MENNONITE CAMPING ASSOCIATION

BI-NATIONAL CONFERENCEMARCH 19-22, 2018

MCA

C A M P FRI ED ENSWALDCASSOPOLIS, MICHIGAN

Retreat . . . Renew . . . Reconnect

• WWW.FRIEDENSWALD.ORG • WWW.MENNONITECAMPING.ORG •

Come fellowship with other camping professionals, learn new skills in workshops that stimulate your imagination, and enjoy times of inspiring worship. Planned especially

for camp staff and board members, aspiring camp professionals, and your family.

Conference Schedule

Monday, March 19 3-5:00 4:30 5:30 7:00 9:00

Tuesday, March 20 8:15 9:30 12:15 1:30 3:00 4:00 5:30 7:00 8:30 Wednesday, March 21 8:15 9:30 12:15 1:30 2:30 5:30 7:00 8:30

Thursday, March 22 8:00 9:00 11:00

Travel Subsidy & Info

We want as many member individuals and as many member camps as possible to have the opportunity to participate in MCA events. We believe this experience is a valuable time of building relationships within the Mennonite camping community and have designated a travel subsidy for those who must travel a greater distance to attend MCA gatherings. Camps are encouraged to apply for the MCA travel subsidy if they need help to attend.

Details about the subsidy can be found on the MCA website www.mennonitecamping.org on the Member Benefits page. Camps can apply for a subsidy by contacting Olivia Bartel, olivia.bartel@campmennoscah.org or 620-297-3290.

If you would like assistance arranging a carpool or shuttle from a local airport, please contact camp@friedenswald.org.

**Spend your free time relaxing and reconnecting with others, or take this opportunity to explore a nearby attraction. Camp Friedenswald is within thirty miles of Goshen, Elkhart, and Shiphewana, Indiana.

SPEAKER: Dr. Luke Gascho, Executive Director, Merry Lea Environmental Learning CenterLuke has been the executive director of Merry Lea Environmental Learning Center of Goshen College since 1997. He also provides leadership for the Mennonite Creation Care Network, which serves Mennonite Church USA and Mennonite Church Canada.

RegistrationTour of Camp Friedenswald Dinner Welcome/Worship/Keynote 1Snack & Fellowship

Breakfast Worship/Keynote IILunchWorkshops 1Workshops IIFree TimeDinnerPeer Group RoundtableSnack & Fellowship

Breakfast Worship/Keynote IIILunch with Peer GroupsMCA Business MeetingsFree Time**DinnerWorkshops IIISnack & FellowshipEvening Hymn Sing

Continental Breakfast Worship/Keynote IVBrunchFarewell

Your family is invited! Activities for children and childcare will be

provided each morning, along with select afternoon sessions.

WORSHIP LEADER: Janeen Bertsche Johnson, Janeen is in her 23rd year as campus pastor at Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary in Elkhart, Indiana where she serves as admissions counselor, alumni director, instructor, and creation care coordinator. Janeen is an Indiana Master Naturalist and a board member of Merry Lea Environmental Learning Center, and has been a camper, summer staff member, camp pastor, retreat speaker, volunteer, nature hike leader, and regular retreat participant at Camp Friedenswald.

Wayfinding: Exploring the key points of our compass in a world of GPS! The daily keynote sessions will create opportunities for each person to examine core relationships with self, place,

others, and God. Participants will engage in thought provoking scriptures, collaborative learning, and personal vision setting. Together we will be encouraged in our personal and ministry voyages.

Workshops Subject to change.

Tuesday, March 20, 1:30 pm

Ecological Leadership - Luke Gascho, Executive Director, Merry Lea Environmental Learning Center Ecology is a wonderful basis for understanding effective leadership patterns and systems thinking. Jesus used lessons from nature to teach principles of discipleship and leadership. Comparing biblical and ecological models of leadership will provide a framework for discussion and application during the workshop. Understanding these models will influence our leadership practices, from how we lead in our camps to how we design and present programs.

Tree Care, Soul Care: Caring for Creation and Ourselves - Steve Thomas, U.S. Coordinator for Mennonite Men, pastor, budding arborist and treevangelistThis tree care workshop will focus on planting, watering, mulching and pruning. Moving outside, special attention will be given to pruning trees for good form and strong structure and how this relates to training for our spiritual growth. As participants care for trees around them they will be reminded of their connection with creation and our interdependent relationship with trees.

