fewer groups that are using camp between Thanksgiving and New Years, and the grass doesn't need nearly as much mowing, but when the outdoor work slows down, it can only mean one thing. It's time to get ready for summer camp! I've been spending the last couple of weeks sitting down and working on the brochure for next summer, as well as a one-sheet poster we will be sending to congregations to help publicize our summer offerings. Today I started working on updating the website with the Summer 2007 information. The Board of Directors still has to approve a few items regarding summer camp, so the changes won't be posted until after New Years, but it's good to try to get ahead on these things (or so they tell me.) So, you can look for the new brochure to be coming to your houses (if you are on our mailing list) within the first couple of weeks of January, and you can start registering for summer camp at that time. Oh, hint, hint. Look for a COLOR brochure when you look in the mail.

I just looked back at the last time that I wrote an entry here, and we do have some changes that have been finished since then. The back girls dorm bathroom has been completely repainted, and it looks great. That leaves the dorm rooms themselves as the only thing that will eventually need to be repainted on the girl's side of the dorms. I am also hoping to get a chance to do some painting on the boy's side of the dorms (specifically the shower area) but I'm not sure how quickly I will be able to get to it. We've also started planting some trees! There are six new trees between the parking lot and the beach that have been planted, and seem to be doing well. It's winter, so it's a little hard to tell. Also, with the monies that were donated in memory of Board Member Ed Engel, we are planning on planting three larger trees around the camp. One is already in place on the beach side of the boy's dorms, and another will go in the corresponding place on the girl's side. A third tree will be planted in front of the little house on Camp's property. Hopefully within a few years, we will have some shade!

For anyone who is interested in being a staff member this summer, both the Summer Staff and Junior Staff web pages have been updated with the new information for 2007. The Summer Staff page will send you over to the NLOMA site to fill out an online application there, the Jr. Staff page has the new Job Description and application files right on the page. Check it out!

Finally, I would like to wish everyone a Merry Christmas on behalf of myself and the Camp Dixie Board of Directors. We all thank you so much for your interest in Camp Dixie, and hope that God will bless you during this Christmas Season.

See you at Camp!
Mac

More Ch- Ch- Changes

Hey everyone!
Well, here we are, it's the beginning of November. For those of you who are reading this in states that are north of us here in Alabama, I spent some time yesterday on the sailboat. It was about 80 degrees and sunny. There wasn't a whole lot of wind for the boat, but with the temperatures in the 80's on November 1st, who cares? What a beautiful day! You don't need to feel too bad though, we have a bit more reality setting in today, the temp is 55 and there is a cool breeze coming off the bay. Luckily we can thaw out tomorrow, it's supposed to be 70 and sunny.

One of the big reasons I started this blog is to let readers like you know what is going on day-to-day out here at camp. Last time I teased all of you about some other changes that are coming to Camp Dixie, and some of them have already arrived! The vertical wall has been cut down to a more managable size, the "porthole" tire has been put up at a reasonable height, and the "triangular tension traverse" ropes and carabiners have arrived from the company we ordered them from. So, we have three more elements that are usable on the Challenge Course!

Now, for those other changes that I was teasing you with before. We also had a group out to Camp Dixie in the middle of October from Divine Savior Lutheran Church in Shepherdsville, KY. The first two days of their time at Camp Dixie was a bit more wet and windy than we had originally anticipated, so our outdoor activities were put on hold, and we concentrated on painting the inside of the building! The Dining Hall has a new coat of white paint on the inside, and the hallways to the dorm rooms were also painted! The kitchen painting was finished and the ceiling was done in there as well. Finally, we also painted the front bathrooms on both sides. The group also helped with a lot of cleaning. The vents in the Dining Hall were cleaned and repainted as needed, and we removed as many cobwebs as we could find. Everything that we were able to work on looks great!

