Summer has come and gone, and boy was it fast!  We had hundreds of campers each week, and were thankful to end the summer with 44 salvations recorded, and over 200 other decisions (assurance of salvation, full-time ministry, dealing with different sin issues). We know that God has worked in ways that we didn’t record also! We are continuing to pray for all of these campers as they go home and interact with schoolmates, friends, and family. We pray that they will share what they have learned and be a light to those around them! 

In June, we had a week of staff training, then had three weeks of Horsemanship, Teen, and Junior camp! It is wonderful that we are able to host all three camps at once! To accomplish this, we had three speakers for June: Jim Tillotson for teen camp, Jayce Kassuhn for Junior camp, and Pastor Naion Lundy for horsemanship camp. Just in the first week of camp, there were 54 spiritual decisions made! 

In July, we hosted many custom retreats. A family camp, and several teen and junior groups were able to come! Because custom retreats bring their own counselors and many staff from their churches, we don’t always hear of every decision made, but we trust that God is working! 

We are so thankful for the summer staff that God gave us! We could not have done it without them, and their work will have an everlasting impact on so many souls! It was a privilege to work with them!

This summer, Ricky accepted a position as Ironwood’s head of stores! He has already begun, and is in charge of the Trading Post, Mojava River Coffee Shop, Uncle Wally’s, and The Pony Espresso. We are thankful for his job change, as it allows for a bit more flexibility in his schedule. He is grateful to be working closely with campers now, and will also be running soundboard sometimes for services! He is also excited to be able to use his creativity to revamp a couple of things in the stores and potentially create new items to sell! Ironwood is happy to have someone that loves coffee running the coffee shops 🙂 Ricky is already thinking up some fun coffee drink ideas!

Also this summer, I accepted a position as Ironwood’s Hospitality team lead! The transition will take several months, and I began training 2 weeks ago. The current team lead, Tammy, has been leading the department for years and is transitioning to work more with the Hacienda (our retreat center for pastors and their families) and to spend more time investing and leading our volunteers that come in the fall/winter months. I worked with her a few years back, as I did hospitality when we were here for the MinistryBound program, and am excited to be working with her again!

One of the highlights of Rocky’s summer was watching Showdeo on the Saturday mornings in June! He loves the horses and can name most of them! Here’s two pics of Showdeo!

Exciting Ironwood news!!! This summer, Ironwood was given a parcel of land in the Sequoia National Forest. That parcel of land had a Christian camp on it, which included a lodge, many cabins, a chapel, a shop/maintenance area, a backhoe, and a truck! God has truly blessed us! This gives more opportunities to bring people to Christ! There are already many churches interested in doing camp there. If you already live in the desert, a mountain getaway seems a bit more fun than a desert camp haha!

Our church, Ironwood, and Nehemiah Corps joined together this summer to purchase land at the end of Ironwood’s driveway. This piece of land will be split between the three entities. Our church will renovate the building on site to become our new church building. Nehemiah Corps will use their section to build a shop area and home base for their organization. Ironwood will move the Christian school, currently on site here, to their section. This also opens up new staff home plots for the future! It has been amazing to see how God worked this summer.

We were able to fly to Wisconsin this summer for my brother’s wedding! We had a wonderful time and the wedding went well! We were able to see lots of old friends and spend time with my family. We also were able to present our family’s ministry at our sending/supporting church! It was a blessing to see our church family too!

Please pray for Ironwood over the next 2 months. We have just as many campers coming in these two months as we did over the whole summer! Please pray that God’s word will be presented clearly and that our mission statement (see below) will be accomplished.

Ironwood is a home missions ministry using the unique aspect of camping ministry to reach young people for the Lord Jesus Christ, strengthen families, and serve local churches. It is a place of decision in the areas of salvation, full surrender, and consistent Christian walk.

Prayer Requests and Praises!

Please pray for: 

Our support level to keep increasing, we are at 36% currently. 

Our job transitions to go well over the next few months.

Us to stay healthy over the next few months

God to use Ironwood’s ministry in a great way this fall

Praises: 

Two individuals took us on for monthly support this last month!

We had a great crew of summer staff 

Our new jobs were an answer to prayer

God worked in the lives of so many campers and staff this summer!