The Life & Times of Jefe and Pam

Love is a Sacrifice

2009-01-30T10:24:00.046-05:00

"There's one up there in that tree!"

It felt like we were characters in a fantasy novel discovering a mythical creature that only the truly valiant could see!

I held my breath and crept closer, camera in hand, hoping to be unnoticed by the elusive animal. This was a once in a lifetime sort of experience for most people...and this was my second time to see one! But more importantly, it was the first one my daughter Sharon had ever seen! And she had wanted so much to see a Quetzal.

~~~~~

Back in 2000 I went on a missions trip to Costa Rica with Doe River Gorge. In the area of the camp that we were working with they jokingly claimed that "There are so many Quetzals here...we eat them for breakfast!"

I was particularly interested in seeing a Quetzal because, in all my time as a missionary in Guatemala, I had never seen one of these magnificent birds even though it is the national bird of Guatemala. It actually became a joke among the team members because I was so eager to find one. I even prayed (out loud with the group!) for one! At the time it felt like a selfish prayer, but the Lord answered and brought one to me that same morning.

Since then, I've wondered at the reason the Lord granted my request for seeing a "silly" bird. It really wasn't all that important in view of eternity but He did it anyway.

I think I kind of understand now.

You see, I just got back in January from our most recent missions trip to Costa Rica. This was the fourth time that I've been there with Doe River Gorge. But this time, I had the great privilege of bringing Sharon with me. She had heard my story of God showing me a Quetzal and told me that she wanted to see one too. I began to pray that she would. This was once again a stretch in faith for me because, in the last two trips to Costa Rica, I hadn't seen any at all. I had some doubts that we would see any this time either.

An opportunity arose to see some in an area near the camp. We would have to skip out on the work for the morning to do it. I felt uncomfortable getting out of work just to go birdwatching but I decided that I would do whatever it took so that Sharon would have her desire met. Off we went.

We saw FOUR...and we were able to get REALLY close to them!

I imagine that the Lord gets excited when He sees His children delight in His gifts to them. I'm sure this is true because I felt some of that same excitement as Sharon enjoyed His gift to her. I was happy for her because of my love for her.

If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!

Matthew 7:11 NIV

As much as I love and am ready to sacrifice for my daughter just to see her joy, how much more has our Father loved and sacrificed for us? He has created the world for us and He sacrificed His Son for us.

He deserves the glory for it all...and He enjoys the joy we get through His gifts of goodness and love toward us.

~ Jefe

worried...

2008-11-20T14:22:00.016-05:00

I had a hard time getting to sleep on the night of November 4th...

Spiritual, emotional, and (of course) political thoughts and fears floated about in my mind as I tried to fall asleep. It wasn't that I was overly scared of the future, really. I simply could not get the thoughts to go away. I'm not an avid worrier but the truth is that I was worrying.

Someone once told me that worry is just disbelief in disguise. The act of worrying communicates to the Father that I don't believe that He is capable of handling my situation. Or maybe that He won't come through for me in THIS situation.

Confession is good for the soul...so, in order that you can pray for me, here are some areas where I could tend to worry:

How will the country's current financial and moral situation affect my children?
What decisions will my kids make that they will have to carry the rest of their lives?
What do I need to do or say to help them make right choices?
How can we meet our family's financial needs with the economy in a downturn?
What about our upcoming Costa Rica missions trip...will we receive the support we need for that too?
There are so many blind "leaps of faith" in my life...is God faithful to catch me?
We have so much to do to get ready for next summer (as always!). How will we get it all done?

So there...I've gotten some of them out in the open. I know that admitting the problem is the first step in dealing with the problem.

OK...now what do I do with these feelings of worry? It's not like I can just stop thinking about the things in life that concern me. I believe God is big enough for what I am facing... yet I still have nagging thoughts and concerns.

I'm not alone in this. Jerry Bridges relates in his book, 'Respectable Sins', "I find the words of the the father of a demon-possessed son encouraging: 'I believe; help my unbelief!' (Mark 9:24)." Just like this concerned father in Mark's gospel, I'm going to need Jesus' help in mastering my worry. (By the way, I recommend the chapter on Anxiety and Frustration in the book "Respectable Sins" on this subject!)

"Humble yourselves, therefore, under God's mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time. Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you."

