2014

It's not time yet for a Christmas or end of year update here, but God has been doing so many things here in Northwest Montana!

Since our time at Bighorn is completed, we were wondering where God would have us and why He moved us out here if it truly was not to work at Camp Bighorn. Well, we are plugged in to a wonderful church and church family here!

We have Wednesday night kids clubs that Eric is a leader in and I (K) am a fill-in.
We have a lifegroup (a small group) that meets during the week.
Eric has mens group once a week, and I have my womens Bible study every week as well.

God has sure been teaching us a lot, and also showing us His provision during this moving around and getting settled into Montana life. It still doesn't feel like home to me, but Eric has adapted just fine! We are looking at a few different places for sale for options to buy as buying a house is far cheaper than renting. Right now we are living in an older farmhouse, on the edge of town. It was shown for the first time in 4 years, so who knows, maybe we will have to move again so soon! It will be tricky with getting a new lease or finding a new place to live while we are trying to buy our own home to stop the moving madness. This will be the first Christmas we have in our "own" home in 3 years. We are thrilled, but the kids even more so. Ruger sure loves his Christmas trees!

We have kids Christmas programs to go to, one being at Evelyn's school! I can't believe that time has come where we are going to our own child's Christmas program! Where does the time go?!

Baby Chasiah is growing like a weed, got her first tooth this week and already cutting #2!!!!

Well, that's a quick update for us in Montana. God is doing so much and I will post more of what He's been doing here as I am able!

~E&K

Montana Update!

We are almost ready to move! We have been busy, busy, busy!

You can read our new update letter here.

Some of you have been wondering how and what Krystle feels about moving and working at Camp Bighorn. You can read some of her thoughts here.

We are so excited to begin this new journey of our life serving God!

Some prayer requests for us:

Safety as we travel to Montana with our household items during the transition of fall to winter.
Good weather as we travel.

Also, if you would like to get on our mailing list, please let us know so we can add you!

Once we get our address changed we will send out postcards to let you all know what our new contact information is! 

We LOVE to get mail and updates from you so don't hesitate to send us an update of your own! If you have prayer requests let us know so we can be in prayer with you!!! Thanks and we will keep you posted!

God Bless, Eric & Krystle

Open Season for House Hunting and Tag Filled!

God led us to a house while we were in Montana and we will be moving by the 20th! We are writing an update letter to send out and will get that out this week yet, we hope! In the update letter we share how we got to see Camp put on a Quilter's Retreat, Explore and Journey programs in action, and some nice locals we got to meet along the way! Keep an eye out for the letter coming to you soon! If you haven't received an update letter from us and you would like to, then just leave a comment below and we will get in touch with you to get your contact information or you can just email us your information and we'll get a letter out to you!

The house we are moving into from the door.

Exterior of the door, it has a detached garage behind where we were standing.

A cow moose and her bull calf came and ate off the Camp's orchard!

The Moose after running behind the cabins.

Two of the three Mule Deer bucks we found eating on the side of the road as we headed back to Camp one day!

 

-Eric & Krystle-

Lessons from God's Handiwork

As some of you may have seen on our Facebook earlier this week, we happened upon an underground yellow jacket nest.

I thought about titling this post "Lessons learned from Montana" but in all reality this was too great of an event to not see how God can be seen through this adventure of sorts.

We (our family) and another staff member decided to take a drive over to Siegel Creek - just down from the camp- and walk down by the creek. We parked our vehicles and got the kids ready and we headed down to the Creek to check things out there. Ivana was in the back carrier and the older two were on foot like the rest of us. Oh! do the kids ever love to "hike" around here! Ruger was keeping up with the men and Evelyn was doing well but kept tripping over some random stones (which we don't really have in Wisconsin) so Krystle was
helping her and lagging behind a bit. A "bee" got on Evelyn's Columbia fleece jacket and stung her hand so Krystle stopped and tried getting it off of her when she looked down and noticed the ground moving beneath them and had about 50 "bee's" stuck on her pants legs by her shoes. We all took off running towards the creek. Eric looked back and noticed there was at least 500 of the "bee's" swarming over the spot where Krystle and Evelyn were standing. After all is said and done everyone had at least one sting.