The group also cleaned and primed the girl's dorm shower area, but we didn't get a chance to paint it when they were here. I was able to get it painted last week, and it really makes the girl's shower area look nice. My next goal is to move on to the girl's bathroom area and paint that. Sometime after that the Boy's shower and bathroom areas will need to be cleaned and painted. But who knows, that might not happen for months (or years?)

Another change that you will notice when you arrive at Camp, is that we have added a new soft drink machine, removed one of the old machines we had, and raised the prices on cans of Coke in our machines. After the summer camp season I started evaluating the costs that were associated with selling Coke cans in the machines and from the Trading Post. Because of the high cost of the cans as well as delivery, we had to make the unfortunate decision to change the prices of cans to 75 cents from 50 cents. We've also removed one of the Coke machines so that we can better evaluate demand and keep one machine full all the time. The machine that we have added is a Pepsi machine that serves 20oz bottles. Now both Pepsi and Coke drinkers can get something they like out of one of our machines or the Trading Post. Bottles of Pepsi will be $1.00, which is actually less than what you would pay for them at your local gas station.

Finally, there is one other change that I can tell you about right now. Actually it's more of an addition that creates some changes. Camp Dixie has a highspeed internet connection! We now have DSL in the office, which will actually create two new changes from our modem days. First of all if someone in the office is on the internet (like I am when I write one of these, or when we check the email) we won't be tying up the phone line anymore! You've been bitten by this problem if you have called the office and it immediately went to voicemail without even ringing. The second change that will happen because of our new DSL line is that we are going to be adding a wireless connection that our guests can use while they stay at Camp Dixie. We have been getting more and more requests for this ability, and now that DSL exists, we can make it happen!

Well, I think that's about it for now. There are more changes in the works, but it's a bit too early to talk about them. If you have any questions about Camp Dixie, want to have a retreat here, or are interested in picking up a brush for a couple of days to help continue painting, please email at director@campdixieministries.org, or call us at (251)987-1201.

See you at camp!
Mac

Changes... Changes... Changes...

Hey everyone,
So I am now emotionally back from Kim and my trip to Hawaii. Believe me it took awhile. I do still look at the daily updates about the volcano on the big island, just to see what's going on. We got to see lava when we were there, and I got to stand within about 15 feet or so of a lava flow (it was flowing really, really slowly) so that was very cool. That is some place I will definitely have to return to in my life, at least as long as killauea keeps erupting.

So, the reason I wanted to blog today was to tell everyone about some changes that are coming, and the basis behind them. First of all, we are finally starting to work on the challenge course to get as many elements working again as possible. The "porthole" tire has been taken down from it's lofty eight foot height, and will be placed at a more usable four to five foot height. The idea of the "porthole" is to have your whole group make it through the tire without touching the sides! Unfortunately with the tire eight feet up in the air there was just no way to make that happen. There are some great pictures of people making it through the tire, however their whole weight is being carried by the tire (and their stomach). Tires aren't a fun thing to have rubbing against your stomach, so I'm very glad that we are finally making this change. Getting the tire down from it's perch wasn't too difficult (I was able to do it myself) but getting it back up will be a bit more difficult, so the Grace Lutheran Men's Group from Pensacola will be helping me this weekend getting it back up. Thanks guys!

There is another element that they will be helping me make safer. We are finally going to start using the vertical wall again after we make a few modifications. The first is that the wall (which currently stands at about eleven feet tall, will be getting cut down to size. The white line that I have drawn on the picture of the wall to the right is where the new top will be. Eleven feet is really tall. I did some research on challenge course design, and an eleven foot wall is no longer considered a "low" element (as all the rest of ours are) and actually should have a belay system, and everyone using the wall should be harnessed for safety. Rather than take on that higher level of training and cost for one "high" element, we are going to lower the top of the wall to normal "low" element standards The new top of the wall will be at seven and a half feet. This will still be a challenge for our campers, and will make the wall even safer!