I Peter 5:6,7 NIV

Even though I can't totally get rid of my worries, I can choose to believe in the power of God (Faith) and actively cast them on Him. He cares about all the things that worry me. I must believe that this is true. And real belief doesn't just think about truth, it does something about it. I am commanded to cast my cares on Him because it's my tendency to rebelliously hold on to them as if I am more capable to deal with them than He is.

Choose with me to believe that He is faithful and will be sovereign in today's problems...and in those of tomorrow too!

~ jefe

"We can easily manage if we will only take, each day, the burden appointed to it. But the load will be too heavy for us if we carry yesterday's burden over again today, and then add the burden of the morrow before we are required to bear it."

~John Newton

Expensive Pudding?

2008-06-27T12:28:00.016-04:00

Do you ever wonder why we do this ministry the way we do? Is it really a good idea to spend the Lord's money and ministry time on things like challenge courses, paintball equipment or gift shops? Would our ministry and money be better spent serving the underprivileged instead of on adventure activities, disc golf courses, and Hawaiian Ice machines?

These are not only reasonable questions but necessary ones! Because this generation of young people is so hard to reach, we really do need to be sure that what we are doing is valuable in getting their attention and expanding the Lord's purposes in the the world.

Well, the proof of that is in the proverbial pudding. When all is said and done, are the results worth the expenditure?

One assumption must be addressed at the beginning... the assumption that since much of what we do costs a lot of money, then we can't be ministering to the needs of the underprivileged.

No doubt there are many who come to Doe River Gorge who are wealthy. There are also many who come who cannot afford the fees of our ministry. People from all walks of life need Jesus. I was recently told by our Director that we have never turned anyone away because of finances. So far God has provided the money to help those who need it.

Doe River Gorge has great comfortable facilities, fantastic activities, amazing food, and over 100 staff providing an unforgettable fun experience for kids ages 8-18. Is it really worth it to do all this?

"Taste and see that the LORD is good;

blessed is the man who takes refuge in him."

Psalm 34:8 NIV

Many who come to Doe River Gorge have not had good experiences with the church and have a poor image of who God is. We want them to taste and see that the Lord is good. We do this by giving them a comfortable bed in an air conditioned room...by giving them great food...by providing the fun and adventure that they're looking for...by loving and accepting them for who God made them to be...and by teaching them about how much God loves them. When they realize just how great our Father is, many of them become eager to turn to Him through the drawing of the Holy Spirit and through the work of Jesus on the cross.

It is an amazing thing to see!

In just the first two weeks of Adventure Quest this summer we have seen:

83 young people accept Christ as Savior
154 more dedicated their lives to Him
102 made other significant life changing decisions.

Those are pretty cold numbers until you think about the fact that each one of them is a soul loved by our Father...someone changed forever by Him.

I'd call that some pretty good "pudding"!

~ jefe

More fun with rocks...

2008-03-10T20:41:00.010-04:00

So, I lied...

We weren't completely finished with the exciting part of the excavation work on the tunnel.

Actually, the coolest part happened just this morning.

Check out the video:

No, Ryan didn't REALLY pull it off by hand!

~ jefe

Worth the wait!

2008-02-27T09:44:00.022-05:00

Ok... So it's been a few weeks since my last post.

And I said I wanted to post more regularly too.

It appears that I have not done very well at keeping that goal.

Actually, I have held off on posting on purpose because I wanted to show you what we've been up to for the last month. We've been so busy doing the work and we needed to finish it all before I would be able to tell you about it. Thus, the lateness of this posting.

Back in the fall our first tunnel had a pretty dangerous rockfall and we needed to close it completely so that no one would get hurt by additional falling rocks. This also presented us with some problems that we had to address since a large part of what we do includes going through that tunnel (the train, tubing, rappelling, the Via Ferrata, hiking, the expedition program, etc.).

Anyway, an engineer was brought in to evaluate the situation. It was decided that the remainder of the loose rock and unstable portions of the side of the tunnel would need to be brought down before we could open it again to the public.

We did this by using airtools (jack-hammer, drill), ropes and cables, two Bobcat loaders, and dynamite. Yeah...we got to blow stuff up! The interesting part was that the demolition guy had no experience hanging on ropes which was a necessity for the side of the cliff that needed work.

All of us adventure guys, on the other hand, had LOTS of experience on ropes but ZERO experience with explosives. In the end we were elected to go up onto the rock face and both prepare the area and place the explosives (under the watchful eye of the expert!). Everyone would then evacuate the area as he pulled everything together and we would all retreat to a safe distance for the BOOM-BOOM!

