Meandering 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.

Home Plate

“17 INCHES” by Chris Sperry, Baseball/Life

Twenty years ago, in Nashville, Tennessee, during the first week of January 1996, more than 4,000 baseball coaches descended upon the Opryland Hotel for the 52nd annual ABCA’s convention.

While I waited in line to register with the hotel staff, I heard other more veteran coaches rumbling about the lineup of speakers scheduled to present during the weekend. One name kept resurfacing, always with the same sentiment – “John Scolinos is here? Oh, man, worth every penny of my airfare.”

Who is John Scolinos, I wondered. No matter; I was just happy to be there.

In 1996, Coach Scolinos was 78 years old and five years retired from a college coaching career that began in 1948. He shuffled to the stage to an impressive standing ovation, wearing dark polyester pants, a light blue shirt, and a string around his neck from which home plate hung – a full-sized, stark-white home plate.

Seriously, I wondered, who is this guy? After speaking for twenty-five minutes, not once mentioning the prop hanging around his neck, Coach Scolinos appeared to notice the snickering among some of the coaches. Even those who knew Coach Scolinos had to wonder exactly where he was going with this, or if he had simply forgotten about home plate since he’d gotten on stage. Then, finally…

“You’re probably all wondering why I’m wearing home plate around my neck,” he said, his voice growing irascible. I laughed along with the others, acknowledging the possibility. “I may be old, but I’m not crazy. The reason I stand before you today is to share with you baseball people what I’ve learned in my life, what I’ve learned about home plate in my 78 years.”

Several hands went up when Scolinos asked how many Little League coaches were in the room. “Do you know how wide home plate is in Little League?”

After a pause, someone offered, “Seventeen inches?”, more of a question than answer.

“That’s right,” he said. “How about in Babe Ruth’s day? Any Babe Ruth coaches in the house?” Another long pause.

“Seventeen inches?” a guess from another reluctant coach.

“That’s right,” said Scolinos. “Now, how many high school coaches do we have in the room?” Hundreds of hands shot up, as the pattern began to appear. “How wide is home plate in high school baseball?”

“Seventeen inches,” they said, sounding more confident.

“You’re right!” Scolinos barked. “And you college coaches, how wide is home plate in college?”

“Seventeen inches!” we said, in unison.

“Any Minor League coaches here? How wide is home plate in pro ball?”…

“Seventeen inches!”

“RIGHT! And in the Major Leagues, how wide home plate is in the Major Leagues?…

“Seventeen inches!”

“SEV-EN-TEEN INCHES!” he confirmed, his voice bellowing off the walls. “And what do they do with a Big League pitcher who can’t throw the ball over seventeen inches?” Pause. “They send him to Pocatello !” he hollered, drawing raucous laughter. “What they don’t do is this: they don’t say, ‘Ah, that’s okay, Jimmy. If you can’t hit a seventeen-inch target? We’ll make it eighteen inches or nineteen inches. We’ll make it twenty inches so you have a better chance of hitting it. If you can’t hit that, let us know so we can make it wider still, say twenty-five inches.’”

Pause. “Coaches… what do we do when your best player shows up late to practice? or when our team rules forbid facial hair and a guy shows up unshaven? What if he gets caught drinking? Do we hold him accountable? Or do we change the rules to fit him? Do we widen home plate? “

The chuckles gradually faded as four thousand coaches grew quiet, the fog lifting as the old coach’s message began to unfold. He turned the plate toward himself and, using a Sharpie, began to draw something. When he turned it toward the crowd, point up, a house was revealed, complete with a freshly drawn door and two windows. “This is the problem in our homes today. With our marriages, with the way we parent our kids. With our discipline.

We don’t teach accountability to our kids, and there is no consequence for failing to meet standards. We just widen the plate!”

Pause.

Then, to the point at the top of the house he added a small American flag. “This is the problem in our schools today. The quality of our education is going downhill fast and teachers have been stripped of the tools they need to be successful, and to educate and discipline our young people. We are allowing others to widen home plate! Where is that getting us?”

