Currents
Ministry highlights of
Sugar Creek Bible Camp
May 2021 Volume 2, Issue V
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Summer Camp is just around
the corner. Whether it's your first summer or your tenth, we have a program designed just for you!
Read all about our exciting, new programs in this month's edition
of Currents.
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Elevated! is our new hammocking program. Campers will explore the bluffs and valleys at Sugar Creek during the day, and strap up their hammocks to sleep at night.
This program is offered twice; once for 6-8th graders and once for 9-12th.
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Night Camp is a new Middle School program. These night owls will learn about God’s nighttime creation, play crazy fun games, enjoy epic midnight campfires, and more!
This program is filling up fast, so sign up now!
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The Pioneers are moving into our Frontier Town this summer. They will cook western-themed meals over woodstoves, shoot archery, and take part in caring for animals at our new Frontier Farm!
This program is sure to be a favorite, so don’t miss out.
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All Sugar Creek programs are immersed in God’s creation, but none more so than Rangers!
These campers will spend the week learning outdoor survival skills, blazing trails, and discovering ways to be more sustainable and eco-friendly at home.
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Volunteer Work Weekend: May 7-8 |
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Calling all volunteers--we need helping hands to get the camp ready for campers this summer! |
We have projects for a wide variety of skill sets and levels of ability. Come with your family or your cohorted group, or come by yourself and enjoy the blessing of serving others by making ready your Bible Camp!
Help play a part to build, clean, arrange, and prepare the camp's buildings, trails, and equipment for a safe and busy season ahead.
Enjoy Sugar Creek hospitality and hearty meals all day Saturday, May 8--or you can stay over Friday night and be ready to go bright and early Saturday morning.
Friday night lodging and Saturday meals are FREE for volunteers at this event!
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We are so grateful for the many hands and hearts who volunteer in myriad ways for the ministry and missions of
Sugar Creek Bible Camp!
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PROJECTS
Choose from a range of outdoor and indoor (safely distanced) projects. Paint, garden, stain, clean cabins, do trail work, wood chip, build fences, split and stack firewood, move sheds, lay shingles, and more. Many hands make light work!
608-734-3113, by MAY 4. Let us know how many people are coming with you and whether or not you need housing for Friday night and meals for Saturday.
Lodging reservations are on a First come, first served basis.
SCHEDULE (tentative)
Friday, May 7
6-7 pm Check in and Settle into lodging
7:15 pm Welcome and Intros at MC Patio
Explore Saturday Projects
8:00 pm Outdoor Worship and Campfire
Fellowship
Saturday, May 8
8:00 am Breakfast - MC
8:45 Opening Devotions and welcome to
Saturday Volunteer Arrivals
Pick-a-Project and Teams
9:15 Work Projects Underway!
NOON Lunch - MC
1 pm Work Projects continue
Snack and Gatorade Breaks (delivered)
5:30 pm Supper - MC
Resume projects, relax, or pack up
7:15 pm Closing Worship and Campfire
Go in Peace!
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The "Interweb" has found us at last! |
Campers from years past might remember long-time volunteer, Dave Langhus, as "Doctor Dave." As a licensed EMT-B/D/I, Dave served as one of our weekly volunteer medical staff from 1990 to 2007. He was a wonderful caregiver to our summer campers and treated many a summer staff with Friday night pizza at the end of a long week.
Dave has been instrumental in stocking, updating, and supplying our infirmary for years. But Dave has shared even more of his talents with Sugar Creek, behind the scenes.
Dave's history with Sugar Creek began when he was a child. Originally from Viroqua, Dave enjoyed summers at Sugar Creek as a camper. After graduating from technical college, he embarked on an over-25-year career as an Installation and Repair Technician with AT&T in Eau Claire, WI.
Dave felt the call to serve as a volunteer at Sugar Creek somewhere around 1987. He recalls helping with the construction of the Seeker cabins when they were located between the Retreat Center (RC) and the Koinonia Lodge (Koi). Those cabins were later moved up the valley to what is now Frontier Town, home to our new Pioneers village.