We were interested in seeing what the explosions looked like so we set up a video camera to record the whole thing. Sadly, we missed getting the first two blasts (battery went dead on the camera both times!) but we did get the last three. As you can see I've included videos of the last three shots we did.

February 1, 2008 - Third shot. Notice the flash (like lightning) that happens just before the blast...that's the fast burning fuse (we are hiding about 500 feet away on the other side of the tunnel). Notice also that the camera narrowly escaped being destroyed by several large rocks bouncing past!

February 8, 2008 - Fourth shot. It took us a week to get the next blast ready. This shot was bigger than all the previous ones so we set up the camera furter away.

February 19, 2008 - Fifth (and final!) shot. This one was almost twice as big as any previous shot and brought down the last of the really big stuff.

So you can see that we've been busy! Now, most of the excitement is pretty much over and we are trying to tie up the loose ends of the project. But the projects don't end until summer is here!

Watch this space...

Jefe

Resolutions

2008-01-21T11:44:00.000-05:00

"New Year's Resolutions"...

Now THERE's a four letter word with too many letters in it!

I haven't really ever done the whole resolution thing. At least not at New Year's. How about you? How are the ones you made only three weeks ago going for you?

Sometime right in the vicinity of the beginning of the year I sort of "decided" to try and write more in this blog. This was NOT a resolution but a nice idea that I was going to try to do. I even created an alarm on my Outlook calendar here in the office to help me keep up with it. I missed last week but since it was NOT a resolution...I'm still OK.

I tend to fight off the whole resolution idea because it depresses me how bad we all are at keeping them. I feel like I really don't need another reason to not like myself so I just don't begin to do them. This would tend to make my life one of mediocrity. Our pastor, Tom Oyler, gave us a quote from a professor of his that fits in pretty well at this point so I'll try to remember it...

"I've never met anyone who planned on having a mediocre life,

but I've met many people who live a mediocre life."

Wow! Sort of hits me right between the eyes! I really don't want to be that way but without effort on my part that's exactly where I end up naturally.

OK, so I still don't think that resolutions are the answer to the problem. I think people who live by them should be taxed. Or tortured.

What I really need is for the Lord to take my good intentions (we all have THOSE!) and turn them into action that produces results. Although He is very good at doing just that, it seems that my life is less than optimal mostly due to the fact that I don't hold up on my part of the deal.

I really need help with this. Anyone have any wisdom to share on the subject? Any neat ideas? If you do, please respond to this post in a comment (see the buttons below) and let us all in on what you've learned.

Oh, and while you're at it, you can sign up to get an automatic email notifacation of when I write in my blog. Just enter your email in the sign in area on the sidebar on the right and hit the button and you're on your way. If many of you do this, it will actually make me more likely to follow through with my "good intentions" of writing frequently because so many of you will be checking up on me. You'll be helping me out in an off-hand sort of way. Thanks.

I almost forgot...I did resolve to drink more coffee...workin' on that one right now. And I gave up liver for Lent last year...that's going great for me!

~ jefe

What Now?

2008-01-07T09:23:00.000-05:00

Well, Christmas has come and gone...New year's too. As I write this, 2008 is already 1.9231% used up! And I spent WAY too much time out of the year to figure that percentage!

Anyway, I don't know about you, but we (the activity guys of DRG) have a TON of work to do before summer hits here at Doe River Gorge. And there doesn't ever seem to be enough time to get it all done.

So what do we do about it?

One thing that you can do for us is PRAY. Here are some of the things that you can pray for:

Planning: We have a lot of decisions that still need to be made about Adventure Quest 2008. Pray for wisdom for us to make timely and wise choices.

Building/repairing: With all of the facilities that we have, there are always structures that need upgrading, repairs, or rebuilding. Pray for us that we will use our time wisely and get everything done. One side note on this is that we are having some help from some Trustees from the Carter County Jail. They are great guys and hard workers. Pray that we will have an influence on them for the Lord as well.

Staff for the summer: We are looking for some great young people to help us this summer. Each summer we (the Activities Team) manage about 60 young people that do the real "hands on" ministry/work for us. Some of these are new each year and need to be trained (which we do). Others have more of a leadership role and come with experience that we use in training others.

Please do keep us in your prayers this year...not just that we will get things done, but that God would be glorified again through our ministry with young people.

