August 2025
Trails to Truth
We tried something new this year at Camp Nathanael: Horse Camp. Tess and I were not in charge but got to play a small part in an ever-growing ministry at camp. Our horse people, James and Hannah Bennett, lead the Trails to Truth program throughout the year, teaching a group of youth in horsemanship. This year, they tried a week-long horse camp with a small number of the older youth. They got to work on lots of new skills, including:
- Lope
- Groundwork Training
- Rope
- Rough Country Obstacle Courses
- Multiple Trail Rides (including a 2 hour ride to our overnight campsite in the beautiful mountains)
- Competed in the Hay-mazing Race
Trails to Truth also got started this past week, bringing in 19 students (the largest it has been since starting 3 years ago).
Outdoor Education Field Trips
Field Trips begin this Thursday, as students from surrounding counties will visit and learn about our Power-Packed Earth over the next 5 weeks. We’ll have quite a few volunteers coming to cook, teach, and lead students around. Volunteers usually stay on campus for a week or two, volunteering for the program in the morning and early afternoons and then hanging out in the evenings! Lee and I are ready to play a big part in this program throughout September.
Annual Prayer Days
Each year, we take 2 days to pray and meet about all parts of our mission. This is our yearly reset, if you will. We pray over every ministry and evaluate and grow. This is when we also do committee assignments, planing who is on what ministry committee, so that there is a team working on each ministry at Camp.
Tess will be serving in the office, with Outdoor Education, the Women’s Ministry, and managing the Camp Store.
Lee will be serving in the office, managing camp lessons for mail-in campers (outside of our area), the Men’s Ministry, and hosting The Voice of Camp Nathanael podcast!
Pray with us!
- Pray for our foster son M and his mom. She is making progress in getting him back home with her and we are so excited for her! Continue to pray for them and our family as he works towards fully moving back in with his mom! We were happy to get to celebrate his 2nd birthday with him this month as well!
- Be in prayer for the 19 students learning horsemanship and the leaders of Trails to Truth throughout this school year!
- Pray for the students and teachers visiting Camp for a field trip! Pray as they learn about our amazing world that God made!