Silence.

He replaced the flag with a Cross. “And this is the problem in the Church, where powerful people in positions of authority have taken advantage of young children, only to have such an atrocity swept under the rug for years. Our church leaders are widening home plate for themselves! And we allow it.”

“And the same is true with our government. Our so-called representatives make rules for us that don’t apply to themselves. They take bribes from lobbyists and foreign countries. They no longer serve us. And we allow them to widen home plate! We see our country falling into a dark abyss while we just watch.”

I was amazed. At a baseball convention where I expected to learn something about curve balls and bunting and how to run better practices, I had learned something far more valuable.

From an old man with home plate strung around his neck, I had learned something about life, about myself, about my own weaknesses and about my responsibilities as a leader. I had to hold myself and others accountable to that which I knew to be right, lest our families, our faith, and our society continue down an undesirable path.

“If I am lucky,” Coach Scolinos concluded, “you will remember one thing from this old coach today. It is this: “If we fail to hold ourselves to a higher standard, a standard of what we know to be right; if we fail to hold our spouses and our children to the same standards, if we are unwilling or unable to provide a consequence when they do not meet the standard; and if our schools & churches & our government fail to hold themselves accountable to those they serve, there is but one thing to look forward to …”

With that, he held home plate in front of his chest, turned it around, and revealed its dark black backside, “We have dark days ahead!.”

Note: Coach Scolinos died in 2009 at the age of 91, but not before touching the lives of hundreds of players and coaches, including mine. Meeting him at my first ABCA convention kept me returning year after year, looking for similar wisdom and inspiration from other coaches. He is the best clinic speaker the ABCA has ever known because he was so much more than a baseball coach. His message was clear: “Coaches, keep your players, no matter how good they are; your own children, your churches, your government, and most of all, keep yourself at seventeen inches.”

And this my friends is what our country has become and what is wrong with it today, and now go out there and fix it! “Don’t widen the plate.” Good advice for baseball players, great advice for Christians!

Back to School Tips

Summer has come to a close, let the transition to school begin. TODAY! Here are some “TIPS” that are collected from teachers and education experts that your family might find helpful.

1. Summer programs teach kids that taking care of themselves leads to success. Keep that going! Ensure your child is getting enough sleep, eating regular meals and healthy snacks and has daily exercise. When your children’s minds and bodies are nourished, they are at their best.

2. Designate a distraction-free study zone! Research shows after being distracted it takes 25 minutes for your child’s brain to refocus. Turn off those cell phones. Be sure to block all notifications and social media app’s on the computer.

3. Be organized. Organization is a family affair. Encourage your students to keep a homework planner/calendar for work, play and all extracurriculars. Tests, band practices, away games, half-days and holidays are just a few examples of reminders for your planner.

4. Start the year with good study habits. Suggest to your students to look over their notes each night to make sure they’ve got it. Fill in details, edit the parts that don’t make sense, and star or highlight information that is most important. Encourage them to study a little every day. The more familiar the material, the easier it is to remember it when it counts!

5. Encourage your student to make a friend in every class. Those will be the buddies to call to ask about the homework assignment and will be a ready made study group to review materials for tests and projects.

6. Help is available if you see your child is struggling. You can ask for help. Teachers, tutors and mentors can be a source of support for kids of all ages.

7. Charge Away! Insist on a designated charging space outside of your child’s bedroom. All electronic devices such as, TV’s, gaming devices, phones, laptops etc., should be as far away from your child’s sleeping head as possible.

8. The school year is full of challenges. Remember to be a supportive parent. Open your eyes and ears. Provide support and guidance while teaching your students independence and the ability to problem solve on their own.

The Journey Makes Us Who We Are

J.R.R. Tolkien wrote, “Not all those who wander are lost.” in The Fellowship of the Ring. We’re all on a journey in our personal lives and that includes our journey to or away from God.

