Praise God that this summer our church family has been able to support 13 of our youth and young adults who decided to use their summer months to serve God in either a Christian Camp, or parachurch, setting. Here are a few of their stories!
Rachel Laldin
Hi Church,
My name is Rachel Laldin and I got the chance to work at Camp Nutimik for 6 weeks this summer! This is my third year being on staff. I was hired as part of the Housekeeping Team, however I was stretched in other ways as well. I did spend four weeks on the Housekeeping Team, but I also spent one week Cabin Leading and two weeks as the Campus Care Lead. It was good to see the different sides of Campus Care from a leadership perspective. That week gave me a desire to step up for other leadership opportunities in the future.
During my week as a Cabin Leader, Kiahna Oeste and I led some of the Whyte Ridge middle years’ girls! We were able to build connections and grow relationships with them that I hope will continue at church. We had many great memories and times for spiritual growth. We were able to share testimonies and pray through shared experiences. Pastor Rudy had just led a chapel talking about the Holy Spirit. He then told us to share our experience of how the Holy Spirit had worked in our lives. After sharing, we extended this opportunity and found that we had more in common than we thought. Wes Krahn had been a spiritual mentor for many of us, both at church and at school. His influence was a common thread in testimonies, and the girls shared about how they could see the Holy Spirit working through him in different ways. I’m praying that our girls continue to seek God through this coming school year and know His presence with them.
I would like to thank Whyte Ridge Baptist Church for supporting me with prayer and financial support.
Rachel Laldin
Emma Wynne
My Name is Emma Wynne, this summer I had the opportunity to serve at Camp Nutimik as a Program Lead and the Waterfront Lead. From the point of view of a Program Lead, I got to watch staff members invest in their campers, showing a deep profound love and energy that only comes from the Holy Spirit. I got to spend spring in a season of planning out camp program such as games, schedule, biblical teaching curriculum, and training our summer staff.
This summer we emphasized the idea of Shouting with Joy inspired from the scripture in Psalm 100. We looked at the gospel of Jesus and why we have reason to Shout with Joy. Jesus has beaten death and made a way for us to rejoice in Him in heaven for all eternity! It was truly a privilege to walk alongside staff as they dig deep in their faith and share the gospel with their campers.
In my waterfront position, I got to lead a wonderful team of guards that care deeply about creating an environment where it is safe to experience God’s beautiful creation and provide new experiences such as canoeing, kayaking, and paddle boarding for so many kids. Much of the work I had the privilege of doing this summer, was encouraging our staff as they serve, help grow and develop our camp leaders, and pay attention to how God was using our circumstances to create opportunity to Glorify Him further. Praise God for the seeds that were planted, the staff who are excited to share the good news, and the first time commitments/ rededication’s that we get to celebrate.
Jackson Wynne
Hello, My name is Jackson Wynne and this summer I served at Camp Nutimik for 6 weeks of the summer fulfilling the roles of a Steps Mentor and the Worship Arts Lead.
As a Steps Mentor I was a cabin leader for the 3 leadership programs we offer, Step Up, Step In, and Step Out. Within these programs we teach the kids how to become leaders and how to work as a team to achieve goals and live a life that is honouring to God. Each group had a very different feel to how they operated with each other, some groups were more sporty and some were very artsy, and all the in-betweens, but what was super cool was to see how they used their gifts and past experiences to connect to us as leaders, to their peers, and eventually to the campers in the other programs that were younger and had these future leaders to look up to. Each group had many GITs (Group Initiative Tasks) that challenged their brains and bodies that we as leaders got to watch and experience with them. As I watched these GITs and activities it reminded me of when I was involved in the steps program and what God had done for me when I was in those kids shoes, I was able to use examples and stories from my time in the program and apply them to lessons in evening devotionals like how God is always walking with us and how he will not fail or give up on us. God was able to use me and my experience as a leader at camp and as a camper to guide these kids and encourage them to step up in their faith and grow into spiritual leaders.
The Step Up program graduated and became staff this year and put them to the task of being leaders to their first group of campers whether that meant cabin leading, doing dishes, leading devos, or cleaning toilets. It was incredible to see their progress as leaders and their openness to come with questions that either they had, or their campers had to their leaders and now peers and that I can still be apart in guiding them and working with them to share Gods word and love.
The other part of my Job was the Worship Arts Lead position, which gave me the responsibility of running Chapels everyday as well as Firesides every other night. Music is one gift from God that he has blessed me with and he has been guiding me over the past couple years into leading worship sessions in church, chapels, and everywhere I go. The big lesson I felt from God this summer in both Jobs was that I am not in control of the future and I cannot do things how I want but instead I must do things the way he has planned for me. In chapels at the beginning of the summer I felt I was occupied with doing everything right and making it to a certain standard that I forgot to actually worship… Now after one week of that during staff training week, I realized that I needed to let go of my standard and let God speak through the songs we sing and let my voice shout in pure Awe and worship. He has help me to let go and understand that my job is not to put on a show (as I do usually in music school), but to guide others in pure Worship.
Thank you for supporting me and the camp in sharing the Gospel and Gods unfailing love to the kids who come and get to experience the Joy of the Lord.
Rachel Kartesz
I am so thankful for all the financial and prayer support I have received from my wonderful church family at Whyte Ridge Baptist Church! This summer, I had the privilege to work for Youth for Christ, with inner-city youth in the North End. I have many stories of ways I’ve seen God work in the hearts of the youth this summer, but the one I will share is about three siblings, and the heart changes God began. They began the summer with no interest in Jesus whatsoever. Whenever we had our X-Factors, the scheduled time to talk to the youth about Jesus, they seemed disengaged. But God is always working, even when it seems He isn’t. After the X-Factors, we always had small group time to unpack Christian concepts with the youth. By the end of the summer, one of my coworkers was having some small group time with the three siblings, and he asked them whether they would be interested in pursuing a relationship with God. The younger siblings said “no”, but the oldest said “maybe”, which prompted the younger siblings to change their answers to maybe as well. From that moment, I observed a growing desire and curiosity to know Jesus from the eldest sibling. His mother has even expressed an interest in getting baptised!
This story is just one beautiful example of how youth ministry can impact entire families with a desire to know Christ and pursue Him. Please be in prayer for this family, that they would continue to take meaningful steps toward knowing Christ and His will for their lives. This summer, God has focused my heart on this idea of having a “legacy of faith”. When we don’t know Christ, we are stuck in a broken “legacy of sin”. I saw the effects of this legacy of sin and brokenness in the North End this summer, in broken families, poverty, addiction, and other life difficulties. God used this summer to impart on me a greater understanding of his grace to invite EVERYONE into the “legacy of faith”, no matter who we are or where we come from, he wants to invite us into his family, into this legacy of faith. We are all so deeply connected to one another, and the story of the three siblings embodies this. A single choice to be curious can prompt an entire family to a change of heart about what they want their legacy to be.
