Merry Christmas

It seems hard to believe, but the Deen family has been at Camp Ao-Wa-Kiya as full time missionaries for right around 8 years now. I don’t think that we really envisioned that when we first came to this ministry, but God has allowed us to be a part of what He has been doing through camp in the lives of boys & girls, and men and women as well. We believe that God has really given us a gift of being able to be here and serving Him and others in this way.

This time of year really causes us to step back and reflect on what has taken place over the past year. The word that comes to mind the most is “transition.” For us as a family it has been one of transition in our boys growing and being active here at camp, in school, and most recently in church. As the boys have gotten older and wanting to get more involved in youth ministries, we have moved our church attendance more locally to us here in Shelby, MI. It was a tough decision to move from a place we loved and continued to grow in. But saw God make this as easy a transition as possible.

Other transitions have taken place through this past year as we oversaw the construction of a fantastic new multi-purpose building here at camp. This combination gym/ chapel/ office facility has already proven to be a blessing to us and the Word of God has been shared here many times with many coming to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ. The completing of this building will lead to another transition as well in the coming year. A new full time facility manager will be coming on board with us, Lord willing, in the coming months. This will allow us to really concentrate once again on the Challenge Course ministry as well as reimplementing our off-site programming ministry. More info to come on these things.

Well, I’m sure that this is much too long of a first post. I will learn to do better, I promise.

Merry Christmas to you all,

The Deen’s