FLYING TO GOD'S RIVER FIRST NATION TO REBUILD A YOUTH BIBLE CAMP

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Early Friday morning, I headed out to Gimly to pick up four members from Interlake Christian Fellowship Church to fly them to God's River First Nation, located 540 km north-east of Winnipeg to help Pastor Marcel Okemow to rebuilt a Youth Camp, which he has built 25 years ago with his own hands. (My smiling Co-Pilot took over and gave me a 2.5 hr rest)
This task has been on the Interlake Christian Fellowship Church hearts for years.
Pastor Marcel has brought in the building material on the winter road, so the four men had a good start on Friday to get the place cleaned up first and then worked hard for two and a half day with installing walls, windows, doors, stairs and part floor in the two cabins.
Read, Lorin Hofer's story (one of the fellas) about their weekend:
Greetings from Interlake Christian Fellowship. 
On June 1st 2012, 4 married men from our church near Arborg, MB flew from Gimli, MB to God's River First Nation in Northern Manitoba (see map above). 
Our pilot was Edgar Schreiber with his Cessna 185. There is only access to the community by ground transportation a few months in winter, when the lakes and muskeg freeze enough to support vehicles or by plane.
It was a 3 hour flight with his plane. We were invited by Marcel Okomow, Pastor of the church at God's River to come help with repairs at the youth camp.
Our work started on Friday with yard cleaning, raking around the 2 camp buildings, burning trash, cutting branches and fallen trees.
On Saturday we raised walls on the newer building - used for sleeping quarters for the children of this community in summer when they make a 45 minute boat ride to this place where they will have a bible camp - hosted by Marcel and the believers at God's River.
The building had only 3 rooms - about 20'x12' each. We raised walls to split 2 of large rooms, framed doors and covered both sides with plywood. They now have 5 rooms in that building and more privacy for families.
We also moved some walls in older camp building, swept and cleaned inside.The stairs to the buildings needed reinforced as well.

It was a great experience for all of us and a blessing to visit with our native brothers. We had some encouraging fellowship with some of the believers while fishing from their boat after work. It is a beautiful wild land up there.
All our food and gear, 2x4's, plywood, tools, nails and windows were hauled to the camp by boat.  It is different to see a boat-load of lumber plowing through the water - powered by a 30 Hp outboard. 
We're all grateful to Edgar for his flying and navigation skills. He kept showing us landmarks like rivers and islands and native communities. The Lord bless you and your wife as you serve the Lord so faithfully. Lorin Hofer.

TRIP TO POPLAR RIVER AND BERENS RIVER FIRST NATION FOR PATHWAY CAMP MINISTRIES

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After a couple of delays do to weather, we finally were able to do the flight to these two Fly-In communities, located on the east side of Lake Winnipeg about 300 km north of Winnipeg on Thursday, May 31st.

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Flying from St. Andrews to Ashern to pick up Rick and Eliz Greer, Directors of Pathway Camp ministries and fly them to the above mentioned communities to promote to the students in school the upcoming summer camps Pathway Camp Ministries has planned month ago.


The meetings with school staff members and community officials to wrap up the technicalities connected to the summer camps went well and we were on our way back home mid afternoon. (Rick is a pilot too and was doing most of the cross country flying)

FIRST TRIP ON SKIS

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our first trip on skis took us to a lake about an hour north of Winnipeg for a week-end of fellowship and simple living in the Manitoba wilderness.

It was 15 below and before landing and putting the plane to rest for two days, we had to prepare our departure in creating a "runway".


We couldn't see it from the air, but there was about two feet of snow on the frozen lake which acts as an insulator and there could be slush between the snow and the ice.


So we checked the snow condition with a low flight along the "runway" and so we also could see whether there would be snow drifts present or not.



It looked pretty good and the next step were several long touch and go's, which means we packed the snow of our "runway" and now were able to see how much snow was there and whether the amount of slush would be ok to handle - which was the case, so the next approach led to a landing with a huge turn and finally coming to a stop.


The first steps was a feeling like the astronauts must have had on their Apollo Mission to the moon - untouched surface and lonely wilderness around us.


It was indescribable awesome.

I went up again to packed the runway a little bit more before we prepared the plane for hibernation which meant draining the oil out of the engine, removing the battery, putting the wing covers on and off course tying the plane to some trees.


Now to get to the cabin, we had to snow shoe 1.5 miles on a trail cut out last summer, we also had to drag all the gear (oil, battery and food) with us.

After the weekend with fellowship, snowshoe hikes, hard wood splitting work and the try of ice-fishing we went back Monday early afternoon to wake up the plane (it was still 15 below) and prepare for restart which meant preheating the engine with two propane torches which took us an hour, before we could refill the hot oil back into the engine, which now allowed a guarantied material save restart.




Thanks to the well prepared "runway" the take off was easy followed by an uneventful  flight back into civilization.