Here are a few with incredible stories of resilience.

I’ll start with Frodo and Sam as they approach Mount Doom to destroy the “One Ring”. IT seemed like they were wandering, but they maintained sight of their goal and pressed on. But it started much earlier with the fellowship of the ring, setting out from the Shire and then Rivendell to try something that seemed to be doomed from the start.
Abraham as God called him out of Ur of the Chaldeans to take him to the Promised land where the Jewish people would eventually settle.
Joseph: his brothers hated him, sold him into slavery, being falsely accused, ending up in prison, forgotten there, before finally becoming second only to Pharaoh. He followed God’s path, not his own.
Moses lead the Jewish people who wandered for 40 years in the wilderness for not following God. When they did make it to the promised land they were certainly a different people.
Ruth, as she came back to Israel, a foreign land, with her mother-in-law not knowing what fate was before her. It brought her to a new life with a kinsman redeemer and became part of the
David, as he fled from Saul to save his own life to soon become the leader and second king of God’s people. He wandered from cave to cave and country to country before God brought him back to be king over Israel.
The apostles as God dispersed them from Jerusalem to be evangelists across the know world in the first century, spreading the Gospel message as they went.
The nations of Judah and Israel and they were lead away into captivity in Babylon. Yet even there, God was with them, accomplishing His work in them.
Jonah certainly wasn’t wandering as he willfully ran away from God’s plan to “Go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it, because its wickedness has come up before me.”
Me, as God has lead me from place to place and camp to camp, even a year working for Canadian Pacific. Each job and position building on the last one to accomplish His purposes. Ephesians 2:10, “For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.”
And YOU

Who are the people, events, situations, traumas, highs, lows, heartaches, set-backs, inspirational messages, etc. in your life that have helped shape us into the people we are?

I have done two different exercises with the Widji leadership staff looking back on the journey of their life so far to see which people and events in their life have influenced the person and leader they are. Take some time and think back over your life and discover the many ways God has been leading while you thought you were just wandering.

We’re all on a journey. Where is yours leading? How well are you traveling that road?

Digital Detox

In the movie “Field of Dreams” starring Kevin Costner, Archie “Moonlight” Graham says, “We just don’t recognize life’s most significant moments while they’re happening.” That is so true if we’re not paying attention and focused on what is happening in front of us.

At her wedding, my daughter Nicole insisted that we all put our phones away and “be in the moment”. That way we didn’t miss the important moments while trying to get the perfect picture of the bride and groom. When we teach our staff during staff development week, we talk about being present in each moment.

Do you ever feel addicted to your phone or find that your whole day is spent staring at a screen? I certainly do! And my wife would agree, even if sometimes it’s my laptop. I was once “caught” on TV attending a Blue Jays game and they showed me looking at my phone. OOPS.

I have heard that this “addiction” to technology is not necessarily bad nor should we feel guilty about it. We should simply find time to “disconnect to reconnect.” Here are several strategies that offer us an opportunity to reclaim our “me time” and “people time” offering us more time to connect with others.

Eat at least 1 meal a day without a device: Use this time for yourself or to be fully present with others.
Use the phone first to contact people: There is a more personal connection when speaking with someone on the phone instead of texting or e-mailing.
Schedule mini breaks throughout the day or mini “digital detoxes” where you are not connected to your phone, laptop, tablet, TV, radio, etc.
Give your eyes a break and follow the 20-20-20 rule: Every 20 minutes look at something that is 20 feet away for 20 seconds. Also, walk around from time to time.
Set a technology curfew: Turn off your phone and television 60 – 90 minutes before bed. You will likely get better sleep as a result. Personally, I struggle with this one.
Avoid multi-tasking: No one is as good at multi-tasking as they think. Instead of multi-tasking, create a schedule for yourself each day. I do this a LOT!!
Disable push notifications on your phone that are not critical: This will help eliminate unneeded digital distractions.
Create tech-free walls/areas in your home: There should be certain places in your home where technology is not used (like the bathroom, for example). I do this too often to be sure.

