The Finale

Wow, to think that the summer is already over!! I had such an amazing time these past few months and have got to experience God in so many incredible ways. The past few camps weeks have just worn me out but have been so worth it. The families that we have helped and the campers we have ministered too, all with God’s help, have made it worth all the work and exhaustion.
I would like to thank all those who have helped me financially and with their prayers this past summer. The encouragement from friends and family has been greatly appreciated!

With much Love,

Chad

Redemption

Returning to our 3^rd pre-camp (time spent preparing for the upcoming camp week) from the aforementioned break, there was a complete shift in the attitude of our staff as we put everything on the table during our three hour “Come to Jesus” meeting. During this meeting several walls—and tears—came down, which were founded by some immaturity, and new friendships formed as the camp week progressed. It was a run-away success, and it no longer seems like we have to work to have fun. To this end, we even received several compliments about how great our staff worked together as a team! Little did they know the depth of how much that meant to us.

Pre-camp also started with a bang as we pranked Camp Loy White (Chad). And we done good… their cars were beautifully decorated with flower, toilet paper, saran wrap, mustard and bologna, shaving cream, sticky-notes, and sardines. It was a sight to see!

This week I allowed myself to be a field coordinator for a day to combat my struggles with missing the personal impact we have on families’ lives. I was in charge of three groups, which I had build a set of steps, paint eves and build a wedge ramp, and paint a living room and bedroom. Visiting with the man for whom we built steps left me calling my mom as it was obvious how proud of his two sons he was. The wedge ramp was for the wife of a retired Navy veteran who was very strong in his faith and told me many stories of how the Lord protected him during WWII and Korea. And as for the interior paint. Well, lets just say they knew how to feed a crowd after raising seven children: chicken and dumplings (with hardboiled eggs), cornbread, squash casserole, fruit salad, fried cabbage, sweet potatoes, blueberry pie on cheese cake, and fudge. Mmmm.

And I can’t do the week justice without mentioning that it was by far the most nature-esque to date: I played unwilling host to 27 chiggers, we found a rabid bat, a bird flew into the girls’ room (Or a mouse was thrown at them, the girls first thought. And screamed.), had a midnight snake-hunt on the porch, and had do disallow camp showers as we almost ran out of water. Only at Camp McCall.

It’s not what God give’s me, but what I give God

Highlighted by Raymond’s coming to Christ (as well as a second camper!), week 2 was a great week for us as a staff! Personally, I am more on fire for God than any of my previous summers. Yet I left feeling upset and as if my experience was somewhat tainted by our staff’s lack of unity—and as a result I accidentally-on-purpose forgot to blog. If the summer were to have ended at this halfway point I would have been very disappointed in my experience. One of my greatest excitements entering the summer was to again embrace my staff as a close-knit family, but this was turning into an epic failure. “Embarrassed” perfectly describes how I felt. Despite working well together from a business standpoint and executing a great program that was consistently praised by our adults, we were still six strong individuals that had yet to come together as a unit, the body of Christ. I find it hypocritical that we strived to create a Christian community at our camp, but not amongst ourselves. And while I realized that much of this was out of my control, it was hard for me to not internalize it as failing at my job.

Adding to my frustration this week was my continued struggles with disliking several aspects of my job as director. Grocery shopping in exchange for working for families still doesn’t seem like a fair tradeoff! And buying candles sure seems trivial. However, I really enjoy the leadership responsibilities of being the director, and I have embraced the added weight on my shoulders.

What I learned from this week is that this summer is not about what God gives me, but what I give God. It's about my obedience to Him. Again, I was narrowly looking at the summer as my experience, but God is so much bigger than this!

Raymond's Story

My apologies for having forgotten to blog about Camp Week 2! Many of my memories are beginning to blur together, but one that will forever stick with me is how one of our campers, Raymond (extremely negative…), came to Christ. God placed Ray in Gina’s CMG, an amazing adult who made it her undertaking to love on him with hugs and kisses whenever he made a negative comment about himself. It’s funny to think about the pre-camp worries of adults and staff as we try to control the formation of each of these work groups when “the Lord works out everything for his own ends.” He places people right where they need to be. Not where we want them to be. With Raymond it became a running joke that anytime he was to say something negative Gina would attack him with hugs and kisses, as other campers would even tell on him. During our Thursday night volleyball game Raymond was again guilty of verbalizing his negativity, so Gina ran after him to give him a hug as usual. But Raymond’s response was to run away from her, causing Gina to call her son, Jon, to grab him before he escaped. Long story short, Jon ended up tackling Ray and breaking 3 bones in his foot. And it was in reflection of this moment later that night that Raymond came to Christ! He finally realized that people, and God, cared about him, and it took this accident for him to realize that. He was running from a hug—maybe not what he wanted, but what he needed. Love. We’re so often deaf to God’s persistent call for us. It’s also amazing to think about the unique ways that God uses each and every one of us, oftentimes unbeknownst to us—who would think that tackling a kid would ultimately bring him Christ?

