Meandering Moose

A New Fresh Start

2021 was another year for the history books. And not one I’m sure any of us wants to repeat it. I’m sure most of us thought we would leave most of the mask wearing and plexiglass behind. Fortunately, we did get a vaccine, but new variants continue to put so much to the test.

Every January 1st we get a new start in a new year. A time to reset our lives, routines, habits and practices, to make improvements and changes.

Interestingly, when God sent the nations of Judah and Israel into captivity in Babylon, He was sending them back to the original home of Abraham (Ur of the Chaldeans). When they left to go back to Israel they were going back for a new start. Calling them back to Himself. Perhaps 2022 will be that for us.

But January 1st isn’t the only time we can get a fresh start. Every time we come to go for forgiveness we get a new start. Hopefully we choose not to continue on with our sinful ways. The problem with the Christian life sometimes is that it is SO daily. We have to take up our cross daily. We have to decide daily to live in obedience with Him.

These decisions include, but are not limited to what your character will be, what your attitude will be, your work ethic, your personality, how deep will your spiritual walk be, who will be your friends, what are your guiding life principles, how will you treat the people around you, how will you deal with conflict or disappointment or failure, how will you represent yourself to others, and there are many more decisions that you haven’t even realized yet.

Here is one resolution I shoot for now, “be it resolved, to be a better person on December 31, 2022 than I am today through prayer, Bible study and service to my fellow man.”

What will 2022 hold for you?

A New Christmas Tradition

This year we added a new Christmas tradition at our Greenfield extended family Christmas party. A hot chocolate bar. Feel free to add your own, but here are the ingredients we used:

Hot chocolate powder (Costco size)
Coffee
Cinnamon sticks
Candy canes
Choc chips: milk choc, mint, white, butterscotch
Nutmeg
Cinnamon
Whipped cream
Maraschino cherries
Mini-marshmallows
Toffee bits
Oreo crumbs
Icy squares
Flavoured syrups: choc, mint, caramel, French vanilla
Sprinkles
Chopped peanuts
Crushed peppermints
Cookies: shortbread, sugar cookies, Tim Tams
Bailey’s (if you like)

We also used it for our small group potluck and family Christmas. Put your own spin on it and enjoy!!

Merry Christmas!! & Happy New Year!!

Christmas Cookie Calorie Rules

This seems straight forward. This is not original to me. Christmas cookies have no calories if consumed in the following ways.

If you eat a Christmas cookie fresh out of the oven, it has no calories because everyone knows that the first cookie is the test and thus calorie-free.
If you drink a diet soda after eating your second cookie, it also has no calories because the diet soda cancels out the cookie calories.
If a friend comes over while you’re making your Christmas cookies and needs to sample, you must sample with your friend. Because your friend’s first cookie is calories free (see rule #1) yours is also. It would be rude to let your friend sample alone and, being the friend that you are, that makes your cookie calorie free.
Any cookie calories consumed while walking around will fall to your feet and eventually fall off as you move. This is due to gravity and the density of the caloric mass.
Any calories consumed during the frosting of the Christmas cookies will be used up because it takes many calories to lick excess frosting from a knife without cutting your tongue.
Cookies colored red or green have very few calories. Red ones have three and green ones have five – one calorie for each letter. Make more red ones!
Cookies eaten while watching a Christmas show or movie have no calories because they are part of the entertainment package and not part of one’s personal fuel.
As always, cookie pieces contain no calories because the process of breaking causes caloric leakage.
Any cookies consumed from someone else’s plate have no calories since the calories rightfully belong to the other person and will cling to their plate. We all know how calories like to CLING!
Any cookies consumed while feeling stressed have no calories because cookies used for medicinal purposes NEVER have calories.

Enjoy some Christmas cookies this week.

Merry Christmas!!!!!

Never Stop Dating Your Spouse

Never stop dating your spouse!

This advice was given to Elaine and I as a young married couple (wish we could remember who). And we have done our best to keep it going and model it to our kids & others. It turns out that people were watching for our social media posts every Tuesday. We even inspired a few couples to start something similar.

When our kids were young and I worked at Muskoka Woods, it was easy to get one of the rec staff to come watch the girls (any chance to get off property and raid my fridge I think).

There have been interruptions in the plan, like in 2017 when I was suffering more from post concussion syndrome, but, if you get off track, start again the next week.

Date day has been a weekly plan for a long time (Tuesdays on my day off for many years). The point is to carve out space in our schedules to spend time together and make new memories, just the two of us. One day your kids will be all grown up and only come for a day or the weekend and Christmas of course.