Camp song sing-along - Naomi & Kevin Leary, Program Director & Coordinator, Camp Friedenswald Singing at camp builds community, teaches our values and faith, and helps us have fun. Come share the songs your campers love, and take home new songs. Do your campers have a new favorite silly song that’s taken over? Do you have a praise song making meaningful memories for new generations? Come together and share, and take home a new song for the season ahead.

Capital Campaigns at Camp- Kent Stucky and Jenna Liechty Martin, Camp Friedenswald Board Member and Executive Director Conducting a capital campaign can be a daunting task for a small non-profit, especially for those who don’t have full-time development staff. So how do you know when you’re ready to begin? How do you best spend your time and energy to get the results to achieve your goals and mission? Come and learn from a Friedenswald board member with 40 years of fundraising and development experience about how Camp Friedenswald approached and successfully ran its recent Renew Friedenswald campaign.

The “Bliss” of an Inclusive Camp Experience: Journeying towards integration- Denise Reesor, Program Director for Anabaptist Disabilities Network

At the heart of what camp offers is an opportunity for children to build relationships, encounter God, and experience belonging. While we believe this opportunity should be available to all children, opening the doors to campers with special needs or disabilities can seem intimidating and out of reach. This workshop will examine the five stages of disability integration and learn how we get started, or stay committed, to the journey of inclusion for all abilities. Denise is a School Psychologist in-training and former Assistant Direct at Willowgrove Day Camp.

Challenge Courses- Beaver Camp (Lowville, NY) Staff A low element challenge course can be constructed almost anywhere on your campground! This kind of activity is great for team building and individual self-esteem. We will talk about the philosophy behind a low element course and activities and construction that will make a low element course a valuable part of your program.

Enough Already!- Denise Risser, That’s Enough Organizing! Do you wish you were more organized? Are you overwhelmed with stuff? Don’t have enough time in the day to get everything done? Professional Organizer Denise Risser will share information on getting organized and saving time. Denise is from Goshen, IN, and has worked as an Administrative Assistant for over 20 years, most for Bethany Christian Schools. She worked at Camp Friedenswald from 1993 to 1995 in multiple roles.

Tuesday, March 20 at 3:00 pm

Camp memories in the digital age- Karl Stutzman, Director of Library Services, AMBS Your camp’s institutional memory is recorded in various media - photos, videos, diaries, newsletters, websites, meeting minutes, etc. These documents are key for telling your story to a variety of audiences, including past and future camp participants, donors, and folks interested in history. We’ll discuss strategies for organizing and providing access to your camp’s memory documents in the digital age.

Costa Rican cooking- Ellie Solano & Vicky Solano Hawkins, Food Service Director and Kitchen Assistant, Camp Friedenswald Ever wonder how to turn a simple meal of black beans and rice into a feast? Want to expand your culinary skills to include flavors from Costa Rica? Join the Solano sisters, who together have served at Friedenswald over thirty years, for a lesson (and taste!) in Costa Rican cooking. Your taste buds will thank you!

Continued on back.

Association of Mennonite Schools and Camps (AMSC) employee group health insurance plan- Ron Peconge, Director of Group Health Sales, Everence FinancialLearn more about how the stability of the AMSC benefits plan can help your camp focus on what it does best – developing bright young minds in a faith-based framework. Come learn about the benefits of AMSC for your camp and have questions answered about health insurance today.

Engaging with Your Land – How Might Land Management Fit with Your Mission? -Bill Minter, Merry Lea Environmental Learning Center Many camps have historically directed their energies to the program, facility and personnel aspects of their organization with the implicit assumption that the “place” (land base) will always be there----remaining unchanged, or changing over time as “nature takes its course”. Participants will be asked to examine those assumptions and consider how active engagement with their land and its resources may serve their camp’s mission. Opportunity will also be provided to share from each other’s challenges and successes in managing their camp’s land resources.

Connecting creation and faith in the camp curriculum - Janeen Bertsche Johnson, Campus Pastor, Admissions Counselor, and Alumni Director, AMBS A key resource of our camps is their natural surroundings, and we often acknowledge how God seems closer to us in nature. But is creation just the setting for what we do in our worship and teaching, or can it be better integrated? This workshop will give examples of how camp programs, retreats, and curriculum can be built from biblical texts about creation and connect to activities that make us better stewards of creation.

