Jan 2011 Newsletter

I fancy myself as a little bit of a handy man.  We purchased a house in La Porte City that had a lot of character but needed a lot of attention.  It was my goal to remodel each room as we could afford it.

My first project was the main bathroom.  The old plaster was falling off of the wall.  I figured I could jump right in and repair as I go.  The problem was I didn’t have a plan.  I tore the plaster off the wall near the bathtub on a week end and realized that I needed to insulate while the wall was exposed.  It wasn’t possible for me to run and get some since the Menards was in Waterloo, so I just put the sheetrock on without it.  And as I got farther into the project I kept running into other un-anticipated problems.  I did not look ahead to plan what I needed.  In the end, the bathroom was done, but I was not happy with the work. 

I learned two important lessons on that project:

1)      Don’t do things halfway (you’ll just have to do them  over again)

2)       Have a plan for where you want to go. 

Since that project, I have improved the work on each successive room I completed.  The point being, without a plan you will go nowhere, or you will go in the wrong direction. 

That’s where we are right now, at Cedar Springs; we thank Brad Toppin for his years of service to the camp.  He has taken the camp from a very low state of repair, to an outstanding looking facility, but as we thought about coming to Cedar Springs, Brad pointed out something important: He worked like crazy to maintain the facility; He could not focus on the future because his energy and resources were required for maintaining what we have.  Well Brad, thank you again for your hard work and advice.  Now, with his preparation, Theresa and I have been called to take the camp to the next level.

The first step is to create a vision for what God wants to accomplish with the ministry of CS.  Our vision can be found in our new mission statement:

“Creating environments for people to experience God”. 

Our goal at CS is to create an atmosphere where people who use the camp can get away from the bustle of the world and connect with God.  Everything that we do must accomplish that mission.  Most of you will agree that we have been doing that already, but in order to become a thriving ministry we must expand what we are already doing.  There are many exciting improvements that we are planning and invite each one of you to get on board to make them happen.  This newsletter and (soon to be) updated web site is only the beginning.