Week two in brief

Hey everyone,

I have to say, I kind of forgot about the blog till an hour before I have to leave to go to week three...but here are some highlights.

Once again we had an amazing group of campers, filled with energy and a passion for going out and being Christ-like and working hard. We had projects that ranged from wheelchair ramps, to yard work, to floor repairs, and painting. The families we worked for were great and blessed the youth that came out there to work. It is always amazing to see the campers get so much out of the families they work for, sometimes even more than what the families get from the work done.

In other news, our staff volleyball team did a whole lot better than last weeks volleyball tournament. We doubled our score from 2 to 4 this week. Watch out week three!

I also had my first interview with a local news paper... If anyone reads the Gaston Gazette, go for it.

Again, sorry for the short response, I'll try to be better next time!! Have a great week and please continue to keep us all in your prayers!!

Chad

Hello all!!

Wow, I just had an amazing first camp week. It has been a long week full of a lot of hard work, but it has all been worth it. God has just put some amazing people in my path and shown me so many great things.

I’ll just give a brief overview of the last ten days then divulge into a few specifics. Wed through Saturday consisted of going out and meeting the people in the community that we would work for the following week. I had to go out and look at projects from painting inside and outside, building wheelchair ramps, replacing steeps, and yard work. During this time I would have to draw up plans, get tools set up, plus work with the staff on the next week’s worships and activities.

Sunday, campers arrived!! We had such an amazing group of campers come from four different churches. We had them broken up into CMG’s, or Christian Mission Groups, in which they would be working with the next week. From there, every day of the week they went out into the local community to work for the people we had previously set up jobs for. We had 8 groups total, and of those I was looking over three. During the day I would go out between the three and check on their progress and the person they were working for. Back at camp in the evenings we had games, like a Volleyball tournament, and worships.

One of my favorite people we worked for this last week was Isabelle Tom. Our group did some yard work for this spirit filled, 92 year old women. In visiting with her, she thanked me by giving me a water lily plant and explained how it starts with one pod and continues to grow from there, sending out new pods, which then grow more. It was a great metaphor for what the campers were doing that week: sharing God’s love with one person who in turn would share with another, and another; growing like the lily plant.

Another great story would be how amazing the campers were this week, in particular, one of my CMGs. During all the rain we had this last week, this group of high schoolers were building a wheelchair ramp and wanted to work in the rain when they could just wait inside. It was so amazing to see them want to work for God to help out these people.

To wrap up, I had an amazing week, and God has blessed me with some great experiences. Until next time, thanks again for support and prayers!

In Christ,

Chad

PS, our trailer we live in is still keeps on giving us gifts. We got a new pet, a black snake, that lives in the ceiling and walls of the trailer. We have yet to name him.

Count It

Camp Week 1 is in the books! I leave our first camp week feeling exhausted, but knowing full well that I am right where I am supposed to be. Being a director and sometimes the “bad guy” has been a really rewarding experience, and a bummer at times too, because I am so used to looking up to someone else for guidance. Now it’s me making the calls and setting the tone for my staff and ultimately the camp at large. I’m finding that the job is really what I make of it, and I want to offer all of myself to it.

However, I deeply miss interacting with the families whom we work for. Initially my heart hurts when I get to hear stories from staff and campers as it used to me having a direct hand in meeting their physical, social and spiritual needs. But I am finding joy in the more mundane and administrative tasks, things that I once took for granted but now realize that they help empower others to make a difference. They too are serving our Lord. For one, I used to think that our camp food just appeared. Wrong! Even after Tyler and I spent 3 hours putting up boxes of food that came on a US Food Service truck (in multiple buildings I might add because McCall’s kitchen is too small to hold enough food) I still find myself having to mass grocery shop every other day. It’s certainly a change of pace from being a lead field, but just as glorifying to God.

