Higher Challenge Again

Our Second Generation Campers

SOME TIME AGO we had a young guy on our Higher Challenge camp who, after paddling in the wilderness a couple of weeks, seemed to just want to stay on the river and not go home.

A few weeks later, in our Fellowship at Timber Bay (SK), he placed his trust in Christ.
We would see him at our church services quite regularly after that, and he attended quite a few more Higher Challenge camps.

A few years later, though, we didn’t see him anymore. He had moved to the city and had fallen away from the Lord and was into the drug scene. We heard that during that time his girlfriend had committed suicide by jumping off a bridge.

Not long after I got a call from his step-dad. He asked if his step-son could come on a camp. He told us how much our camps had helped his step-son in the past. Of course we took him.

It was a mountain camp in Alberta, and he was quite out of shape and couldn’t do all the hard climbing. But we began to see life come back into him as the camp progressed.
It wasn’t long after that camp that he finished high school and applied to go to Bible school. A couple years later he was again out on our camp, this time as a leader, where he met his future wife.

This past summer his nephew came to one of our camps. He paid his nephew’s camp fees because he wanted his nephew to experience what he did.

That hasn’t been our only “second generation” Higher Challenge camper. I think of another – his mom was on our camp back in the 1990s. She shared her excitement with us that her son could be out with us, and hearing about God.

We realize that we are getting older as we see these second generation kids coming out on our camps. But it fills us with joy to see that there has been some lasting fruit from all these years of work. God is faithful!

Donna and I feel like we are really in some of our most effective years as missionaries in this culture – and my gray hair has earned for us the right to speak as elders.

In John 15:16 Jesus tells His disciples: “You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit – fruit that will last.”

I guess that is the call of the missionary, and sometimes it takes years to see this lasting fruit. Many times we are tempted to bail out before it happens. We are so thankful to our supporters, who have been there with us all these years, praying for us, sacrificially giving, and sending ministry groups and work crews.

God has used our supporters to help change lives, one at a time. And the work goes on.
Again this past summer a good number of young people joined our Higher Challenge camps. Our first camp was in the mountains, and it was followed by a 12-day “Ultimate Challenge” camp.

We are so thankful for the good leaders the Lord always provides for us to do this. And it’s a special privilege when First Nations leaders join us. This summer HCWA certified four First Nations leaders as moving water canoe instructors. We are so glad when we see Native people taking more and more “ownership” of the camp and other ministries.

Tom & Donna Cnossen serve in church planting at Maskwacis, Alberta. He has received “thank you’s” from parents for what they do for the young people.

(from Northern Lights issue #529). Note: some of the locations and involvements of our missionaries may have changed since the original publishing of this article.