In addition to helping with the cabin build and serving as medical staff volunteer, Dave began his volunteer work of installing and maintaining the phone system at camp.
The camp has had approximately six different phone systems since the early 90s. Dave did the wiring for the voice network when the new offices were added on to the Retreat Center in 1995-96. He also worked on the voice and data cabling in the Manna Center (MC) around 2008 before the building was fully enclosed in below freezing temperatures! After the MC was built, fiber was laid between the MC, Koi, and the RC.
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A group of retired volunteers from Lemonweir Valley Telephone Company in Camp Douglas trenched and placed the fiber and a 25 pr copper cable. Dave, along with Vernon Telephone retiree Kurt Hauge, terminated the fiber into those three buildings. |
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Originally that fiber was only used for the voice network. A few years ago, Dave installed the current Panasonic phone system in the RC, Shalom storage room. There are fifteen extensions in the RC and eight installed on the data network between the Koi, the MC, and a pool emergency phone--all thanks to Dave's work!
In December of 2020 Centurylink finally completed their broadband expansion up County Rd C. After years of having to tell our guests that we had no public Wi-Fi due to data and capability limits, at last we had unlimited internet service installed in the RC. Dave took it from there.
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Over the past few months, newly-retired Dave moved the old data network into a storage area in the upstairs RC and added new data jacks in the office and down into the Shalom furnace room. Both the voice and data network now use that fiber laid years ago.
Additionally, he has spent countless hours climbing through crawl spaces and on ladders to install new, indoor and outdoor Wi-Fi access points in the RC, Koi, and MC. He also installed a separate data network in the Koi to supply that building, the Cedar Center and the Log Cabin Village, with internet access.
Long time retreat groups returning to the valley, as well as new Airbnb rentals, have been delighted to have Wi-Fi access during their retreats at Sugar Creek!
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For years Dave would say Sugar Creek was one of his "hobbies." After volunteering in the infirmary or completing a camp project he would go back to work so he could "take it easy." However, Dave says he wouldn't trade volunteering at Sugar Creek for anything. In spite of all the hard work he puts in, he says nothing beats the tranquility and beauty of working in God's creation in the bluffs and valleys of Sugar Creek!
Thank you, Dave, for your all you have done and continue to do, for the ministry of Sugar Creek Bible Camp!
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INternet brings groups OUTdoors at camp! |
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Camp lodges and the Log Cabin Village in the front of the valley are now connected to the Internet. Thanks to service finally coming to our area, Sugar Creek is able to offer Wi-Fi, what most adults and church groups consider to be a “standard feature” of overnight retreat and conference locations. It means we will be able to welcome more groups to Sugar Creek to explore the outdoors, experience Christian community, and share adventures with others in this beautiful retreat setting.
Yet camp will still 100% be camp. For youth in summer programs, Wi-Fi in the adult lodges won’t change the camp experience at all. Summer Campers keep so busy and connected to their community they still have no need to carry their cell phones. Moreover, summer camp villages are located away from our buildings with Wi-Fi. However, the change does make it more possible for pastors and youth leaders to visit their young church members during camp weeks and still be able to connect with their congregations.
Events and rentals in the school year also become more attractive to guest groups. Rentals help fund summer Bible camp, too. We are excited to take this perhaps “counterintuitive” step up in getting many more people outside together, to experience God in the outdoors!
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A Burst of Color in the Valley! |
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Spring is a wonder of color at Sugar Creek Bible Camp. Camp guests are blessed to see colorful, new arrivals as they travel through the camp to their retreat space or on personal hikes throughout the valley.
Trees bud, the grass grows, and spring flowers add their beautiful contrast to the browns of winter and the greens of spring. Two flowers in particular brave the unpredictable Spring weather and share their bright colors earlier than the rest: daffodils and crocuses.
Daffodils are lovingly planted by Sugar Creek's volunteer gardeners alongside lodges and in front of our decks. Daffodils bloom and fade quickly so we enjoy their color, and delightful fragrance, while they last.