There is a third element that we will be able to use for the 2007 retreat and summer camp seasons. I'm not honestly sure how much this one has been used in the past. Everyone I have asked about it says that they have never used it. I found information about it's creation when Craig Oldenburg was director at Camp Dixie (that's a few directors ago) so we may be bringing back an oldie but goodie. The element is called the "Triangular Tension Traverse" and its not only cool because of the alliteration, but it's also a fun element. In this element, the participants start from one of three trees, and using a rope attached to the tree they started from, they walk along a wire that is suspended 2 feet above the ground. There can be as many as three people doing this at a time, so if they meet in the middle of the wire, they will have to find a way to pass each other. All of the permanent pieces of the element are in place, however the ropes that attach to the trees is AWOL. I have purchased new rope, as well as some carabineers that will make it quick and easy to remove the rope when not in use.

Over the past year, many people have asked about other favorite elements that the Camp Dixie challenge course had at some time in the past. Unfortunately hurricane Ivan was not kind to any of the trees on Camp Dixie property, and it didn't stay away from the challenge course. There are three elements that are currently still out of action. The "Nitro Crossing" element (where you would swing on a rope from one safe area to another) lost two important trees, so it is currently out of action. The "Swinging Log" element, where campers had to walk from one end of a log suspended a couple of feet off the ground to the other end also lost one of its trees. The log that campers used to walk across is actually one of the posts for the new volleyball court. What a great way to recycle! The final lost element is the "Horizontal Climbing Wall" where campers would have to climb from one end of the wall to the other. This element was attached to four trees and a post, and two of the four trees were toppled by Ivan. Parts of it were still standing (and some were still laying on the ground) when I arrived as director in January, however for safety reasons it was taken completely down before summer camp started.

So, why am I telling you about these past elements? Because this summer, we are hoping to rebuild at least two of these three elements! We are currently planning to rebuild both the "Swinging Log" and "Horizontal Climbing Wall" using telephone poles rather than trees as was done previously. Hopefully this will make the elements a bit more sturdy against the wind, and actually will improve the safety of building the elements as we can install most of the necessary hardware on the ground before lifting everything up into the air.

Well, I was going to tell you about some more changes that are coming to Camp Dixie, but this blog has gone longer (and taken me longer to write) than I thought it would. I really need to get back to replacing some shower curtains (ah I'm such a tease about those other changes. The shower curtains were not the changes I was talking about even though they are nice.) I've also kept the phone line tied up for too long.

I hope everyone has a great day! God's Peace!
See you at Camp!
Mac

Back from paradise

If you called the Camp Dixie office two weeks ago, you would have reached a message telling you that the camp office was closed. It was closed because Kim and I spent a week in the great paradise of Hawaii! If you've been to Hawaii before, you know what I am talking about when I say paradise. If you haven't you should really go. Really, I mean it. I am now recommending it to all of my friends (which includes all you who are reading this blog!)

So anyway, one of my great passions is the Pacific Theater of World War Two. Ever since I was in elementary school, I have read books about the great battles of the Coral Sea, Midway, and the Marianas, just to name a few. Then of course there is the one that started it all for the United States. The Japanese surprise attack at Pearl Harbor.

I've finally gotten to see Pearl Harbor, and it was everything that I expected. Well, not really everything. When you see pictures, or look at maps, you really don't get an idea of the scale of everything around you. I always thought of Pearl Harbor as this giant body of water. After all they brought battleships in there for heaven's sake. In some places it is quite large, but Pearl Harbor is honestly a very narrow harbor between where the interstate (H1) passes it and Ford Island sits in the middle. That's right where battleship row was in 1941. I can totally see why the officers that were in charge of the defense of the harbor in 1941 thought that an attack was impossible. It took us 3 minutes to get from one side to the other in a navy launch at about 10 miles per hour. If you were coming in an airplane at 140 mph, you could blink and miss it. The picture above is of the USS Arizona, which is still sitting at the bottom of the harbor. It was an amazing experience to be that close to a war relic that I've read about so many times. At the Arizona museum they even have one of the anchors from the Arizona that was recovered from the bottom of the harbor after the explosion. It was something like 200-300 yards away from the sunken battleship. Wow. It's amazing how finally getting to see something really puts everything into perspective.