FINALLY ON SKIS

after hard work we are finally on skis which is a huge safety feature flying cross country in Northern Manitoba and Ontario with all the lakes, being a possible landing site in case of an emergency

PATHWAY CAMP MINISTRIES CLOTHING SALE AND MEETING IN BERENS RIVER FIRST NATION

The flying season ended with a trip to Berens River First Nation with Pathway Camp Ministries Directors Rick and Eliz Greer to organize the Camp Program for 2012 and holding a clothing sale at the Catholic Mission's Hall 

KICKBALL 4 KIDS FOUNDER CHRIS THOMPSON NEEDED TO BE FLOWN TO BLOODVEIN RIVER TO HAND OVER A $2000 WORTH PACKAGE OF SPORT EQUIPMENT

A GRANT FROM PEPSI HE RECEIVED AND WANT TO FIT 5 SCHOOLS IN NORTHERN FIRST NATION COMMUNITIES 


Here his experience coming to Bloodvein:


If Rock Throwing and Streching the Neck Hole of Your Shirt ever become Olympic sports, Canada has a lock on the Gold, Silver and Bronze medals for years to come.


For the tiny remote community of Bloodvein, there lies a veritable wealth of raw, untapped talent.


Thanks to our failed attempt to get to Bloodvein by ferry last week, I had the honour of being flown up by a wonderful new friend, Edgar Schreiber.  I don’t have any fear of flying and even if I did, those fears would have been put easily to rest when Edgar told me that the his plane’s engine was basically the same as a lawnmower motor.   Very reassuring.  Edgar was an excellent pilot.  And since I have to talk a lot in my regular job, I welcomed the opportunity to rest my voice while in his plane…  Not because it isn’t possible to speak over the sound of the lawnmower motor, but because Edgar is a very gifted story teller and is a fountain of information about everything aeronautical!!


But back to the rock throwing and neck hole stretching.  As I saw in the first two communities, Bloodvein’s youth are starved for things to do.  Unfortunately, you can only break a window once and then the fun is gone.  The window gets boarded up and you must move on.  It isn’t often that you find an LCD TV in a garbage pile but, once again, once you smash it down into its component parts, you must move on.  

You can only pester the town dogs for so long before they play dead so that you will leave them alone and move on!
Many of the buildings in this town are made of sheet metal. This serves a couple purposes.  1) Metal walls are somewhat fireproof, 2) When the white folks are inside these buildings setting up a clothing sale and you bombard the building with rock, it makes an AWESOME racket!  We were hit from all side, including the roof.  And when anyone would go check to see if the sky was, in fact falling, all the kids wanted was to come inside.  

When the clothes were laid out and the residents were allowed in, the sale was a huge success.  At $0.25 per article, there were some great buys and many happy faces!  But after the clothes were purchased, the kids were bored once again.  


And I know that I look EXACTLY like a jungle gym, but I have never had so many kids trying to climb me!  We needed to start the gym night!

First, we packed the gym with equipment and then we packed it with kids.  It was basically 2 straight hours of (somewhat) organized chaos.  FAS plus ADHD times about 90% of the children equals total mayhem!  I tip my cap to Matt, Dylan, Rick and Eliz.  They did a fantastic job of organizing the games for these uberhyperactive youngsters.  Definition of uberhyperactive?  


See the photos of Mitch in the black shirt.  Those pictures were taken at the end of the night and he clearly still had energy left to burn.  Mitch was, by far the athlete of the day.  

Half the size of most other kids, it seemed as though he was on a mission to shake the nickname that his friends had given him (a nickname that rhymes perfectly with his given name).


My day was long, but not nearly as long as that of Matt, Dylan, Rick and Eliz.  Still, I had to go home and party.  (Oh, I should probably explain that.  After the gym night at the school on the Jackhead Reserve, a young fella asked me if I wanted to “party”.  I told him that I was definitely interested in “partying” but that my idea of a party involved a nice long soak in a bathtub with some Epsom salts and possibly a crossword puzzle.  Suddenly, he didn’t seem to interested in partying with me anymore).

Maybe I should have taken a cue from the dogs and just played dead halfway through the day.

And if the gift to me from the last school was the beautiful black rock from the shy little girl, the gift to me on this day, was the most beautiful Northern Lights show that I have ever seen.

FLYING MINISTERS TO TENT MEETINGS IN ISLAND LAKE FIRST NATION

A huge white tent was the meeting point for people from Island Lake First Nation Community for 3 days.

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I had the privilege to fly in Pastor Marcel Okomow and his daughters from God's River (about 1/2 hour flight north of Island Lake).

Marcel's daughter Marylov recently lost her husband, but her faith in our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ has given her a special gift to reach out to other people and comfort them with her warmth and faithful spirit in their times of struggle.


So she was a vital part during these days of tent meetings, giving her testimony and speaking about her experience with God in her grief and mourning.

Another family from Round Lake First Nation (located 1.5 flying hours east of Island Lake) attended the meetings as Pastor, speaker and counceler: Terry, his wife Saloma, daughter Marceline and two grand-kids.

After returning Marcel and his daughters to God's Lake and the family of five to Round Lake, I had a smooth 3 hour Night-flight back home to St. Andrews - most of the flight was in 10,000 feet (3 kilometres), the wind up there was in favour to me pushing me back home.