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Crocuses are dainty little flowers that appear as dashes of color nestled throughout the valley. Unlike the daffodils, crocuses are naturalized at Sugar Creek and can be found by those with eyes looking to see their beauty. To many, Daffodils and Crocuses represent joy and cheerfulness.
Though both of these flowers bloom early, they can still be affected by late spring freezes and storms. Thankfully, most of the camp daffodils get shelter from the buildings and many of our crocuses are naturally sheltered along wooded areas. Guests and staff are always glad when the flowers survive a storm and continue to share their beauty amidst this valley.
And all the woods are alive with the murmur
and sound of Spring,
And the rose-bud breaks into pink on the
climbing briar,
And the crocus-bed is a quivering moon of fire;
Girdled round with the belt of an amethyst ring.
–Oscar Wilde
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Family Camp Programs: July 5-8, Aug 8-11 or Aug 12-15
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May is the last month for
3X Triple Gift Matching!
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"Triple your Impact" on Bible Camp this month! A generous donor has offered to TRIPLE-MATCH your first monthly gift up to a total of $10,000 if you start an automated monthly donation before May 31.
(If you give $25, they match with $75 more!)
Already give monthly? If you increase your monthly gift by any amount, this donor will TRIPLE-MATCH your full new amount that first month! Wow!!
A BIG thank you to everyone helping to sustain the mission and ministries of Sugar Creek Bible Camp!
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We asked, you answered...THANK YOU, Thrivent Choice Donors,
for designating Sugar Creek Bible Camp as the recipient of your
2020 or 2021 Thrivent Choice Dollars!
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MARCH
Thrivent Choice Donors
Alton Ask
Eric Bakken
Ramie Bakken
Curtis Bakkum
Bernard Bjorklund
Jena Bjorklund
Angela Breiling
Jeffrey Brudos
John Cleveland
Teresa Discher
Donna Feidt
Gordon Fick
James Gerth
Karen Guptill
Daniel Kohls
Stephanie Mell
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MARCH
Thrivent Choice Donors
Galen "Ole" Olson
Janet Pohlman
Diana Saegrove
Marcus Saegrove
Robert Schiefelbein
Sharon Schiefelbein
Linda Smrcina
John Solberg
Nancy Solberg
Linda Thies
Bonnie Tolvstad
Curtis Tolvstad
Paul Ulland
Matthew Wilson
Paula Zimdars
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APRIL
Thrivent Choice Donors
Teresa Aakre
Debra Belz
Thomas Belz
Jack Benning
Joanne Benning
Rodney Check
Milo Ellefson
Correna Guimar
Adrian Hagen
David Jandt
Shirley Johnson
Larisa Johnson-Tong
Edward Kimball
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APRIL
Thrivent Choice Donors
Gale Kimball
Torrey Kramer
Sonja Moe
Margaret Oechsle
Eloise Pearson
Warren Schaefer
Sally Severson
Robert "Bob" Severson
Mary Sime
Carla Stanton
Erik Tolvstad
Michael Wellert
Geri Zauche
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Grateful! Thankful! Blessed! |
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Memorials and Honorariums...
are one of many ways to support Sugar Creek. Thank you to all of you who remembered or honored friends and loved ones with a gift to this Bible Camp ministry.
Donors and Sustaining Givers...
Sugar Creek Bible Camp is blessed to have monthly supporters, known as Sustaining Givers, as well as regular Congregational Supporters (benevolence) and Individual Donors.
These gifts were received from March 6 to April 20, 2021.
Donations posted after April 20 will be recognized in our next newsletter.