There is another attraction near the Arizona. The Arizona is the beginning of the war in the Pacific for the United States, and the USS Missouri is the end. She is moored proudly on a new pier constructed for her on Ford Island. The picture at the right was taken from the Arizona Memorial. We toured the gigantic battleship, and even took a guided tour inside the ship, which even included a stop in one of the engine rooms. The Missouri has a special name for one of it's decks. Normally the decks are numbered as you go up from the main deck (they are numbered as you go down too.) But this deck doesn't have a number. It will always be known as the "Surrender Deck." This was the place that the Japanese high command surrendered to the allies on September 2, 1945. Here's a fact I didn't know. If you've ever worried about signing a document on the correct line you shouldn't worry about it. The Canadian delegate accidentally signed on the wrong line on one of the documents, so everyone had to sign in a different place. Strange huh? Oh well, I guess it happens.

Well, we saw some other things in Hawaii that I've never seen before. Like black sand beaches, and a lava coming out of active tubes on the big island. All-in-all it was a great vacation. Sometimes it feels good to get away.

Where were you on...

Going through High School and a little bit in college, friends of mine and I always lamented that we didn't have a story that followed "Where were you when you heard about _______?" Our grandparents told us stories about where they were when they heard about Pearl Harbor, and our parents told us where they were when they heard about President Kennedy being shot, or where they were when man first landed on the moon.

Then September 11, 2001 happened. Now and forever we have something that we can tell stories about.

On September 11, 2001, I was working at Camp Omega as the program director. I can't remember if we still had a dial up connection, or if we had finally gotten a satellite internet connection, but I remember that I checked my email when I got into work at about 9:00. There was a headline on yahoo.com that said that a "small" plane had crashed into one of the towers of the world trade center. I clicked on the link, but wasn't able to get the page to come up. For the first time that I had ever seen, a page on yahoo said that "maximum connections have been reached." So why not try CNN right? Nope, I couldn't get anything to work on there either. Every web news site was completely at maximum connections, or didn't respond at all. So, I checked my email. Oh well.

We didn't realize anything big was happening until Patrick Hair (who always had MPR on in his office) said something to the effect that there was something going on in New York. We still couldn't get any web sites to connect, so Kevin Hall, the director, ran over to his house to see what was up. He was gone for quite a while. Apparently as he got into the house, he watched the second tower collapse in on itself.

We lauhed at him the next day because he didn't invite us over to watch on his fancy Satellite TV, but when he didn't come back for a while, we grabbed the camp conversion van and turned on the TV in it. Now, don't get me wrong. It was 2001, and the van was from some time in the early to mid 1980's. The TV we watched it on had one channel that worked, and it was in black and white. Right as we turned it on, we watched as they replayed the collapse of the second tower "that happened minutes ago." It truly was surreal.

Patrick and I worked on getting a strap peg on my guitar for an hour or so after that, and then I decided to go home. I watched the rest of the day. I watched the same things over and over, the second plane crashing into the tower, and then the video of them both collapsing.

I think something that has been forgotten in the past five years is that feeling that was in all of our stomachs. We had been attacked on our own soil. If it could happen to New York and Washington DC, it could happen anywhere. Gas lines started to form that evening. Everyone was stocking up. I don't even know if they were sure what they were stocking up for, but it was scary enough for everyone to go out and get as much fuel as they could.

I remember going outside that night and taking a walk around. Where I was living you could usually see the airplanes lined up on approach to MSP. That night the sky was completely quiet. It truly felt like the world had completely changed forever.