Things I’m proud of Week 1: (1) Teaching my staff, especially the fields whom are all new, but allowing them to learn for themselves as well. I heard I’d get asked a lot of questions. Well, it was true. I didn’t realize how monumental this would be, but there are so many little things that are not covered in staff training. To this end, I am very thankful for Tyler who is very apt at paperwork on the program side of things—for which I am rather famous for ignoring in years past. But it also gave me an instant sense of leadership and know-how, despite having to learn my own job on the fly. (2) Also, adults were impressed with how often we emphasized prayer during the week, starting with a bang the first night as the staff laid hands on all the campers. We even had an interesting prayer board where campers and staff could put up prayer requests and others would trace their hands over it to signify they were praying. Looked pretty cool at the end of the week. (3) Until the last two nights I sacrificed some of my staff’s sleep to make sure that we were sharing, praying, studying Proverbs, journaling, and etc. before going to sleep despite sometimes being after 1am. Part of my job is to be the spiritual leader of my staff, and I imagine at this point they realize I take that role seriously. At CCC we are always feeding others spiritually, but it is so important to not forget to feed ourselves. We too need to grow this summer and do our best to not get caught up in the busyness of performing in worships. Our staff motto is to “Work hard. Play hard. Pray hard. And worship hard.” (4) I had two really awesome radio interviews! The first one was for thirty minutes during pre-camp. I was pretty nervous to start but the interviewer started with me describing myself—which is pretty hard to mess up—so I got comfortable fast. The second interview was only 15 minutes, but it was fun to return to camp that afternoon as the campers listened to me talk about them and the camp week while grabbing their supplies at the tool shed that morning. Felt like this interview went even better than the first as I was even more prepared for what would be asked of me. Between these two radio interviews, two newspaper articles and a few radio and television PSAs I put out we’ve been getting lots of call-ins from the community needing our help! (5) Thanks for your prayers as I gave my first ever “fishhook speech”! I kept my composure and it went really well, despite some Friday night craziness leading into it… (6) Not one negative evaluation of the week (except the facilities of course)! So we’re doing something right!

Things I need to improve upon Week 1: (1) Jumping on the “hand goes up, mouth goes shut” rule more authoritatively in the beginning of the camp week. We had a very talkative group, and it was hard for us as a staff to reign them back in after allowing them to chatter the first few days. (2) A few odd and ends that can be easily fixed such as putting money in our canteen (t-shirt and candy sales) cash box to make change with, going into more details about how to clean coolers, and etc. (3) I still find myself wanting to confirm some of my decisions with Tyler, the other experienced staffer. Ultimately it’s my call and I can’t change it after the fact anyways, so why undermine myself? (4) I only wrote 1 warm fuzzy this week. This is a unique way to really reach out and encourage campers, especially those who are more socially awkward. Being at a smaller, more intimate camp has helped my level of camper interaction despite the busyness of my job (which also entails gravitating to the adults, which I tend to do naturally anyways as I get farther removed from high school), but I need to make more of an effort here. (4) Triad meetings, or man “tea parties” as we jokingly call them. Need to have more of them as I meet with my leadership. (5) As a staff we have been lacking in the “Play hard” part of our motto. Part of this is due to having the first 6 person staff in a long time, meaning that we have fewer people doing 1^st visits, paperwork and other tasks that go faster with more people doing them. But this shouldn’t be an excuse. I hope that with a week of experience under our belts we can be more efficient, allowing us more play time together.

Funniest story of the week: Oh, communion blunders. Tyler, Charlie (adult) and I were leading communion (Love Feast) during which some of the tea-lights, or small candles, started ridiculously catching on fire on our cross. Maybe bugs. Maybe Jesus. Who knows. But a couple staff members were struggling to put them out when Tyler had the brilliant idea to chuck the blood of Christ on them… somehow (I guess the wax oils went airborne or something) creating a flamethrower effect from the chalice! You would have thought that we had bought wine and not grape juice. After a collective “holy crap!” from the camp everyone busted out laughing during communion. Certainly killed the mood, but I imagine God was laughing too!

Cool note: God’s looking out for me as I trust in him to be my provider. After all, He’s the world’s greatest employer and has given me my job the last 3 years. One of my adults pretty much offered me a job after the summer working for a startup that helps non-profits raise money. Not sure what will come of it, but it’s a nice reminder that God is in control and will reveal His plan for me on His timing.

My Staff :)

"I'm a star!"

Phone Mishap

Bummer, Blogger didn't seem to like my texts too much this week.  Here's my most recent from Thursday, June 18:

Our first camp week (and mine as a director) has been going great!  Love it.  Fighting exhaustion though as it's day 5 in a row with less than 6 hrs of sleep... gotta finish alive awake alert and enthusiastic!  Tues marked growth in my walk as I stepped out of my comfort zone and used one of His gifts to play the drums at worship for my first time.  And it was so much fun!  I also very clearly felt the Holy Spirit speaking through me last night as I spoke with a few campers about some very serious issues.  Please pray for me tonight as I give my first ever "fishhook" speech, where I pretend to be a preacher and encourage the campers to answer Jesus' call for us to live radically outside of camp as fishers of men!