These moments of connection allow us to refocus and remember why we love each other. It creates the time and space to fully enjoy and appreciate one another, even amidst the busyness of regular life. Here are some of the date days activities we have done:

Visit a Zoo
Hikes in Algonquin Park and many other parks & trails
Go see our grandkids (always a favourite!)
Camping at Mikisew Provincial Park, often with friends
Island Queen boat cruise
Chasing waterfalls around Ontario
Dinner and a movie (and it usually involves a trip to Costco)
A local festival (butter tart, apple, Scottish, etc.)
A Farmer’s Market or three
Black Creek Pioneer Village
South Simcoe Steam train
Performance theatre
Toronto Island & the Old Spaghetti Factory
CNE
Go-carting
Or overnight trips like
- Niagara Falls for a weekend
- A concert & stay in Ottawa
- St. Jacobs Market and area
- Or to see a Blue Jays game in Toronto (dinner and maybe an overnight of course)

Have fun with it and enjoy some more time with your spouse!!!

Introducing Meandering Moose

Welcome to my new website where I will be blogging, telling stories and sharing ideas. In the past, my blogs have been a mix of summer camp and personal interest stories and articles. I have carried many of those here to this new website. I started blogging as a way to build up the SEO for the Camp Widjiitiwin website. I started writing occasionally then moved it up to weekly. I grew to like it a lot. I also had some guest bloggers. Now that I’m no longer there I will continue to blog my own ideas and stories. I’m mostly doing this for my own benefit, but if I can also benefit others, that’s great.

I lost my job at MBC/Widjiitiwin the first week of October. I have been filling my time with projects at home, volunteering and helping people out with their projects as well. A couple of the tasks got done from a 20 year old to do list. Building a Murphy bed for my grandson Liam has taken a lot of time and brain power. Creativity takes work.

Waiting has never been my strong suite, but I am learning to wait and look for what God has for me next. So far I have absolutely no idea what that might be.

Welcome to Meandering Moose.

Merry Christmas!!!!!

Mike/Moose

Moose’s Adoption Journey

World Adoption Day is November 9th. Check out http://www.worldadoptionday.org for more information.

This year was an exciting one on my adoption journey to find my birth families.

My sister Jill came from Texas to visit us in Muskoka. For many that wouldn’t be an unusual thing, though it maybe in Covid times. For me it is. Some of you will remember that I was adopted and grew up with 3 brothers.

Just about two years ago after lot of research and a big push from Nicole (who emailed my brother Sam with the news he had a brother in Ontario), I reached out to my birth family. The first weekend of October 2021 was the first time Jill and I met in person. I still have to meet Sam. Covid has messed with our plans a few times. It was SO great to meet and get to know each other better. Elaine says she understands me a lot better now that she sees where some of my traits come from.

On my Purvis side (my birth father’s name was Hugh), I have discovered his family and my Purvis/McDonald Scottish lineage (76%) with the help of a second cousin who helped me track down my birth father’s family. I have talked with my birth father’s widow, a first cousin, and an aunt and uncle. I’ve been learning about him and hearing stories. Then just a couple months ago in September, we had a Zoom meeting of a 15 from a cousins group where we share DNA, common ancestors and family genealogy information.

What. A. Ride! it has been.

Time to Say Goodbye

It is a sad time for me (Moose). I am saying goodbye to two ministries and a group of people I have come to love and respect. I have packed up my office at MBC, collected a few things from Widji and locked the purple gate for my last time.

The decision has been made not to open Widji next summer. The plan is to focus on the Ignite Partnership program with a task force working on the details of what that will look like starting again in 2023. As a result, Heyoo and I are no longer employed at Muskoka Bible Centre/Camp Widjiitiwin.

There are SO many people I need to thank. Campers who became SALTers, SALTers who became staff, staff who became leadership and many who have become friends. Thank you for standing with me through the tough times, the changes and new ideas, especially the ones that didn’t quite work. Thank you for being One Team. Thanks you for giving all you have for the kingdom ministry of Widjiitiwin. Thanks especially to the many who have served on my leadership teams over the years. I also need to thank the many camp pastors who have given of themselves to be at Widji to minister to the campers and staff and to me. You have been God’s messengers and His ambassadors with us.

In the fall of 2007 when I took on the role of director at Camp Widjiitiwin, it was as a fixer to get things going again and regain campers to camp. Summer 2008 was my first summer at Widji. Our mission came from 2 Corinthians 5:20, Camp Widjiitiwin exists to be an ambassador for Christ to children and youth through compelling camp community experiences; focused on demonstrating the gospel message through teaching God’s Word, positive relationships and creative interactions.

In 2009 we ran the first Ignite camp in partnership with Toronto Police, 42 Division with PC Mark Gray. To be honest, neither of us really knew what we were doing that first summer, but ministry happened, lives were changed and we grew as people.

Since then it has grown to five partners including, James Street North Baptist Church in Hamilton in 2012, Church of the City in Guelph in 2014, Capstone Community Bible Church in Etobicoke in 2015 and Ephraim’s Place (Awaken) in North York in 2016. The program has gone from 30 campers to 300 campers per year with a total of 2073 campers over the 11 years the program ran before Covid shut us down.

Camp Widjiitiwin – the way camp was meant to be… relational, central, natural, reaching out, a loving community focused on Christ. It’s like coming home! It’s my camp!

Goodbye friends,

Moose

Cairns – Showing the Way

Cairns (pronounced, like “karen” but in one syllable and think Scottish while you say it) are the way-finding rock-piles that help guide people when there were no trees around to post trail-markers.