The plane above was one of the only planes that was allowed to fly after the FAA grounded all non-fighter traffic. It is a Navy C-9 transport, and it flew firefighters and rescue workers up the east coast from Georgia to New York. Thank you to all who have protected our lives, and our country since the beginning of this war on terrorism.

Say Hello To My Little Friends

If you've had the chance to look outside my office window (and honestly not that many of you have, and even if you could the window has been scored by years of salt water and air so it's hard to see out of), you know that there are a bunch of bushy flowery plants that have grown up outside the window since we cut down some dead bushes. I keep meaning to get around to cutting them down a bit, but every time I think about it, there is a butterfly flying around those plants and eating (or whatever they do) off of the flowers it has on it. So, the plant gets a reprieve and gets to live another day. This butterfly was outside my office window the other day, and I happened to have my camera in the office. The picture turned out pretty well, especially since every time I would move closer to it, it would move further away. It didn't leave, just get into a position where I couldn't take a very good picture. Oh well.
Also, my other little friend is my new ipod shuffle. If you look at the picture over on the side here, the big ancient looking mp3 player is the one I used to listen to when I kayak around the bay and exercise in the house. I got it as a free gift (it was selling for $99 at the time) when I bought Windows XP from Best Buy in 2001. It had 96MB of memory (adfter we added a 64MB card), which holds about 15-20 songs. Any time I went for a long kayak trip, I would actually listen through all the songs before I got back to the camp. Oh goody, I get to listen to them all... AGAIN! Annoying. So I've got a new ipod shuffle! It's small, it's sleek, and best of all, it has 512MB of memory, so even if I go kayaking for two-and-a-half hours, I don't have to hear the same songs over and over. Nice. Just a little look at where technology has gone in the last five years.
-Mac

Summer Camp, What fun

Wow, it's been a long time since i've written in my blog, now that it's on the Camp Dixie website, I'm going to have to try to be more attentive to it. So the biggest reason that i haven't written anything since last MAY, was because of summer camp. Summer camp is always a great time, and this year was no exception. We had a great senior staff, a wonderful junior staff, and some great campers. The final numbers came in, and we had about 220 campers this summer. Now, that's a bit fewer than we had at Camp Omega where I was Program Director most recently (we had around 1800 there during the summer) but it was great none-the-less. We had a lot of question marks this summer, not knowing if the aftermath of Katrina would affect our registration numbers. I'm also the third director that Camp Dixie has had in the past three years, so that could have been a stumbling block as well, we also weren't able to get the summer information out as quickly as we would have liked to. Suffice it to say, we feel blessed that every camper who came was able to come to camp this summer.
So, believe it or not, it's time for me (and hopefully some campers and parents too) to start thinking about summer camp 2007. We've gotten some camp session dates figured out and approved by the board of directors, and we even have a theme. The summer 2007 theme is going to be: "Grace Is Free." The theme verse is taken from John 1:16 "From the fullness of his grace, we all received one blessing after another." I'm really looking forward to next summer, there are quite a few things that we are going to change, improve, and hopefully we will reach even more campers with the Word of God.
I've also just finished the Summer 2006 Camp Dixie newsletter. It's in COLOR this time because a color laser printer was donated to camp! Hopefully this will get some people excited about camp. Hey it's in color! Camp Dixie must be cool!
That's about it for now, I have some email to return, some newsletters to fold and label, and I know there is some cleaning I could be doing somewhere around here. Thanks for reading everyone.
-Mac

Things you can’t do in Minnesota

I was kayaking the other day on the bay, watching some dolphins (no really, dolphins!) swimming around, and thought it might be interesting to write a little bit about things that I’ve found you can do here in Lower Alabama (L.A. oh yeah!) that you can’t do in our former home, Minnesota.