The tally was as follows:
Krystle: 13
Eric:10
Evelyn:6
Ruger:5 or 6
Ivana:1

Praise the Lord none of us were allergic! Some made their way through the woods on our clothes and we had a few stragglers still swarming our car the following day.

The lesson we learned (mostly Krystle though) was that fleece has no business in the woods. Had we not been wearing fleece we probably would not have gotten stung so many times. Eric was not wearing fleece and only got stung trying to help out the children from getting stung. Evelyn, Ruger and Krystle were all wearing fleece, which the yellow jackets legs really got glued into. Even after washing the clothes we had to pick out some yellow jacket remains. Performance fleece is great for working out or casual shopping but not for wearing into the great outdoors!

The "Lessons from God's Handiwork" is really quite interesting. Those yellow jackets are annoying when it is just one. You get stung, kill it and move on. When it is a whole hive of them the situation is totally different! They join together, fight to protect and they just do not stop! 

We were thinking that is (minus the aggressive part) how the church ought to be. Sticking together as a hive. Working in unison towards a common goal.

 In Matthew 12 God's Word talks about how a house divided cannot stand.
James 1:27 instructs the church to look after the widows and the orphans.
John 13:34 is a command to love one another as Christ loves us!
Ephesians 5:2 says to walk in love as Christ loved us and gave Himself for us as a sacrifice! Galatians 6:10 instructs us to do good to all when we have the opportunity- especially those in the body of Christ! Hebrews 10: 24-25 instructs us to think of how we can encourage each other to love and help others and also to meet together in fellowship. Don't stop meeting with others in the body of Christ!
Matthew 18:20 says that where 2-3 gather in His name God is there with us!

We, as the body of Christ need to continue to stand together. Encourage one another. Help each other. Love each other.

God is awesome. His glory far surpasses all that He has created yet there are so many intricate details in His creation one could never get bored seeing all that He has made. Let us keep in the Word daily, be renewed in our minds, encouraged and then sharing that with other believers around us!

So the lessons from God's Handiwork in summary is to be in fellowship with other believers, encouraging them, loving them, helping them and being renewed by being in fellowship with God daily ourselves!

~Eric & Krystle Townsend and Family~

*Stay tuned for another photo post coming!*

Sanders County Montana

Well, we have made it out to Montana and have been seeking out housing! House searching is hard, rent or for sale! We do know that God will lead us to the right one in His perfect timing! We are scheduled to look at 2 houses for sure this week, possibly a third also.

We found out that Sanders County is the poorest county in Montana. That is including all the reservation land also! The man we talked to back in June called this area "Poverty with a view". I guess he was not exaggerating!

We have been getting to know the area better, housing and neighborhood wise at least! Plus we have been meeting lots of local people and there sure is a variety of people out here!

Ruger and Ivana have gotten over their sinus issues and Evelyn is almost better! Krystle got a bad eye infection and by Sunday morning her eye was really swollen so we went to the walk-in clinic in Billings and found out that it was not pink-eye like we thought! Turned out to be cellulitis and an infection in the skin around her eye. The Doctor gave her 3 prescriptions and that is finally getting better almost a week after. Praise the Lord we went in when we did so it could heal up faster! Unfortunately everything was out of pocket and the prescriptions alone were $70 and the bill is almost $300 for just a walk in clinic! Thankfully we don't have to pay all that up front!

Some specific ways to pray for us would be that God will lead us to the right house quickly so we can empty our storage unit. Also for good health, safety as we search for housing and also while we continue to raise support out here.

We plan on coming back to WI the end of the month to collect the rest of our things, say goodbye to family and friends and finish moving into our house. God is good and we are so thankful to have you all supporting us!!! God bless you and hope you have a wonderful weekend!