Off to take a much needed nap.  I'll post more in detail about the week when my brain is functioning a little better...

Was interviewed on the radio today for 30 mins about CCC! Was lots of fun, and hopefully God will use it to connect us with people who need our help.

The Genisis: Staff Training

Hey all! We are finally back, but just for a short while. Our breaks consist of every other Sunday through Wednesday, so we leave again tomorrow for another week and a half of excitement and fun. Staff Training was a blast though. We were worked hard, and are very tired. It consisted of learning just about everything you could think of. We learned skills from how to properly council campers to how to address a caving in floor in someone’s home. Of course we had whole sessions on how to fill out paper work, how to properly visit people, and how to keep campers entertained. Again, it was a lot of work but it will be very helpful over the next few months.

So if you were unaware, Carolina Cross Connection has five different camp locations that it uses throughout Western North Carolina. I will be at Camp Loy White in Casar, NC, in Cleveland County. Our camp is going to be concentrating on working in Cleveland, Lincoln, and Gaston County, while other camps will work elsewhere. Camp Loy White itself is a nice camp, with a lodge for the campers to sleep and eat in. They will have AC, which is a plus because we get to eat in there as well!! Our staff quarters though are in a trailer on the grounds. It unfortunately does not have the best window unit in the world, but, it’s at least homey. We were even left with a door present of a half dead and still panting mouse on our floor when we first arrived. The trailer also provides such gracious gifts such as emitting odors and not always flushing properly! But it’s going to be a great place for the summer because of the staff I’m working with.

We have an amazing staff that I can’t wait to really work with physically and spiritually this summer. We have our Director Kristin, Lead Program Edward, Programs Marianne and Kathleen, Fields Levi and Chris, and Lead Field, yours truly. Kristin pretty much makes everything run, heads up PR stuff and, anything else that needs to be done. Programs focus on visiting our contacts and reaching out to people in need in the community, and fields focus on planning and getting materials for the work projects we do. Pretty much we got an amazing group of people with a great balance of strengths and weaknesses that God is going to bless and use to spread his love.

So as we head on to a half week of finalizing projects, getting materials, donations, and anything needed done around camp, we will finally after that have our first camp week of campers. I am very excited and can’t wait to get going. We thank everyone so much for your prayers and donations to help us carry out this great ministry.

I will try to send a few random texts through out the week, but will go in details next break!! Please don’t be afraid to give me a call anytime. I would love to hear from everyone!

Until next time,

Chad

Staff Training

Staff training is FINALLY over!  It was just as long and draining as expected, but I leave encouraged by the many gifts of our newest staff members.  We arrived at staff training as 35 individuals, came together as one Christian community, and departed as five strong staffs eager to express God’s love for us to others.  We leave hoping to change the lives of our campers and the communities of western NC. 

This year I had the privilege of having a direct hand in helping to select the staffs, and it was clear that God guided us through the process.   

So, here’s my 6 person staff at Camp McCall! (don’t worry, pictures to come):

Trey (Jr. @ NC St), Lead Field Coordinator

Alecia (Jr. @ UNC), Field Coordinator

Emily (Soph. @ App. St), Field Coordinator

Tyler (Soph. @ Pfeiffer), Lead Program Coordinator

Jordan (Soph. @ UNC), Program Coordinator

and me!

{Program Coordinators essentially spearhead speaking with social services and the like to get referrals of persons to work for, and Field Coordinators oversee the actual camper projects.}

Please be in prayer for our staff and the different strengths that we bring to the table.  I’m really looking forward to forming a new family with my staff and growing in relationship together under the common goal of humbly serving our Lord.  But more importantly, I pray that we grow to love God more this summer and don’t succumb to treating our job like one.  I have no doubt that God is going to use us far and beyond our imagination.  We just have to be careful to not limit Him.  Collectively, we are excited about the intimacy of having a smaller staff (I’m constantly going to be thinking that someone is missing after previously being on two 8-person staffs) and the intimacy of working at the smallest CCC camp—during our first week of camp we are slated to have only 39 campers (I’m used to 80+ at Carolwood).  The facilities should also help to foster a stronger, more intimate camp community because there are few entertainment options aside from hanging out at the picnic shelter, which also dubs as our cafeteria rain or shine. 

