groups have begun to journey...

We returned from our staff trip on Friday and our first three groups arrived Saturday evening. I am enjoying the new role that i am in as Assistant Director. As we were finishing up dinner a van drove up the drive way to the top of the hill. You could feel the nervous energy and excitement in the air - and we all cheered as Aryn and Kate went to meet their first group of the summer.
This moved us into a night of sleep and a full day of orientation. My post for orientation day


(after a days work)
was in the kitchen: setting up for food packing, making lunch and dinner and answering questions as well as giving hugs packed full of support. We rounded out the day with a time of meditation and song. It amazes me each week as new groups join us, how much space there is for exploration, celebration and healing community.
We dropped the groups off Monday morning to begin their journeys into the Boundary Waters. We now sit in expectation as we pray for the shaping of their days and the weaving of stories that will occur in this wilderness.
The morning of the last day of our staff orientation trip we awoke to a beautiful morning on Nina Moose Lake. The night before we had spent time creating a birch bark canoe, gathering symbols for ourselves as well as for the groups that would be joining us this summer. We placed all of these symbols in the canoe and Friday morning sent it out on the lake as a prayer for all that will come and all that will be this summer; trusting that the current (God) will carry us through in beauty.