I have attempted to switch your addresses over to our new site list, but cannot without your consent. If you are interested in continuing to get our blog up-dates please visit aaronandemilybrown.com and subscribe by entering your address at the lower left corner of any page.  This will be the last up-date sent by your current subscriptions. Thank you for your support!!

-Aaron

Thank you to Brian Richardson at rzen.net for helping us set up our “dot com”. Be sure to stay tuned to aaronandemilybrown.com for camp news, support details, pictures, tweets, and family up-dates! Also, subscribe to our feed burner, via the home page, to get blog up-dates sent right to your e-mail!

Also, if you have received e-mail up-dates of our blog in the past, I am working on getting that transferred over to our new site. For now, just check it out and I’ll keep you posted!

Blessings,

Aaron

Thank you to a local Girl Scouts troop for donating cookies that they soled for Camp Beechpoint!

It’s a HUGE blessing to have our whole camp back in one place, at one time, for meals.

Our new line is decades ahead of where we have been functioning, and cuts meal preparation and clean-up in half.

Blessings,

Aaron

Our guests got a personal experience of why our new dining hall will be such a blessing! We were shoulder to shoulder with 120 people in the Lodge for lunch. We are eagerly working toward the completing of the project THIS SUMMER!

We are thankful for some long needed rehab on our dock system! After cutting our 60 foot floating docks into sections and adding a connection system we will be able to get them out of the water every year and maintain them better.

Two projects that would ONLY have happened with volunteer help are the rehab of our main amphitheater area and the construction of a new seasonal cabin! This will be the first summer in my 10 years of Beechpoint that we will not be using an army tent!

Another exciting project underway is the rehabilitation of our two lakeside cabins! These buildings have been faithfully serving us for all 50 years with minimal up-dates, and are now getting a total face lift!

One crew helped install the roofs to our summer shelters and turned two days of labor into less then a days work! THANK YOU!

Family

On the home front, we have been blessed with great provision this year and are living in such blessing and comfort. The house that we’ve been living in, that camp owns, is still for sale. At this point we have another house lined up as a “plan B” if we are able to sell this home. This spring we were able to invest in a Ford Freestyle thanks to some faithful supporters who added onto our savings in order to snatch this great deal!

Emily and the kids are doing great! Ira is starting to role over and becomes more responsive to interpersonal contact every day. Evie is really a little jabber box and LOVES playing outside. We are getting excited to move out to camp this summer and are able to live above the old dining hall. The camping trailer that a generious supporter donated last season has been serving as a great mobile office for Aaron and may be used to house summer staff this season.

Coming up!

We are getting really excited (and busy) about some huge events coming soon!

The Benefit Auction on May 1st in only a week away!! We are looking forward to a steak fry and open house with a country gosple band from 3 to 5pm and a live auction and door prizes from 5 to 7pm. Come and join us!!

Our First Annual Golf Marathon will be held on May 14. Each player has a goal to raise $25 dollars per hole (100 holes) to benifit our building project and camper scholorships. We are in need of 8 more players by Saturday to continue planning this event!

Please Pray

- For our family’s health and balance as this intensely busy season starts.
- For 5 more male Cabin Leaders to serve in our summer program.
- For the funding necessary to complete our Dining Hall this June.

Blessings!!!

Winter Blast #2…

was amazing! We maxed our camper population at 80 and had over 40 other volunteers and staff for the weekend. New friendships were built, old one rekindled, and our great God was lifted high. The kids spent plenty of time outdoors sledding, hiking, playing broomball, building snow men, and beating challenges on the Great Klondike Derby. Each Winter Blast also includes three small group workshops and teo chapels that focused on the life story of Daniel and the concept of “Standing Firm” in the will of God.

We were truly blessed by the amount of volunteers who teamed up to make this weekend happen, and the weather was amazing! Many of these kids don’t get to get outside during the winter and they are just overwhelmed by the beauty and joy of God’s creation.

Purity Retreat

This coming weekend over 50 kids and their parents or mentors will be attending our Purity retreat. This event has three different levels of curriculum that focuse on God’s intentions for Godly relationships and sexuality.  The kids are taught different topics (depending on age) about God’s plan for marriage, Biblical Sexuality, and what lies sin and Satan use to pervert Gods plan. Please pray that the truth changes lives and that God provides the $6000 still outstanding for this event.