I’m also really excited about roughing it at Camp McCall this summer.  There’s no AC.  Chiggers are everywhere.  Part of the male cabin is boarded off because of black mold.  And I’m pretty sure there’s some in my shower too.  The foundation of the kitchen is deteriorating, but hey, there’s a brand new movie projector.  I even get to punch the plastic water tank every morning to make sure that the camp doesn’t run out of water (it’s really scientific).  But while McCall certainly has its share of pitfalls, the camp is beautiful and rustic.  There’s a sweet waterfall that I look forward to showering in, which is adjacent to our beautiful stone worship area.  We also have an awesome hole in the middle of camp where there once was, and will soon be, a small lake.  And best of all, our staff living quarters is basically a screened-in porch alongside an endless supply of flying cockroaches. 

At Camp McCall we will be working in Rutherford, McDowell and Burke counties.  If you find yourself in the area let me know and perhaps I’ll let you swing on by!  If not, I love getting mail!  You can reach me at:

Blake Ervin

Camp McCall

1040 Camp McCall Rd

Bostic, NC 28018

I’ll also throw in a sad note from staff training that I am struggling to debunk:  Please be in prayer for our executive director Dave Andrews who announced yesterday that he will being taking a year-long leave of absence after providing leadership to CCC for 21 of the 22 years of the ministry.  It hurts to see a great man that I look up to feeling broken.  Pray that God heals and reinvigorates him. 

FYI, to your right you will find that I’ve added links to a few other known CCC staffer blogs, should your heart so desire to read them.    

God Bless!

Blake

Was really blessed by the prayer of a humble man i met yesterday! I'll have to divulge more soon when I get back from staff training. Loving my staff!

Hey everyone! Blake and I would just like to say we are off now to officially start our Staff Training over the next week and a half. We are both ready to get the show on the road, learn how we can best spread God's love, and help those in need. We will let everyone know how it went in our few days before the first camp week starts in June! Until next time, thanks for all the prayers and support!

So I hope everyone is getting excited like I am! I just had a great experience earlier this week meeting with my camp director and lead program. The three of us went to areas all around our camp in Ceaser to Shelby, to Kings Mt, to Lincolnton, and to others, meeting with contacts, social services, senior homes, hospitals, etc. to find people in need that we will be serving this summer! We have had some great responses and can't wait to start working for them soon! God has got some amazing stuff in store for the next few months!

A New Chapter

Hi friends and family,

Welcome to our blog!  We’ve set this up to allow you to follow Chad and I through our joys and trials this summer as we work at Carolina Cross Connection.  I ask that you shower us in prayer!  We’ll need it.  And I hope that in the process you’ll get something out of watching us persevere and grow.

I write to you in the midst of what is a bitter-sweet time:  The final, final exam of my collegiate career at UNC awaits me tomorrow afternoon (okay, sweet).  Graduation is only 4 days away!  I’ve loved living the college life and will undoubtedly miss most of it.  But all the same, I’m really looking forward to having no classes, getting a job (hopefully) and doing something to make a difference in this world as opposed to everything being about me.  My classes.  My major.  My social life.  My life.  I’m excited about the unknown of the future that God has for me. 

By the way, special thanks to the rents for picking such an awesome time for me to graduate.  The down economy, however, has been a blessing-in-disguise of sorts for me as having no “real” job blesses me with lots of versatility.  The first step… I’m stoked to be answering God’s call for me to work my 3^rd summer at Carolina Cross Connection!  This year I’ve been hired as the Camp Director at Camp McCall in Rutherford County.  It’s going to be a challenging summer as my position entails many added responsibilities, but I feel that with God at my side I am ready for the challenge.  It will certainly be a fun summer fighting poverty in rural NC during this recession.  I pray that God will use CCC as an answer to these families’ prayers, and as an unexpected awaking for those who wouldn’t think to involve the big guy in their lives. 

My past experiences of being a CCC staff member have been some of the most salient in shaping the man (sounds weird to say that) that I am today as I’ve grown exponentially in my faith and personality.  My former staff members have seen me at my best and close to my worst.  Got to love living and sharing everything with your co-workers.  And rather than disaster, an amazing community develops when serving Him is the focus.  I’m also really excited to share in these experiences (though not directly) with two of my closest friends who have never been on staff before—Chad and my girlfriend, Robin. 

Okay, that about does it for now.  If you didn’t catch the gist, I’m freaking excited!  I can’t wait to see what God has in store for my last summer on staff (though I’ve heard the “it’s my last summer on staff” line before:  cough, Taylor and Emily, cough) and how He grows me as I fill the role of spiritual leader at my camp! 

Hugs and Kisses,

Blake

Also, yeah for technology! We can now keep in touch via text messages like this one.

Hey everyone! I can't wait for such a great summer with CCC. Only a few more weeks to go!! Keep checking up with Blake and I through the blog to see all the amazing things that God is going to be doing over the next few months!