a little road trip.

On Sunday, I had the privilege to travel to Prince Edward Island with Kevin Strout. We are working on developing our summer camp programs and would like to make our programs available to the two First Nations communities on the Island. In the past there has been young people come from the island for our summer camps, we'd love to see this relationship revived. Kevin took me to the Island with the hope to introduce me to some of the believers there.

It was a good opportunity to spend some time with Kevin, who is working building relationships in communities in New Brunswick and PEI. It was also great to meet some of the folk on the Island. Lord willing we will see some young people at camp - there is even the possibility that we may be holding outdoor clubs there early in July. Details of that are underway, but in the meantime you can pray that this opportunity might come to be a reality.

Plans for camp continue to develop. Staffing is coming along, but we are still looking for ministry teams to come and serve for the first two weeks of August, most notably for cabin leaders. It is a great opportunity for families to come and serve together; it is also an excellent ministry opportunity for college and career and youth groups.

The men's retreat is upon us as well, prayer is appreciated as we plan and prepare; we'd love to see a great turnout. This is a fantastic opportunity for discipleship and ministry and we'd love to see it grow into it's full potential.

Spring Work Week 2014

Every Spring we hold a Spring work week to help us in completing some maintenance and repair as well as property clean up from the Winter. This year we were unable to do any yard work, as the yard is still much buried in snow. It is finally clearing, so we will begin with the leaf and windfall clean-up over the next few weeks.

It was so wonderful to have our friends from Victory Baptist Church, Newmarket, Ontario with us this past week; we had a wonderful week of fellowship and labour together as final renovations to the speakers cabin were done as well as finishing touches in the bookshop and a new tile floor in the staff washrooms.

One of the most vital ministries that people share with us in is practical hands on work here at the property. Without these faithful servants of the Lord we would not be able to maintain our physical property.

 Daphne was always helping everywhere, doing the dishes was a huge help in the kitchen.

Martin worked hard at completing the mudding.

Roger kindly loaned us his tile saw so we could lay tile in the staff bathrooms.
 

It was great to get to know George & Barb this year - they did some great work in our staff washrooms.

The team from Victory also did some finishing touches on the painting in the bookshop.

 Paul doing drywall prep.

We'd love to adopt these lovely folks!! What a blessing it was to have them with us this week.

The Speakers Cabin renovation has been a project undertaken by our friends at Victory Baptist Church Newmarket, Ontario for two years now. It is wonderful to see it come to completion. Although the "after" picture is beautiful - it does not do justice to the amount of work the team did to achieve it. After the demo, the building was completely re-insulated and plumbed; a wall was moved and a new window and door installed, new flooring was lay and the walls all freshly painted! It has been a huge blessing to get to know and work alongside these hard working folks!

a course or two...

Last week Liz was off to Fredericton to take a Food Handling and Safety course, this is a necessary certification for her to have. I will also have the course (hopefully in June), but prior to that, Kevin Strout and I will be taking the First Aid course with St. John's Ambulance. This primarily so that we are trained for the Cape Breton camp out; although we are excited that we will have an RN joining us that week for staff.

Things are beginning to come together for summer - we have a few decisions to make in the next few weeks about staffing etc., but we're always glad to hear from new groups who are interested in coming out.

We are still hoping to receive some registrations for the ANBC Men's Retreat; without a minimum of 12 - 15 pre-registrations we will not be able to move ahead with the event. So if you are planning to join us, please drop us a line.



This week we are hosting a team of servant hearted folks from Victory Baptist Church in Newmarket, Ontario. They have come to do some major finishing work on one of our guest cottages as well as some other important maintenance projects. Stay tuned here for pictures and a full update at the end of the week.

Together for the Gospel: 2014

 
Last week I had the awesome privilege to attend the T4G (Together for the Gospel) pastors conference in Louisville, Kentucky. I traveled with my pastor and two other pastor friends, and was immensely blessed by the fellowship and encouragement of each of them. I had initially decided against going to the conference due to the potential cost of travel, but funds were made available and several kind individuals made it possible for me to attend. It was a refreshing time in God's Word; I cannot even begin to explain what the worship and study of God's Word was like at T4G. Over 7,000 people gathered to sit under faithful teaching in 9 sessions, 6 panel discussions and a breakout lecture over the course of just two and a half days.

For those who are interested, you can watch all of the sessions and panel discussions on the T4G website by clicking HERE.

Below is a brief photo journal of our journey and the conference.

We left Sunday, immediately following church and traveled to Alan & Diane Ardern's home in Tatamagouche, NS. They live in a lighthouse, which is awesome. I slept in the tower, which is more awesome.

On Monday Alan drove Andrew and I to the Halifax airport where we were greeted at the United Airlines ticket counter with; "oh, you two gentlemen must think you're flying to Louisville today... but you can't." Our flight had been delayed with the new arrival time in Louisville being 6:30 pm the following day, 24 hours later than expected. We approached another airline, US Airways, and they were able to make arrangements for us to fly to Nashville that day.