Winter At Doe River Gorge

2007-12-17T13:47:00.000-05:00

Well, last night it snowed for the first time this year here at the Gorge so I guess winter is really here. It's pretty quiet most of the time too. In fact the most noise we've heard in a LONG time was at the annual DRG Christmas party last Friday night. We had a hundred or more summer staff alumni here and a good time was had by all!

One of the things we did that night was to encourage all the previous staff to prayerfully consider doing it again this summer. Even though it seems like an eternity til summer will hit again, it's less than six months away now. We already have over 500 young people registered for Adventure Quest 2008!

And, like every year, we have a mountain of work to do to get ready for the coming summer. Most people seem to think that there can't be all that much to do here in the winter but there really is. It is true that a lot of the activity has slowed down to a crawl but the planning, registering, scheduling, building, re-building, repairing, and recruiting are up to full speed right up until May.

Please keep us in your prayers as we work hard at making 2008 one of the best years ever for our ministry. (And with the other two adventure guys having new babies in their homes, they are in need of prayer for REST too!) Also, if you know of any college aged young people with great Christian character, have them check us out as a possible ministry for their summer.

In the mean time, I'm gonna go get some coffee...and maybe put on a fleece or something cuz I'm COLD!

Blessings to you all ~ Jeff

Milestones

2007-08-27T13:37:00.001-04:00

In less than a week, our family passed through several milestones!

Our youngest, Caleb, started middle school. After 13 years of being involved in some kind of elementary school, we no longer have an elementary school student!

Our middle son, Luke, started high school! He marched in the band for the first time at our high school first football game of the season. It was a great performance.

Our oldest son, Ben, got his driver’s license AND the next day, drove himself (and Luke) to school for the first time in his “new” (standard shift!) truck.
Our oldest child, Sharon, moved into the dorm at Bryan College and began a new chapter in her life!! http://www.bryan.edu/

Wow!! Whoever said life was boring?! HA!

Thanks for your prayers as we adjust…

Pam (& Jeff)

404

2007-08-21T12:31:00.001-04:00

What in the world is the number for?

I’m sure all of you internet users have seen ONE use of it before. A 404 error means the page you typed in your browser can’t be found or doesn't exist. (click this example: www.doerivergorge.com/404)

It’s also an area code in Georgia. (yawn…)

We even have a 404 at Doe River Gorge…our Unimog is a “model 404”!

But the most amazing use of the number 404 is what God has done this summer at Doe River Gorge. We have gained 404 new Christian brothers and sisters during our ten weeks of Adventure Quest!

As excited as we are about this number, it's really only a poor representation of something much greater. Each one of those young people is a life changed…who have the promise of eternity with God…and the Holy Spirit now living inside them - guiding and teaching them in their daily walk…and the opportunity to get to know God for themselves!

404 young men and women who were spiritually dead and now have new life! Our God is good!

Week Nine & God's Glory!

2007-07-28T16:15:00.000-04:00

Well, here we are at the end of week eight of Adventure Quest here at Doe River Gorge. What I mean by week eight is that we’ve been at this for ten weeks now if you include training…and even longer if you include our preparation before that! It’s been a great but tiring summer.

Our staff is exceptional and they’ve done a fantastic job. We’ve had a few typical “human relations” issues that needed to be dealt with…and most of us are getting pretty tired now.

The next thing we hit is a full camp of little kids coming for week nine! Kind of reminds me of soccer tryouts in high school when the coach would have us run about six miles and then we’d have to do sprints. I remember that some of the guys dropped out after that day…there just wasn’t anything left to give.

Somehow I made it through those sprints on my own strength. Fortunately, we don’t have to do that with ministry. In fact, we are accomplishing great things here at Doe River Gorge mainly because we can’t do it on our own! God’s word says in II Corinthians 12:10 that “when I am weak, then I am strong”.

Continue to pray for us as we face the final two weeks here at Doe River Gorge that we would continue to rely on God’s strength as we work. That way, He gets all the glory for what He does through us!

Adventure Quest 2007 - Week Three!

2007-06-20T19:50:00.000-04:00

Hey there partners,

We’re currently in Adventure Quest 3. Actually, we’re on our annual vacation. Our family is relaxing at Hilton Head and enjoying the sun and sand. Well, rain today but it has been pretty nice! Check out the pictures of us trying to catch some crabs!!

But back at the home front at DRG, Adventure Quest 1 and 2 went really well. Our summer staff is once again super! We’re really enjoying getting to know them. They come from all over, even as far away as Arizona, Minnesota and Guatemala! This week there have been physical challenges with some of the questers so please continue to pray for safety as the activities occur.

