It's a Girl!

Liz Henderson--Program Team Asst.

We are excited to welcome the newest member of the HoneyRock Family: Emma Jane Eppler born on Wednesday, September 8 to Scott and Anne Eppler.  Scott is the Program Maintenance and Grounds Manager at HoneyRock.  Emma joins her brother, Sam (6) and sister, Libby (2).  We are thankful for her safe arrival!

Alex Heidengren Memorial Chapel

This month we will be celebrating HoneyRock's 60th year of ministry!  I know many of you are coming to the celebration from September 24-26.  If you haven't signed up yet there is still time!  Click here to find out more.

One of the things we will be doing over the weekend is dedicating the Alex Heidengren Memorial Chapel.  Alex was a counselor here in 2009 and on August 8, 2009 tragically drowned in Long Lake near the site where this chapel is being built.  This memorial chapel was funded by family friends who wanted to help us honor and remember Alex and what he lived for. 

This beautiful building is currently being constructed by Bill Long and his crew.  The building is designed to be an open-air pavilion-style space and will be used for
special commitment services and small group meetings.  Built mostly of stone with some wood accents, it will have a wooden roof (similar to the new cabins) and a nice stone fireplace.  It promises to be a beautiful place--very fitting to remember Alex and his ministry at HoneyRock.

I thought you'd enjoy seeing  a few pictures of the progress. 

Three Lakes Volleyball Comes to HoneyRock

Liz Henderson--Program Team Asst.

At HoneyRock we are thankful for the connections we have in the town of Three Lakes.  Several of our staff members coach teams in the area.  Elizabeth Baltus, HoneyRock Registration Coordinator, is the Varsity Volleyball coach at Three Lakes High School and I volunteer as her assistant.  This season there are several girls on the JV and Varsity teams who participated in Advance Camp, Adventure Camp and DTP at HoneyRock this summer.

On Labor Day the JV and Varsity Volleyball teams came to HoneyRock to do team building.  The girls spent the afternoon on the Stillwaters course doing activities such as the Spider's Web, Hodag Watch, Acid River and Gollum's Island.  It was a great opportunity for the teams to work together, improve communication, set goals and become unified. 

They had a fun time and learned more about themselves and each other as they gained insight into how to function better as a team.  We enjoyed the opportunity to have them here and are looking forward to a great season!

Update

Wow!  The summer has finally come to an end.  We just sent 216 Passage students down to the Wheaton campus this afternoon.  It has been an amazing final week(s) here at HoneyRock!  God is good.

We apologize for the lack of blog updates recently.  With the amount of people here to serve, we've had to neglect the blog.

Our next blog entry won't come until September 7.  We are "closing camp" for the next 2-weeks so that the staff can get a little bit of a break.

Thanks to many of you for following this blog so faithfully.  We'll be back with more posts soon.

Summer Offering

At each Sunday service throughout the summer we took up an up an offering to support the printing of the Chinese translation of
the Preacher’s Outline and Sermon Bible®. 
HoneyRock set a goal of raising $5000 to support this work.  We are happy to announce that we exceed our goal and raised $6182.71!  What is great is that $2990 of this came from campers!!

WHAT IS THE PREACHER’S OUTLINE & SERMON
BIBLE®? 
The Preacher’s Outline & Sermon Bible® (POSB)
is a unique, dynamic and powerful work of critical Bible explanation and expression. It has been painstakingly
developed from the original Greek and Hebrew over a 20-year period to help all who
teach the Word of God prepare in-depth sermons and lessons.  It can be a resource for pastors
and teachers who may have had little or no seminary training, enabling them to preach
and teach with solid Bible-based conviction.  The POSB is distributed
throughout the world and with close to two million volumes in print, it is
available in several different languages and is used on mission fields in many
countries.  Much more than a
commentary, it is a complete resource for expository and topical preaching.

THE
CHINESE TRANSLATION: 
The Chinese Preacher’s Outline & Sermon Bible®
was licensed to the Chinese Church in 1988 and it took five full-time Chinese
workers 12 years to complete the translation of the 14-volume English version.  It took an additional five years of
application and prayer before the Chinese Government officially approved the
publishing of the Chinese 3-volume, 53,000 pages of the New Testament
verse-by-verse Preachers Outline & Sermon Bible®.  10,000 sets were originally printed and within 9 months all
the copies had been distributed to church leaders in China.  The 30-volume Old Testament version is currently
being translated by a team of 20 Chinese workers and will take approximately 8
years to complete.

Go to www.outlinebible.org for more information.

HoneyRock Says Goodbye to Campers, Hello to Students

This morning marked the final bus departure day for our 2010 camper programs, as we said goodbye to 262 campers (179 who were here for two weeks, 60 who were here for three weeks, and another 23 who were here for six weeks).  Departure mornings are bittersweet and filled with excitement, tears, sadness and joy as counselors and campers alike say goodbye to new friends, and the transition back into their lives at home begins for campers. 

While today is the end of our camper summer, HoneyRock is still in full swing for another two weeks.  There are currently 61 Wheaton College Freshmen out on wilderness trips.  Tomorrow 16 freshmen will arrive at Wheaton College to begin their college experience as a part of the Wheaton Passage Urban Track Program, on Monday a group of 200 student leaders from Wheaton College will come for a time of retreat and preparation for the upcoming school year, and on Tuesday another 138 Wheaton College Freshmen will arrive at HoneyRock to begin their college experience.  So, for those of us who waved goodbye to campers this morning, the work and excitement of summer ministry continues.

campers bags line the tent awaiting parent pick-up

the bays of the buses get loaded up for those being taken back home