Summer Preperations

MUCH is already happening to prepare for the summer. Our grounds are recovering from winter, we are replacing and repairing activity equipment, we are hiring staff (need more godly young men!), we are getting ready to rehab two of our cabins, and pushing to move into our new dining hall by June (Pray for grant money for kitchen equipment). There are countless man hours ahead of us and not as many volunteer groups as usual. Pray for us as we ready the facility and care for the people.

Family

God has been good to us. Both of our kids are healthy, we are warm and fed, and God continues to strengthen our marriage. This winters fiasco with the house flooding brought our focus back to the core values in life: family, worship, and community. With all of the stress of “professional” ministry we are trying to keep our focus and efforts on relationships in our family, with Jesus, and with His people.

Evie is potty training… this has been an adventure. Even if she doesn’t make it to the toilet she makes sure “it” gets in. tmi? And Ira is strong enough to sit in his exersaucer! He is a happy little boy and bring us so much joy.

Final Word

Thank you for yuor support. We need your prayers and friendship. May your day be filled with joy as you submit your every choice to God’s direction.

I really need to get away from starting my blog up-dates with “well it’s been a long time”, but a lot has legitimately kept me from up-dating! Here’s a recap of life and ministry:

Ira Daniel Brown
We could not have believed that having two kids would be this much fun. Ira is healthy and content. He was born on Dec 11th weighing in at 9.5 and has gained a pound a week for the last 7 weeks (15 lbs today). Evie loves here brother, and here are a few photos to prove it:

Thanks for the photos Jess M!:http://www.livingthehaitilife.blogspot.com

Flood
Ok, so having Ira was amazing, but the night we brought him home was NOT. With two kids in tow for the first time ever, I opened the door to our home and we both stopped,  staring into the dark house, and Emily says “I hear water running…” Yes! In fact our toilet had run for THREE DAYS and had saturated our drain field, backed up into the house, soaked the floors and walls, filled our heating ducts, and run over into the isolation and crawl space below the house… We moved in to Camp Beechpoint’s Lodge that night with our two kids, our clothes from the hospital, and not much energy left. The house has been under construction since (2 months). After living at camp for 8 days we moved into a house that Beechpoint is trying to sell. We plan on staying here until it does sell. While this is not a long term solution, it is a blessing and we are finally getting settled in after having the baby.

Winter Blast
Our first Winter Blast weekend was a hit! Great campers, dedicated summer staff, lots of fun and some solid teaching times. THANK YOU SO MUCH to all who prayed or volunteered for the weekend. One boy committed to following Jesus with his life and many other shared how the life story of Daniel has shown them how to “stand firm” for God.

Now What?
Right now we are wrapping up details for the second Winter Blast, finalizing plans for our purity and holiness retreat, and starting to focus heavily on the summer. Many staff positions to fill, lots of program and teaching details to go over, and TUNS of campers and vo0lunteers to coordinate.

Blessings!

- Emily is SO ready to have this baby! I am ready too, but more emotionally and mentally whereas she is definitely feeling it physically. Our hope is that my next up-date will include pictures of baby man. Please pray for a soon and fast delivery!

- I have been busy with some seasonal work for a friend who does holiday garland. This provides some extra cash for us to use on family and friends for Christmas. It’s also a great refocusing time. A lot of my work these days is in the office, so it’s nice to do some physical labor where my mind can be free.

- God provided in some pretty neat ways this week. We were feeling some financial stress over some schools bills and found that we had double what we thought in our account for the month! He tends to do just what we need right when we need it.

- This past weekend we visited Calvary Church in Grand Rapids to share our ministry with their college and career age community. What a great time! We bumped into some old friends, made some new ones, and got some good inquiries from potential summer staff! Thanks for all your support Missio!

-We really want this baby to come soon…

- If you didn’t get our November newsletter and want to, either by postal mail or by e-mail, please let me know! You can also get these blog posts in your e-mail. Visit the “Subscribe” page for details.

