Northern Light Winter '24

A Note from Executive Director: Matt Erickson  |  Facilities Update  |  Welcome New Staff: Barb Nussbaum  |  Stories from HoneyRock: Rachael Botting Receives Ph.D.; Vanguards Experience Vocational Discernment; HoneyRock Faculty Essay in Christian Scholar Review  |  Save the Date! Northwoods Adventure Week  |  The Donor Impact: Campers Say Thank You  |  HoneyRock On The Road: CCCA Gatherings  |  A New Member in the Herd: Meet Granite  |  Rhythms of Faith: Project Update  |  Together We Pray: Prayer Requests from HoneyRock

A key focus area for me is fostering healthy team dynamics and culture. An important aspect of this is ensuring that we, as a HoneyRock team, are fully aligned with our mission and motivated by a common vision of the future. I hope for this alignment across the HoneyRock team, including full-time staff, part-time staff, graduate assistants, seasonal staff, volunteers, prayer partners, and donors.

Our Mission: HoneyRock exists to build Christ’s church and benefit society worldwide by fostering the development of whole and effective people through transformational experiences.  

Our Vision: Generations alive in Christ and equipped for the good works He prepared for us to do.   

Our mission statement clarifies our reason for HoneyRock's existence and its role in society worldwide, and it’s encouraging for me to see it used to help us design and optimize our programs.  For example, recently, our Graduate Assistants presented their program plans and new content for summer camp 2024 to Ashley Kiley (Camp Programs Director) and me, building the age-appropriate program content and camp experiences around this common mission.

Our vision statement, on the other hand, describes what we want our society to be like as a result of our work. While we have affirmed our mission statement, the input I received from our staff team is that through this leadership transition, there is an interest and an openness to a new vision for this next phase of HoneyRock.   

So, we took time to pray, dream, and imagine what God could make true through HoneyRock! Through an important time of prayer and meditation, we ended up focusing on Ephesians 2:10 and the following inspiring thoughts: 

“For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.”

Join us in imagining: 

• Youth and students fully appreciating they are God’s handiwork, created in Christ.
• The Next Generation prepared for the good works Christ prepared in advance for them.
• We join God in preparing the person for this future work.
  
• We are not just serving the next generation at one point in time.

The work we do supports the work of parents, grandparents, and churches, as well as benefits each generation (well beyond their HoneyRock time) as they grow, build families, and engage in church communities. This is how we came to this new vision, and we will be pushing forward toward it as a broader HoneyRock team! Please join us in praying for each camper, student, staff member, and family we serve, and pray that God would indeed make this vision a reality in our families and those not connected to HoneyRock yet. 

God Bless,  
Matt Erickson, ‘95  
Executive Director 

HoneyRock benefits from a wide variety of support and long-term investments from many people worldwide. One of our favorite ways of seeing that support come to life is when we receive thank-you notes from our summer campers. Thank you to our current donors and supporters! Interested in partnering with and supporting HoneyRock? Click here to explore your options.

HoneyRock has a long history of learning from, supporting, and working alongside the Christian camping movement worldwide. In fact, Coach Harvey Chrouser, HoneyRock’s founding director, was also one of the founding members of Christian Camping International (CCI), and Dr. Bud Williams played a key role in its development. At that time, CCI offices were headquartered in Wheaton, Illinois, and Wheaton’s Archives are still home to all the founding documents and history of this globally organized camping association. Today, Dr. Rob Ribbe continues to support CCI, and Dr. Muhia Karianjahi serves on the CCI board.

In the United States, our national association is the Christian Camp and Conference Association (CCCA). This past December (2023), several of our faculty, staff, and Outdoor & Adventure Leadership graduate students attended the national conference in Colorado Springs, Colorado. While there, Rob Ribbe offered a well-attended session on how to respond to the summer staffing crisis through onboarding, training, and retention strategies. The national conference is always a fun reunion for HoneyRockers who are serving at camps across the country (see photo).

This spring, Rob, Rachael, and Muhia are speaking at seven different sectional conferences, teaching sessions on topics ranging from “Women in Outdoor Ministry” to “Camps and Cultural Diversity” and “Staff Training and Recruitment”. To follow up the conference experiences, they will be offering a series of webinars on key topics pertaining to relevant matters within Christian camping. All are welcome to attend!

Sign Up to Attend a Free Webinar with M.A. in Outdoor & Adventure Leadership Faculty

The Rhythms of Faith project is led by Rob Ribbe in partnership with Dr. Jake Sorenson from Sacred Playgrounds. This January, the project advisory team, which includes all three of our HoneyRock faculty, gathered in Wheaton to dive deep into the project details, lay the theoretical groundwork, and begin fleshing out the core research questions and study methods. The project is generously funded by the Lilly Endowment.

Over the next couple of months, the team will be working to identify Christian camps across the US that are exemplary in their support of parents and their efforts to help families and churches build on the camp experience. This summer, the team will send site visitors to each of the selected camps to gather data on their programs. In the fall, they’ll begin to synthesize data and look to apply their research and findings at participating camps. The team will do so through training and education of camp staff and teams.

For more information on this project or if you know of an outdoor ministry organization (camp) that would like to be involved, head to the Rhythms of Faith website to learn more.

• For those who are in a season of discernment as they consider their next steps:
  • Graduate Students completing the M.A. Outdoor & Adventure Leadership program as they seek employment
  • Vanguards as they decide what school to attend or what career path to begin
  • Fellows as they look for employment and next steps after their year at HoneyRock.
• For the HoneyRock Summer program team, as they recruit the remaining seasonal staff positions we rely on each summer
• For the incoming Passage and Summer staff and for our international summer staff to have their visas approved. Opening additional camper spots to get prospective campers who are on the waiting list to being registered for camp is partly dependent on this important work. 
• For the campers who have registered for camp this summer as they and their families prepare for their experience
• For the groups and families coming to HoneyRock for winter retreats, we hope they will experience rest and connection with the Lord and with others
• For our Vanguard Gap Year students as they experience and return from their cross-cultural immersion trip in Costa Rica; and for the Vanguard staff team (graduate assistants, professional staff, and Fellows) as they prepare for the final months within the Vanguard year
• For the Passage team as they recruit and prepare for Passage in August 2024 and as they communicate with incoming Wheaton freshman and their families. 
• For the professional staff team at HoneyRock; for continued wisdom, vision, passion, and energy