One of the things I enjoy most about camp is that I can digitally detox. I can be fully present in each moment of camp because I am not distracted by the many different forms of technology. At Widji, there is a mostly no cell phone policy and we do not have any activities that involve video games or computers. No one is walking around camp bumping into each other because they are staring at their cell phones. Everyone is fully present in the moment.

I admit that separating from my phone during the day is always a bit of a challenge. I can be completely plugged into all the wonderful things that are happening… and then it is always fun looking at my phone at the end of the day (absence does make the heart grow fonder after all).

When I Get to Heaven

How many times have you heard someone say, “When I get to heaven…” and then they go on and on saying what they’re going to do or who they’re going to see or ALL the questions they plan to ask God. There are dozens of songs about it too. I think the focus will not be on us and what we want, but on Christ and worship of him.

When I anticipate my first glimpse of heaven, I remember the first time I walked from the parking lot of the visitor’s centre to the south rim of the Grand Canyon. As you walk up you saw nothing of the canyon and then all at once there it was, wide open, majestic, wonderful, incredible. I was mesmerized. I actually went back and walked up again just to experience it over again. I think it will feel something like that, only way way more.

What is heaven really like? Let’s see what the Bible has to say.

Heaven is the place where his presence uniquely dwells to bless. It’s the place of our treasure (Matthew 19:21), our citizenship (Philippians 3:20), our inheritance (1 Peter 1:4–5), and our stored-up hope (Colossians 1:5).

Heaven is a real location (John 14:2–3; Acts 1:9–11; 7:55–56). When followers of Jesus die, though our bodies remain on earth, our souls immediately enter God’s presence (Philippians 1:23; 2 Corinthians 5:8).

We still won’t know everything. God alone is omniscient. When we die, we’ll see things far more clearly, and we’ll know much more than we know now. But we’ll never know everything. In heaven we’ll be flawless, but not knowing everything isn’t a flaw. Righteous angels don’t know everything, and they long to know more (1 Peter 1:12). They’re flawless but finite. We should expect to long for greater knowledge, as angels do.

We will recognize one another. Scripture gives no indication of a memory wipe causing us not to recognize family and friends. Paul anticipated being with the Thessalonians in heaven, and it never occurred to him he wouldn’t know them. Look at 1 Thessalonians 4:17-18” After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever. Therefore encourage one another with these words.”

1 Corinthians 2:9-10 says, “The things God has prepared for those who love him” are “revealed to us by his Spirit.” To counter false, unbiblical notions, we need to study and meditate on “words taught by the Spirit” (1 Corinthians 2:13). Our eternal home is a real place (John 14:1-3) where we will reside in real, physical bodies (1 Corinthians 15) and where we will experience everlasting joys, rewards, and treasures (Matthew 5:12; Matthew 6:19-20; Luke 6:23).

God dwells there (Revelation 21:3) and the light of Jesus will permeate every corner of this place (Revelation 22:5). Charles Spurgeon said, “To the lover of Jesus it is very pleasant to observe how the Lord Jesus Christ has always stood foremost in glory from before the foundation of the world, and will do so as long as eternity shall last.”

We shall see the Lord “face-to-face” (1 Corinthians 13:12). The fact that our all-knowing, all-powerful Creator will dwell with us and we shall know him in an even more intimate way should be sufficient for the true Christian to rest assured that they will be satisfied there.

I think we will have meaningful work to do. Work was part of God’s original plan for humans before the fall (Genesis 2:15). God is always working (John 5:17) and Jesus said his mission was to finish the work of doing the Father’s will (John 4:34) to bring God glory (John 17:4).

The descriptions of the new heaven, earth, and heavenly city in Revelation 21—22 provide a dazzling picture of the believer’s future home, a place that should cause us to greatly anticipate living there for eternity.