HoneyRock Round-Up is Coming Your Way

HoneyRock Round-Up is this Saturday from 3:30 to 6:30pm in the SRC (Sports & Recreation Complex) on the Wheaton College campus.  Round-Up is sure to be a fun event for your whole family!  Feel free to invite your friends and remember to bring your bathing suit if you want to swim in the pool.  The climing wall will be open for your use and we will have other games and activities available.

We will have a special promotional drawing for campers from 2010.  If your child attended camp last summer and brings a friend to Round-Up who has never been to HoneyRock before, your child and your child's friend will be entered in a drawing for the chance to receive a $100 discount off this year's camp fee!  When you arrive at Round-Up, please check in at the table right inside the main entrance to the SRC.  In order to be eligible for the promotion drawing, you need to come to the check-in table with your child and friend and be prepared to supply your child's full name and friend's contact information.  The promotional drawing will take place at dinner, and you must be present to win.

We look forward to seeing you there!

Fact. We're excited!

 2:22 Mission Control

Welcome to 2:22 Mission Control!

I'd like to introduce you to myself (Rick) and Mary Elise. We will be leading, organizing, hiring, planning, and praying for this program. Soon we will have a team of sixteen staff to to share this program with and complete the total team. It's exciting to talk to potential 2:22 staffers and think about how God leads, draws and prepares those who he employs for specific tasks.  Each conversation or application we receive is a blessing and an encouragement to see God working and building the structure of this new program. Here is a quick bio of how Mary Elise and I came be working in 2:22 and why we are eagerly anticipating God to do more than we could ask or imagine (Eph3:20). 

Rick Masters
I started working in Junior High/Middle school ministry before college and quickly found that being a part of a younger person's life made my life so much more fun and meaningful. This completely set my life in a trajectory to be used for the Gospel, specifically in people's lives, in the context of the church. Then, in college I worked at a camp in Colorado where this passion collided with camping which caused an explosion of excitement that I could combine my care for youth and backpacking! Since then I have seen God do AMAZING things and if you were to sit down with me, I would tell you amazing stories of how God changed people using His Word in the wilderness. This is my third year here at HoneyRock and continually He has shown me He is faithful as I step out and really trust him. This year I am purposefully remembering and counting on these stories of God's hand to give me encouragement, faith, creativity, and understanding of His word to make 2:22 less of a program and more of an experience. I hope this summer someone can say that it was this year that I decided to give my life away and let God use it in the life of someone else. I am praying daily that we have a host of 2 Timothy 2:2 and 2 Timothy 2:22 boys, girls and staff emerge from this summer!

Mary Elise Ducworth
I feel incredibly blessed and excited for several reasons to have the opportunity to work with 2:22! A year ago, I moved from Tennessee to do HoneyRock’s graduate assistant program.  My experiences at camp began as a fourth grader wearing eye-blinding florescent tie-die shirts and shorts.  God used years of experiences at camp to enhance my growth. During and after college, through working with youth groups and campus organizations, God formed in me a passion for life-on-life, Gospel-centered ministry. These passions combined with a love of the outdoors brought me to HoneyRock.  I had the privilege of spending last summer working in the high school program as a counselor!  That experience convinced me of campers’ potential to grow in their personal relationships with Christ and greatly affect their local communities. Basically, I am pumped!

Next blog post (Tues): "HELP!!!!!"

Survey Says

From the Director's Corner

Fall is the time of year when the HoneyRock staff takes a look back and reviews what happened in order to look ahead and plan for next year.  We recieved 349 surveys from parents representing 858 campers and some 600 families.  We are now pouring through over 200 pages of statistics and written reponses.  It is a very encouraging read as parent after parent speaks to the impact of HoneyRock on their child's life.  Of course there are also comments on how we've let people down or ways things didn't go as planned...and from that we learn.  I thought I would share some fun statistics and will be expounding more on what we learned in future blogs and in the e-newsletter that will come out later this week.

Did you know...

1. Whose idea and decision was it to come to camp?  60% of the children took the intiative and 36% of the parents took the initiative.

2. Overall experience of HoneyRock:  93% of campers liked their counselor a lot (5.69 average on 6 point scale), 94% of campers had a fun, enjoyable experience (5.7 on 6 point scale), and 93% of parents felt the counselor was invested in their child's life and that their child was well cared for.