Intercultural Competence - Nekeisha Alayna Alexia, Intercultural Competence and Undoing Racism coordinator, AMBS

Wednesday, March 21 at 7:00 pm

Marketing for more-with-less organizations- Hannah Heinzekehr, Executive Director of The Mennonite Often small nonprofits get by without a full-time staff person to give attention to communications and marketing, and digital media have made it both easier to stay in conversation with your base, while also adding work. Hannah Heinzekehr has 11 years of experience working in the communications field for small nonprofits. In this workshop, she’ll offer some tips for how to build a meaningful marketing strategy—online and otherwise—for your camp.

Create a Sustainability Plan for your Camp-Amy Huser, Sustainability & Outdoor Education Director, Camp Friedenswald Resilience and sustainability are buzz words of our day, but are also essential to the health and wellbeing of our organizations and world. From September of 2016 to April of 2017 Camp Friedenswald collaborated with then graduate student, Amy Huser, to create a resilience and sustainability plan - now Camp’s master plan for the next five years. Come hear about the process of creating the plan at Camp Friedenswald, and learn about general sustainability and resilience planning frameworks. This workshop will help you determine whether your organization is ready to take the step of creating a resilience and sustainability plan, and give you the opportunity to discuss with others what that process might look like.

Praying with the Body- Ingrid Friesen Moser, Dietician and holistic health counselor Praying with Body is a guided prayer practice integrating scripture, worship, and exercise. Strength, balance and stretching poses are the core movements. Movements can be adapted to fit all fitness levels. Mats or blankets will be provided for use during this interactive and moving workshop.

Mennonite Men & Men’s Retreats - Steve Thomas, U.S. Coordinator for Mennonite Men; and Kevin Leary, Camp Friedenswald Based on four retreats Mennonite Men conducted last year at Mennonite camps, this round table workshop will focus on offering retreats for men. We will explore how our camps and Mennonite Men can collaborate to engage men in spiritual growth and connect them with our organizations.

Developing a peace camp curriculum -Matt Ropp, Amigo Centre; Ken Bontrager, Camp Deerpark; and David & Saralyn Jantzi, Camp Camrec. Join this group of Executive Directors for a panel conversation about their vision for developing a peace curriculum for camps. Over the past year, they have been working with Mennonite Central Committee’s Peace Education Coordinator, Jessica Stoltzfus Buller, to develop a curriculum. While it’s still in its infant stages, come along to hear about how the process is going so far, and their hopes for the future. Bring your questions and ideas!

Registration Form: Deadline March 5, 2018Please register each person or family attending.

Name_____________________________________________________________________________

Spouse name (if attending)_______________________________________________________________

Other family members attending (ages): ____________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________________________________

Address____________________________________________________________________________

City_________________________________________State________Zip________________________

Phone (____)_________________ Email:__________________________________________________

Camp Name_____________________________ Position/Title at Camp:__________________________

Dietary restrictions? __________________________________________________________________

Special needs or physical limitations? ______________________________________________________

Lodging: Visit Friedenswald.org/lodging-facilities for accommodation information.

Please indicate preferred housing:

___ Modern Cabin

___ Lodge Room

Roommate requests: _________________________

_________________________________________

*Assignments will be made in the order they are received.*Single rooms are available for an additional $100.

Registration Payment Worksheet:List amounts below:

Registration Fee(s)

Person #1 _______

Person #2 _______

Person #3 _______

Person #4 _______

Additional persons _______

_______

After 3/5/18 +$30/person _______

Non-member +$30/person _______

Private Room +$100/person _______

Total _______

Payment due upon arrival.

Registration FeesIncludes registration, lodging, linens and towels, and nine meals.$175 – Adult Registration$75 – Youth ages 4-18 / Full-time student rateFree – Children ages 0-3 Non-MCA Members - +$30 Private Room - +$100

Please register online or submit your completed registration form to:Camp Friedenswald

15406 Watercress Way Cassopolis, MI 49031phone: 269-476-9744 fax: 269-476-9745 info@friedenswald.org

Please register online at http://friedenswald.org