First of all, the only time I have ever seen dolphins before is at the Minnesota Zoo. It’s a nice zoo, they had several dolphins that they trained to splash water toward the crowd and such. However lately, there have been some dolphins (4 of them to be exact) that have been living just a little ways from here. It’s the first time I have ever seen dolphins that close in the wild. In fact it might be the first time I have seen dolphins in the wild period. The first time I saw them they approached my kayak from the side, underneath me. So it’s also the first time I was ever checked out by a dolphin. I can only imagine what he was thinking of that blonde haired Minnesota boy who was in that silly blue kayak.

The Blue Angels. Now, don’t get me wrong. I have actually seen the Blue Angels (that’s the US Navy flight demonstration team if you don’t know what I am talking about) twice before in Minnesota. One time I drove to Hibbing, MN to see them fly in about 1994, and I also saw them in Duluth, MN a couple of summers ago. But down here, wow. Their summer home is Pensacola Naval Air Station, which is about 11 miles or so as the crow flies from the front of Camp Dixie. The Blue Angels practice most every Tuesday and Wednesday during the show season, and if there isn’t too much haze in the air, you can see them from the camp's beach. Also, they let you on the base to view the shows as well! Let’s just say I have seen them more in the last three months than I have seen them in my whole life before that. I’m a big fan.

Last but certainly not least, is beaches. Now, "there are public beaches in Minnesota" I can hear a few of you saying. However, they are on lakes, or even worse man-made-ponds. Here I’m talking BEACH, Gulf of Mexico beach. This is beach that other people in the country come to when they are on vacation. So far we’ve visited Gulf Shores (not too bad a beach) and Pensacola Beach (very nice beach) in our short stay here. It’s still strange to think that we can drive for 30 minutes or so, and be at the real beach. Oh, and in July, the Blue Angels perform a show right over Pensacola Beach. I will definitely have to take in that show.

God’s Peace everyone.
Mac

So where did the name Mac come from?

So, for those of you who are new to Camp Dixie, or are just catching up, my camp name is Mac, and I am the director here. Now, I know there are some who are wondering where the camp name Mac came from, so I thought I would tell you.
But first, just a little bit about "camp names" in general. During the summer, the staff of Camp Dixie will have an alternate name that they will be identified by. When campers come to camp, they won't know their actual counselors name, they will know them by a camp name. During the week the campers will try to guess what their counselors real name is. They don't end up finding up until the last night of camp, when the identities of the counselors will be revealed. (At this point the counselors really do feel like superheroes...)
So, my camp name is "Mac". There are numerous reasons why it could be Mac, I will leave it up to you to figure out which is the "real" one. (That is if there even is a real reason.) Anyway, the first possibility has to do with the picture to the left of this post. Mac is one of the characters from the SSX snowboarding games that I love to play on the playstation 2... I only hope that when the PS3 comes out there is an even cooler version of SSX. Or, the reason could be my previous love for Macintosh computers! I used a mac from about 1988-1999, and loved every minute of it. It actually got me my first job at Best Buy, I was the only one there who knew about the Mac computers they sold. I still have one at the house, don't get to use it much, but there you go. That could be it. And the final reason could be... my wife and I (her camp name to be told at a later time) went to South Korea this past summer with her parents. While we were there, there was another couple that was about our same age, and same situation. The woman had also been adopted from the country, and her husband was with her. So during the whole trip people kept confusing us and calling me the husband's name, "Mac." I just gave in to the whole idea, and went with Mac as my camp name.
So, one of these stories is probably true, and that's how the camp director got the name "Mac."

Why live... from Camp Dixie?

So they always say, that if you are going to take the time to do something, you had better make it worthwhile, and have a purpose. The purpose of this particular endeavor is to tell people a little bit about what is going on at Camp Dixie. Every day there are so many things that are going on, and because I am the only full time staff member, I am the only one who gets to see them happening! So, hopefully with this blog I can get you all to see a little bit about what is happening at the Lutheran Outdoor Ministry site at Camp Dixie in Elberta, AL. Hopefully you will get a greater appreciation of what awesome things are going on here!