If you’ve never seen or heard of cairns, they are essentially a navigation tool first used by Vikings in Iceland to mark trails in areas with little to no vegetation. Today, you’ll find them used for navigation in places like Killarney, or in sections of the Appalachian trail, but more and more, you see cairns popping us as decoration, or as a way of showing that, “Hey, I’ve been to this cool spot”.

There’s a big difference between “I’ll help you find the way” and “I’ve been here”.

Way-finding cairns are built over time, by many people adding to make a big pile that can be seen for great distances. Each stone still has a personal connection to it, but by looking at the pile in the picture, you’d have no way of knowing which one was placed by a specific person. The usefulness of a true cairn is showing the way. You being a part of showing the way is still there, but it’s secondary.

As leaders, it is part of our job, and usually our DNA, to help people find their way in an organization, group or in life. How can you “show the way” without staff knowing that you were doing it for them? This is the basis of mentoring. My mission is; to develop students to become the next generation of Christian leaders. To show the way. And hopefully they don’t make all the mistakes I did on my journey. The classic Lao Tzu leadership quote: “A leader is best when people barely know [they] exists, when [their] work is done, [their] aim fulfilled, [people] will say: we did it ourselves.”

It’s the same in our Christian faith. We are an example to our family, friends, neighbours and everyone else. We serve as a cairn to point the way to Jesus. And better than a pile of rocks we can use all our being to show the way. That includes our words, actions, character, attitude, habits, spiritual disciplines, etc. This is the basis of discipleship. We have been given the most extravagant infinite undeserving gift of forgiveness of our sins by God through Jesus Christ that we need to share it with other and show them the way.

What can you do now to be a useful cairn? Who will you show the way to next?

Here’s to another rock in the pile!

The Legend of Smokey Hollow

The camp I grew up at was Camp Ambassador near Owen Sound. There was an old story we told the campers during sleep outs called, The Legend of Smokey Hollow. Campers rode out to the Hollow on a wagon ride with evening snacks and food for breakfast (driven by Burt Elliott, the best wagon ride driver ever).

Once we got to the “old house” site, we set up camp for the night, campers laid out their sleeping bags, food was stored for breakfast, a campfire was built (usually a big one), snack was eaten and everyone laid down to go to sleep. About that time the cabin leaders started to tell the story of Smokey Hollow, the very pit they were sleeping in.

About three quarters of the way through the story, apples would mysteriously start flying into the hollow scaring the campers. As a camper it was truly frightening (in my personal experience).

Legend has it that in the late 1800’s a family, with a very mysterious past, lived in the old farmhouse beside the crab apple orchard at the top of the hill. When storms came up and the winds blew hard, the apples would blow from the orchard with great ferocity at the old house. The family would batten down the windows and doors to protect themselves from whatever came at them. It was left abandoned after the family moved or passed away, fell into disrepair and eventually fell into the hole of the foundation and eventually, nothing was left behind.

Now for the rest of the story…

As I said, we used the crater for camper sleep outs. Nice big fire in the middle with campers sleeping around it. When I got to be on staff I discovered that it was the barn staff and maintenance boys tossing the apples after they snuck up the property line right of way. I loved participating in the prank as barn staff. What a great camp memory that has so many more with it.

I Don’t Know Much, But This Much I Do

I will start by saying, “I’m not much for musical movies”. But I wanted to see this one because it was about camp; and a Christian camp at that on Netflix. The movie is “A Week Away“.

Movie description: Nowhere left to go, Will Hawkins finds himself at camp for the first time. His instinct is to run, but he finds a friend, a father figure and even a girl who awakens his heart. Most of all, he finally finds a home.

He finds himself on a bus to church camp. This sounds SO much like many of the campers who come to our Ignite Partnership camps.

During the campfire scene, various people stand and say, “I don’t know much, but this much I do” and then go on to say something about another person at the campfire. As the camp director quotes his wife saying, “God is up to something. He is up to something good. He’s up to something amazing“. And, being a musical, after his daughter speaks, they break into the song, see click here; Our God is an Awesome God, in multiple harmonies and even a descant.

This reminds me a lot of our “Encouragement Fridays” at Widjiitiwin. On Friday mornings at 7:00 am, the staff gathered to encourage each other (as part of our daily staff prayer times). It went something like, “I have an encouragement for (insert camp name)” when they did something amazing for my cabin by helping me with devotions or took time out of their schedule to sit with a camper or helped run the silly campfire or gave their testimony or the leadership team did the dishes or so much more that happens at camp. These times are very meaningful for recognition of what someone has done, but also to let them know how much it meant to you for them to do it.

At the end of the summer we also take time to put each staffers name on a large piece of coloured Bristol board and the the rest of the staff take turns writing encouraging words to that person. I still have a bunch of the ones given to me over many years.

WHO will your words be an encouragement for today??

A Week Away was filmed at YMCA Camp Widjiwagan in Antioch, Tennessee, USA.