- Next week is our staff development week here at Beechpoint, so I don’t plan on posting unless it’s a BABY POST. So until next time enjoy these summer pictures and please pray for a BABY!

View from the deck on a cool summer day. How refreshing to think about right now...

I'm so glad that Evie (and Em and I for that matter...) slept well all summer above the busy dinning hall!

"O, you can't get to heaven in a cardboard boat, 'cause cardboard boats just don't float... "

Blessings!!!

Aaron

- The 11th & 12th I attended a camping conference up by Cadillac at Portage Lake Bible Camp. Beautiful camp! Great discussions! A refreshing get-away!

- On the 17th I was at Cornerstone University to do some recruiting for summer staff. It was fun to reconnect with staff and faculty.

-This coming Sunday our whole family will be back at Calvary church sharing Beechpoint with their collage community. Please pray for good conversations and God to be glorified through the time.

Other things going on:

- Our Rake R Rock was a great event two weeks ago! We connected with a few new churches and got a LOT of leaves cleaned up. We’ll have grass again this spring!

- Emily is counting the day until little Ira Daniel Brown is with us! It is very possible that we will being welcoming him home by NEXT WEEK! AHH!

- We are starting to prepare for our winter camps in January and February. Last year over 150 kids came out to our two Winter Blast weekends. Please Pray for staff and snow!

Newsletter:

- Take a look at our latest up-date: fall 09 newsletter

Rake N Rock Photos:

We were blessed with a dry and sunny day!

This young man is a camper and PID kid who workd his tail off for a chance at jumping in those leaves!

Thanks for doing the whole lodge side Neil!

After work was done groups enjoyed the Climbing Wall, Zip Line, and BMX Track.

Progress on our new dining hall is coming nicely! The view from he almost completed deck is absolutely amazing! Please pray for laborers ad fund to complete the project by next fall!

Peace and blessings!

-Aaron

… Emily is finishing up her last few mentoring meetings with PID before the baby comes. Pray for replacement mentors in Allegan.

… Aaron realized that THERE IS A BABY COMING THIS MONTH!!! We really need to get his room ready.

… Evie learned to say little brother’s name, “Ira” (sounds more like “i-ya”).

… Aaron is getting details in order for a busy season of staff recruiting. 35 college / career-aged individuals needed for our 2010 summer ministry team!

… we are trying to get our October newsletter out before November gets here! Maybe we should change it to a “November Newsletter”… ?

… God got us through a nutty financial situation over the past two weeks. Please pray for the 20% of investor based income (about $700 a month) to complete our monthly budget.

… We are all excited to have our family out to camp for Christmas!

May the God of redemption work powerfully in your life this week,

Aaron

So now:

Camp
I’m pretty consumed by planning our up-coming volunteer day with Way FM (Rake N Rock), preparing material and contacts for our summer staff hiring process (35 staff needed), and planning for next summer! There are so many details and systems that go into a summer of ministry… It’s pretty overwhelming. Thankfully we have time… We’re also looking forward to our WinterBlast weekends when a bunch of our summer campers will come back for a weekend of fun and teaching!

Family
We’re setting up the baby’s room this week and next! Little man is expected to be with us in late November. So the crib is going back up, the hospital bag is being packed, and we’re arranging the baby sitters. Wow! … Evie is walking all over the place these days. She’s so smart too! It’l like we can have a whole conversation about food, drink, diapers and naps and she’s not really using any words! Em is a great mom! She is teaching Evie so much, nesting for the baby, and continuing to serve and love on me. Me? I’m getting over a cold… it has seemed to linger… and trying to focus on our life mission in a very distant season. It’s like our reason has ended… but it hasn’t! It just takes a different form. One of preparation, anticipation, and relationship building. It’s an interesting flow to get use to.

Church
We love our church. It’s so great to be involved locally when so much of our lives are spread across miles and in all different cities and churches in the tri-state area. We’re youth group leaders this year. The teens are so much fun, and it reminds me why I wanted to work with youth in the first place. I think I lost sight of that during college.

Blessings to you! Enjoy these summer photos!

"goat toss" was a hit this summer! (no, not really)

trips to the dairy farm are... surprising!