Eric, Krystle & Family

Newsletter: At Towns End August 30, 2013

To view our newest update/newsletter click below!
Newsletter August 2013

The Journey Continues

(Main Lodge at Camp Bighorn)
June was a very educational month for us since we were actually able to get out to Camp Bighorn, get plugged in with staff training and then head back to WI to finish the goal set before us.

Now that we are in July, summer busyness has begun here in WI. Not only the normal daily things that come up but also as we continue and work towards completion of our fund raising.

We learned many things while at Camp, we posted the biggest thing we learned as to how to explain the format difference in their summer camp. It is really neat to be able to do "adventurous" activities and share Christ at the same time.

We also learned that the area, on a more local level is ripe for revival. The more we research the national,the more we realize our country needs people dedicated to reviving our nation.

Sure, we are a "reached" nation but our churches (generally speaking) are stagnant in membership and outreach. We can't help but ask the question "How does God feel about this"? There are many lost people groups in the world. We are sure many of you would picture in your mind tribal people deep in the rainforests of South America, out in the safari's in Africa or the steppes of Siberia. While there is nothing wrong with seeing those mental pictures, we must not forget about the people next door, across the street, across the state or across our country. While our country has the gospel freely available, many do not know the plan of salvation; many do not know they have a choice; many do not know there really is a Heaven and Hell and those words are not just adjectives in speech; many do not know because they have not heard and many are mis-informed due to do people just not knowing!

 (Video of going through part of Plains heading back to Camp)


What are we, as the body of Christ, going to do? Can we really just work our daily jobs, come home, sit on the couch and watch tv, see commercials or programs on missionaries or malnourished kids and think "man, too bad people don't do something about that" when it is in our power and ability to DO something? What if, instead we would work our daily jobs but then went out of our way to do something to further the Kingdom of God. What if we helped someone else out? Responded nicely instead of "oh no, you didn't!". What if we actually invited a neighbor to church caring more for their spiritual condition instead of our possible rejection. What if. What if. What if.

 

When we went out west the statistics came screaming out to us. Matthew 9:37 came screaming out to us. This is real people when Jesus said "The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few". This is not only true where we will be locally in Montana, but it is also true here in Wisconsin and everywhere in the US for that matter.

What we found in that mountainous region is that people really do go to the mountains to escape their past whatever that may be. People really are 'doomsday preppers' and are preparing everything but their souls for the end times. People practice paganism and animism in ways that we have only heard about here in WI. People are searching there whether they realize it or not for something out there just like many do here.

(Looks remote but actually pretty populated locally speaking)

 

Our country is in a sad spiritual state. We are not talking politics here either. We are talking about the spiritual state of our nation and how other countries that we have reached for Christ are now sending missionaries HERE!!! What are we doing here?!

Together we knew God would have us do something for Him and we asked Him where would you have us go. Do you want us to stay here and live a "normal" life and reach those around us or are you sending us else where in the US or abroad? We knew God calls each believer to do something different (many parts make up the Body). So, like in Isaiah 6:8 (Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying," Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?" And I said, Here I am, send me?). We said "we'll go where you want, show us the way".

Not everyone will go into camp ministry like us, though some will. Not everyone will become pastors, missionaries or move away from friends and family but everyone is called to do something.

Our call and job is to serve God through camp ministry at Camp Bighorn and also locally in Plains/Paradise.

(Going into Paradise, MT- the way the highway goes you have to go through Paradise before going into Plains.)


Help us fulfill the Great Commission by helping to send us to Camp Bighorn.

You can support us by going to Camp Bighorn's website and click the "Support A Staff Member" tab on the right hand side, then scrolling down to our name and clicking on us!
We need a dedicated team of monthly supporters so we can dedicate our time at Camp Bighorn and locally to reaching the lost and discipling the saved.

If you want to be added to our mailing list if you are not currently on it then let us know and we will send you updates as they come.

We pray the next update we post will be that we are officially moving and able to officially step in to our position at Camp Bighorn!

God Bless,
E&K

At the cross above Camp Bighorn