Time to meet the camp staff!

I promised I'd start to introduce you to the camp staff a while back and haven't gotten there yet. Time to get started! We'll start with the Regier (first e is short, second is long and gets the emphasis) family, Nate, Maggie and Katie.
I hope I don't mess up all these details! I may need to save these posts and have Rodney fill in what I've messed up! Nate and Maggie came out of the same church in Kansas as the Theissens (we'll get to them later). They came up in the summer of 2004 to build the horse arena and then came back in 2005 to live. If it has a motor, Nate can fix it and/or operate it. If it can be cooked, Maggie can make it taste great! If it has 4 legs, Katie can speak it's language. That doesn't begin to describe them, but it does showcase their talents! Katie and Maggie also enjoy quilting and they've introduced me to some of the better second hand stores around. :) Nate is one of the hardest working individuals you'll ever have the pleasure to meet. They've all become very dear friends very quickly. Nate's primary responsibility at camp is the auto shop but he's equally handy at heating, plumbing and a lot of other things. Maggie runs the espresso machine in the gift shop when groups are in, bringing joy to many people on early mornings after late nights. ;) She and Katie do a lot of the cleaning of buildings between groups, a never ending job! Katie also does dishes with our kids for many of the weekend groups so the kids spend a lot of time with her. Her real calling though is working with the horses. She's a real natural.

The VanDaams are another family you'll hear a lot about. Below are Rod and Dianne with a bunch of their kids who currently live at home though even this is out-dated because Andrew has now moved out on his own:In front is Haley, middle row from left to right are Sam, Tasha, Dianne and Eli. In the back are Rod, Andrew and Robert. Tasha is a senior in high school and Robert a freshman, so our kids see them every day at school. The boys hang out with Robert quite a bit in addition to doing a lot of dishes together. Eli works at camp cleaning the main lodge. It's hard to characterize the entire family quickly. Rod is a riot! He's got such a sense of humor and can deliver the lines with such a straight face! He is the director of maintenance but has just recently decided to cut back to 4 days a week. He went through a number of health problems this past year and seems to have discovered that it wasn't so bad having a bit of time to himself. He, like Rodney and Earl, 'retired' to Victory after a career elsewhere first. Dianne feels like someone I've known my entire life. She's lived through a lot of the same things with her kids that we have with ours. She anticipates what the kids or I might need before we realize we'll need it. She's helped me settle into life here in more ways that I can enumerate.

Next are Earl and Elaine Anders. Earl is the camp electrician and boiler man who "retired" to camp after 30 years as a Mennonite pastor. He is a WEALTH of patience, wisdom and insight! Elaine is the receptionist and all around office person. Between Elaine and Sandy (we'll get to her later), there's not much that happens here in the camp offices that they don't do. Elaine has a tremendous amount of experience in EVERYTHING, having raised a family and been a pastor's wife for all those years. She's a delight to work with and get to know! They have a lot of family back in PA so they are leaving this weekend for a few months to visit family back there. They will definitely be missed! I was so glad I was able to stop over today for a minute and say goodbye to them before they leave for the winter.
The Sherrers required two pictures to get them all ;) Not really, but they weren't there the night I was taking pictures this fall so I grabbed some pictures of them that I took this summer when we visited. From left to right are Aluara (Oksana's friend), Molly, Carole, Clint, Tessa, Karina and Drew. Matt is talking to Rod in the second picture. Matt does grounds and propane at camp and also does the weekly camp run to town (which takes an entire day). He is currently working half time at camp while he trains to be a level 3? EMT. I think he'll become the camp nurse at that time. Carole home schools the kids. She's helped me with many things parent in settling in ;) She told me about the violin teacher and has helped connect me to the local natural food co-op in addition to helping us identify local flower and fauna and is just a joy to talk to. If you're looking for prayer items, Drew could really use prayer. He's got some health problems that have the doctors stumped at the moment. He's had problems in the past with his skull not growing fast enough for his brain (can't remember the name of it) but that was surgically repaired and they don't think it is the same problem this time, but a lot of the symptoms are the same. Anyway, he's been a rather sick kid lately and there don't seem to be any answers.

So there's the short list of just the families in maintenance! It's hard to characterize everyone quickly, but at least now you have a place to come when I talk about people to put faces with names (like when I was talking to my brother the other day and Clint, Karina and Alaura were playing in the background). I'm sure some of the stories will help flesh out these little blurbs! I hope ya'll can grow to love them as we have through the stories we share together.