4. 67% of families are planning to return next year and 30% said maybe.  The biggest challenges to families returning are timing/scheduling, finances, and distance to HoneyRock.

5. Financially, 26.7% of campers recieved scholarships, 14.5 % were assisted by grandparents, and 20% of campers earned some of their own money for camp.

6. 96% of parents said HoneyRock was an excellent or good value for the money.

7. 60% of our campers are from the Chicagoland area and 10% are from the Northwoods.

8. The office staff, registration system, and check-in received an average mark of 5.6 on a 6 point scale with 6 being excellent.  We did receive written feedback on the number of forms, ways to streamline bus check-in, and other insightful ideas to improve our service.  Thanks for that great input.

9.  Finally and most importantly, the top three ways that campers grew were:  increased confidence to take on challenges and solve problems, deepened growth in their personal relationship with Christ, and an improved ability to get to know and to live with others (4.56 average on 6.0 scale with 6 being "a lot of growth").

Thank you, parents, for taking time to complete the survey.  We are listening and will take your comments to heart.  Thanks, as always, for entrusting us with your kids.

HoneyRock's new 2:22 program - What's in a Name?

Welcome to the column for 2:22 written by me, Rick Masters, the Adventure Ministry Program Manager. Every Tuesday and on some Fridays you will find information about 2:22 that will include program philosophy, articles about our youth culture, stories and testimonies from staff and campers, and programming elements you (or your son or daughter) will do and learn. Friday's blog will be a bit more light-hearted and will also include information about our Graduate Program Assistantships and Winter Retreats.  I look forward to engaging your heart and mind on this space.

What's with the name...2:22????

 

Remember how you felt when your 3rd grade teacher got your name wrong?  Well, we want to get this program's name right and make sure you as a reader, camper, staff member and parent get what is in this name.  

The name comes from 2 Timothy 2:22 for three reasons:

1.  Paul, the writer of the book, is the older/mentor and Timothy, the recipient, is the younger/learner.  Paul is pouring into Timothy in a tough time in his life as he is becoming a disciple of Jesus and leader in a ministry. This model works contextually because mentoring is central to what we do at camp in the counselor-camper and program director-counselor relationships here at HoneyRock.

2. This verse goes to the core of what we need to be encouraged to pursue rather than what our media, culture, social sources and surroundings may try to sell us as important.  As you know, at  HoneyRock we pursue Jesus with all our hearts.

3. The surrounding verses are a great context to understanding the specific verse and giving the text more life and practical advice in how to become a disciple of Jesus.

The name 2:22 isn't important to us--it's actually the vision of who Paul is calling Timothy, me, you and your son or daughter to be, that is important.  The principles of this verse will be a set of guiding principles, a set of glasses/scaffolding/filter for all we plan to accomplishing in hearts this summer.  I won't deprive you of the opportunity to open your Bible and read the book of 2 Timothy a few times to see why we are excited about teaching its truths.

Join me in reading, commenting, and reflecting on this column.  I hope you will be informed, prepared and excited for what GOD will do as we prepare and plan for the summer.  I look forward to engaging your heart and mind here in this space.  If you are a thinking of coming to our new program this summer, I hope you get to read and comment on this space so you can tell everyone to come to HoneyRock with you!

Register for Summer 2011!

Camp registration for next summer is now open! Visit our secure Camper Registration Form by clicking here. 

If you're interested in working for HoneyRock next summer, fill out our 2011 Summer Staff application. 

Happy camping!

Wind storms, branches, and flurries

It seems that the entire Midwest, or at least the Northwoods and Wheaton, has been the recipient of some intense wind storms. As a result, power and communications have been severed to many homes and businesses in our area.

Note: Due to the weather conditions, we currently do not have an outside phone connection and our Internet connection is spotty. 

We are so thankful for those who have gone before and donated generators for our use to help us keep things running. Please keep in your prayers those who still await power, the linemen that are diligently working to restore it, and all (including Scott, Bill and Dan) who are clearing trees, logs and branches from roads. 

Update on Thursday, October 28, 2010 at 3:55PM by Luis

Update: our phones are working as of this afternoon.