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In Honor of Given by
Bishop Jim Arends
given by Prince of Peace Lutheran Church
Kirk and Nancy Rodman
given by Keith and Joann Briggs
Sugar Creek Staff and Board
given by George and Carol Narvestad
In Memory of Given by
Curtis Arentz Gladys Lee
Rick Boyer Mary Daines
Dorothy Every Kathryn Schroeder
Dorothy Every Roxann & Randy Nedrelo (1st LC)
Don Felde Nancy Bekkedal
Don Felde Irene Fortney
Don Felde Charlotte Getter
Don Felde JoWanna Jenkins & family
Don Felde Ed Lind
Don Felde Pat & Dean Peterson
Don Felde Amy Redington
Don Felde Daniel Sandwick
Don Felde Edith Sandwick
Don Felde Joyce Solverson
Don Felde Rachel Unseth & family
Doris M. Hagen Adrian & Doris Hagen
Doris M. Hagen Alan Hagen
Doris M. Hagen Amy Hagen
Nadine Happel Sonja Moe
James Heinecke John & Ardus Cleveland
Fern Kleppe Paul & Dori Arena
James McDonald Bob & Sally Severson
Frieda Nowland Adrian & Doris Hagen
Richard Peterson Adrian & Doris Hagen
Carol Pfaff Rand & Cheryl Kuenzi
Ed Waddell Aleta Ties
Pastor Gary Wees Utica Lutheran Church
Congregational Donors
Barneveld Lutheran Church
Bethany Lutheran Church - New Lisbon
De Soto Lutheran Church
Evangelical Lutheran Church - Mt. Horeb
First Lutheran Church - Onalaska
Freeman Lutheran Church - Ferryville
Good Shepherd Lutheran Church-La Crosse
Grace, Fountain, Trinity (3pt) - Elroy/Hustler
Grace Lutheran Church - Darlington
Grace Lutheran Church - Dodgeville
Holmen Lutheran Church
Lewis Valley Lutheran Church - Holmen Luther Memorial Church - Gays Mills
Middle Coon Valley Lutheran Church
Mindoro Lutheran Church
Our Savior's Lutheran Church - La Crosse
Our Savior's Lutheran Church-West Salem
Primrose Lutheran Church - Belleville
St. John's Lutheran Church - Boscobel
St. John's Lutheran Church - Oregon
St. Peter ELC - Prairie du Chien
St. Peter's Lutheran Church - Loganville
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Sustaining (monthly) Givers
Peter & Joan Allen
Pastor Jim & Lynn Arends
Kevin & Betty Baird
Kjell Bakken
Jen & Jay Bjorklund
Elizabeth "Ellie" Davis
Michael Douglass II
Pastor Donald & Elizabeth Fox
Bryce & Katie Griffin
Meredith Hink
Shirley Hummel
Kyle Jaeger & Laura Mackey
Samantha Johnson
Daniel Kirschbaum & Jonathan Tippetts
Gregg & Pastor Lori Kleppe
Kyle Jaeger & Laura Mackey
Pastor Steve & Stacey Meyer
Kate Moody
Charles & Tiana Montgomery
Roxann Nedrelo
Alice Olson
John & Nancy Solberg
Pastor Jason & Carla Stanton
Lavonne Swiggum
Pastor Eric & Megan Thiele
Individual Donors
Peter & Lisa Bakken
Pastor Barbara Bruneau
Elizabeth "Ellie" Davis
Kenneth & Marcy Firl
Bob & Jodie Gonia
Susan Gunderson
Carl & Ardith Hansen
Pastor Joe & Brianna Iverson
Gregg & Pastor Lori Kleppe
Kyle Jaeger & Laura Mackey
Michael & Karen Mahlkuch
Bonnie Rath
Colleen Schultz
Pastor Mark & Carol Solyst
Michael Wall
Irving Wittenberg
W-ELCA Donors
Christ W-ELCA - Spring Green
Legacy Gift Wall
Hans Peder Fredrickson
given by Robert & Rebecca Fredrickson
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Did you miss last month's edition?
Click the link below to check out the April edition of Currents.
Or visit the CAMP NEWS page on our website to view any of our previous editions of Currents.
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Sugar Creek Bible Camp | 13141 Sugar Creek Bible Camp Rd, Ferryville, WI 54628 |
| 608.734.3113 | www.sugarcreekbiblecamp.org
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