Hello friends and family!
I’m happy to report that there is never a dull moment when you work directly for God. Just when you think everything has settled into a routine, He lovingly upends your world to remind you that His ways are far above your own. What a wonderful adventure it is to serve the God of storms!
Camp News
Our brand-new Ministry Crew arrived on August 21st and began training the next day. We’re excited about the nine crew members who are here for their first year as well as our ten returning veterans. They are all considered part-time staff, but there’s no ‘part time’ in the way they serve while they’re here! These are the people who cook meals, run activities, clean cabins, change light bulbs, fix roads, and so much more. We’re so thankful for all the work they do and for the opportunity to teach them and be taught by them! (If you’d like to know more about the two different programs that make up our Ministry Crew, shoot me a message from our contact page!)
After orientation, we dived right into camp with the new crew and have already served eight different camps in the last four weeks. Even more impressively, we accomplished this while initiating a new scheduling paradigm. This may sound like a small change, but scheduling is what keeps all fifty-one people on the working staff moving in the right direction at the right time. Changing the schedule is like rebuilding an engine with all the gears in new places. It takes some extra grease, a few grinding halts and lots of fine tuning to get the machine running smoothly again. Please pray that God would give patience in the process of learning something new so that the busy life of camp is manageable for everyone on staff.
Ironwood was prepared for and did get hit by Hurricane Hillary. To be quite honest, it was a huge disappointment with barely enough wind and rain to make a seasoned desert rat blink twice. However on September 2nd, the Saturday of our first camp since orientation, a day that was forecasted to have a slight chance of rain showers, an unnamed (but real) storm surprised everyone. Over the course of a few hours roads disappeared, cabins flooded, a van was buried up to the running board in a mud slide, and vehicles got stuck in the world’s largest instant pothole. Now, nearly four weeks later, our Grounds and Maintenance teams are still trying to mitigate the damage done by this anonymous storm cell. Pray that God would provide the funds, wisdom, and energy needed to repair roads and roofs. But also take a moment with me to chuckle at God’s sense of humor. Consider the timing, the forecast, the power of the storm cell that we didn’t even have the foresight to name, the impotence of the storm that we did name… What an awesome display of God’s majesty and sovereignty compared to our human, well, nothingness.
Palkki News
Gabe’s work area has been busy with the usual demands of the job as vehicles break down and he juggles the needs of different teams, the number of trucks that do run, and the number of trucks that should be running. He was able to replace the old maintenance truck, which has been a thorn in the flesh for several years, with a new utility pickup. He also trained the new Ministry Crew on driving work trucks, pulling trailers and operating equipment.
Orientation was especially busy for me as we prepared for another semester of Defined and trained a new kitchen crew. The transition from summer to off-season also created extra work as I finished leftover cleanup, set up for our incoming speakers, and worked on projects for our upcoming 50th Anniversary celebration. The new schedule threw me for a loop and will require some adjustment before it fits the needs of our family and my work area.
This has been the month of fix-its for Gabe and I. Within a week, our car broke down, our refrigerator died, and our dryer started making a horrible squeaking noise. Outside of that week, we’ve had to replace or mend two different tires. And we’re not even going to mention what the storm did to the hillside on our front yard! Despite all this, God is good. We were able to replace the part in our dryer, camp bought a new refrigerator for our house, and some very good friends decided to pay the majority of our car repair bill. (On top of that, I’ve taken the dryer apart so many times I think I may have a future in appliance repair.) Right now, our special prayer request is that God would provide a more reliable vehicle. We’re looking for something that will last for several years, will allow us to take passengers to church, and will be easy on our gas budget. Please join us in asking God to show us the right vehicle for the right price.
It's been a wild ride from new staff to new schedules, from a broken transmission to an unexpected storm. But like that storm, God uses the most unexpected circumstances to show Himself in the biggest ways. We’re excited to see what He does next!
Love in Christ,
Gabe and Cheyenne Palkki
PS: There are updates in the Gallery, as well as in the Prayer and Praises page!