Bill and Sean arrived, calm, cool and collected, just in time for us to catch our newly assigned flight.

Our flight allowed us less than an hour in Toronto to get through security and customs, but after a jog through Pearson we made it with moments to spare.

When we arrived in Nashville we rented a car and hit the road. It was about a 3 hour drive to Louisville, and we arrived in time to have a decent nights sleep before the beginning of the conference.

Prior to T4G there was a mini conference being hosted in the hotel where we were staying. The Council for Biblical Manhood and Womanhood (CBMW) is a group of Christian leaders and teachers who are committed to a complementarian relationship between men and woman and their distinct roles within the church and family. The conference was about three hours long and we heard from a number of speakers in that short time. At the end of this short conference we already felt "filled up" and had yet to even register at the main conference.

The main conference was held at the "KFC Yum Center" in Louisville, KY, and began after lunch on Tuesday. 

"If we cared more about what God thinks of our friends who don't know Christ, and less about what they think about us, we would evangelize more." -Mark Dever

"Hell is real, wrath is terrible; and it is against that backdrop that repentance is so beautiful." -Thabiti Anyabwile

We were blessed to hear messages throughout the conference from nine different men, all dealing with missions and evangelism. They admonished us to be prayerfully diligent, biblically grounded and eternally motivated in taking the Gospel of Jesus Christ everywhere, always.

The music was amazing, almost 8,000 voices joined in worship accompanied only by Bob Kauflin on the piano.Click HERE for a brief peek at the music.

On Wednesday Tim Challies organized a "True North Luncheon" for any of the Canadians attending T4G to meet and discuss evangelism and missions in Canada. We enjoyed a panel discussion and Chick-Fil-A lunch.

We each had the option to attend a break out seminar, I selected "The Importance of Inerrancy for Evangelism in Missions" facilitated by Ligon Duncan and Albert Mohler. The lecture was just an hour but excellent.

It was amazing to be a part of such a big conference, we never knew who we might run into. This is Pastor Andrew Ardern and Christian hip-hop artist Trip-Lee. 

Travel all the way to Kentucky and we ran into some friends from the Maritimes.

Here is Pastor Sean Crowe with Lamp Mode artist, God's Servant.

An added bonus to each of the conferences was the books that we received as a part of our registration. We were given some excellent resources and materials to read; additional to that was the huge Lifeway Christian store, giving us access to some great resources and materials at very reasonable prices.

It was a great blessing and encouragement to travel with these pastors, we enjoyed challenging and edifying conversation and shared together in worship and prayer. Left to right is William Emberley, pastor of Grace Baptist Church; Sean Crowe, pastor of Gospel Light Baptist Church; Andrew Ardern, pastor of Cumberland Bay Baptist Church and myself.

After three very full days we began our return journey. Andrew and Kayla kindly returned me to Cumberland Bay.

While I was adventuring all over the place, my precious ladies traveled to Nova Scotia to visit grammie & grampie DeNuke at the farm; Ivy had a great time with her cousins. I certainly did miss them while I was away, it was great to go, but I felt half lost without my girls.

All in all it was a very worth while time, one that I am grateful for and will look back to often as we enter into a very busy time of ministry here at Arrowhead; what a fantastic way to kick off the Spring.

April Fools Day 2014 at ANBC

Sometimes during the winter months it can feel like the bulk of my ministry is in snow removal; that has been the case a few times this winter at least. It feels like New Brunswick has endured a relentless pounding of snow.

Generally at this time of year we are beginning to see the ground, and plans are well underway for our big work week at the end of April. This year I am praying that we'll be able to get to the buildings to work on them. It's hard to believe we have this much snow on April 1st. The last couple of days brought us sleet, freezing rain and all kinds of snow, today was a clean up.

The new steel roofs have done a great job of shedding all of this snow this winter, imagine if those piles were on the roof?! yikes.

Got my glove in the way in this one - check out the pile of snow on the left - it's up to the level of the lower roof edge of the bookshop.

Cabin 3 & the craft cabin; peeking out of the snow.

This was my view most of the day today!

Cox Point road was plowed early today.

 There's a park bench in there somewhere...

Lots of snow in front of the tuck shop / book store.

Mission Fest Halifax: Jesus To The Nations 2014

Every year at this time I have the privilege of joining Phil & Gracie Welch in Halifax to represent NCEM at Jesus to the Nations, otherwise known as Missionfest Halifax. It's a great weekend that always gives opportunity to see old friends and connect with new. Once again, this was the case. I had the opportunity to talk to a number of people that were interested in missions among Canada's First Nations; and I enjoyed fellowship with missionaries working with other agencies in various parts of the world. If you missed us this year, you can always check it out next March! We will, undoubtedly, be there.

The group selfie!

I have some wonderful friends who are committed to the Gospel and seeing it go forth; it is a blessing to call them my brothers.

It was nice to see Katelyn, she spent a couple of summers with us at A.N.B.C.