For Pam , moving to the new location for the DRG Outfitters store at the end of May was a huge challenge but was accomplished through incredibly supportive volunteer help (thank you John and Matt) and a great team of summer staff who carried box after box to the new location. With huge amounts of help, we were able to set up the new store and the quote that I hear the most is: “It looks like a real store now!” It’s been fun to be in a very central place where people walk by all the time and visit.

Jeff’s in charge of Track One at DRG which includes the following activities: Challenge Course, Tree Climb, Double Leap of Faith and Mountain Biking. With excellent leadership assistance from Vince and Kristy, Jeff is now going to take the summer off – just kidding! Truly, he has a great staff (including our son Ben!) and is looking forward to great things from them.

Please continue to pray for the spiritual influence that we at DRG will have on questers, summer staff and others who come alongside us here.

Answer to Prayer!

2007-04-29T21:39:00.000-04:00

Hey there, Sorry it's been so long since we've written. We've been typing on Facebook a lot though :)

Just an update: My mom had originally been diagnosed with cancer January 31, 2006. She had surgery, chemo and radiation throughout last year. She was pronounced clear in September and again in December but in February of 2007, she was told that the cancer had returned. We quickly made a trip up to visit them in March and it was wonderful to spend time with Grandma and Grandpa Kopp! On our last day there (March 31), Mom had a CT scan done and we finally heard the results of that test on April 24 (slow, I know)...and it was declared that she DIDN'T have cancer!!!???!!! So either it was a misdiagnosis OR God performed a miracle!!!

In either case, we are truly grateful for any prayers that were sent up for our family. She will return to the doctor in three months.

In the meantime, our minds and bodies have been occupied with Sharon's prom and upcoming graduation, Ben's soccer games, Luke's track meets as well as preparing for Adventure Quest 2007. I've been doing some work in the Gift Shop at DRG as well.

We would appreciate your prayers as well for our sanity during this extremely busy time of the year...please pray for patience and wisdom in all of our dealings within as well as outside of the family. THANKS!

What does Facebook have to do with ministry at Doe River Gorge?

2007-02-21T10:37:00.000-05:00

Yeah...what are we thinking? How could a bunch of middle-aged guys actually minister through something as "frivolous" as Facebook?

I know...some of you older types are asking, "Facebook, what's that?"

Let's go there first. Here's what the Facebook site says about itself:

"Facebook is a social utility that connects people with friends and others who work, study and live around them. People use Facebook to keep up with friends, upload an unlimited number of photos, share links and videos, and learn more about the people they meet."

Basically, it's a web based meeting place for friends to communicate what their lives are like. It's kinda like an a cyber-coffee shop (without the coffee...bummer).

And the important point for us is that this is one of the places where our summer staff go to hang out and communicate. So that's where we decided to go a few months back, just to keep up with the young people that we've had here as a part of our ministry.

Really though, I feel a bit out of place since there are relatively few 40+ year olds on Facebook. But going where you don't necessarily belong in order to do ministry is not a new concept. Paul said it best when he wrote in I Corinthians 9:22 (NIV): "I have become all things to all men so that by all possible means I might save some."

We are in a place that is somewhat unfamiliar to us at times when we minister to this generation and we feel that this sort of "crossing over" into their areas of interest is part of our job in order to minster to them (and with them!).

And it's hard to keep up too! Just this last fall we were looking for some workers for a weekend event and we were having a hard time getting the kids to respond to phone calls (really old method!) or email (what we THOUGHT was more up-to-date). In the end, one of the guys here text-messaged a bunch of people on their mobile phones. We got responses in minutes!

Pray for us "old guys". We need wisdom as we work cross-culturally with this new millennial generation.

~ Jefe

GLOBAL WARMING ALERT!!!

2007-02-12T10:02:00.000-05:00

This is a wakeup call to all who are worried about global warming.

Keep us posted on exactly how warm things are getting.

Maybe you could even invite your friends out to chat about it at an outdoor cafe.

Remember to point out how you can work up a sweat working on your home in the unusually warm weather.

After all your hard efforts at warning the world of cooking to death, you should sit a spell and recall how vital your service to mankind is.

Any questions?

(All but the last two pictures were taken of the recent HUGE snowfall in Up-state New York)

Happy (Belated) New Year

2007-01-29T22:36:00.000-05:00

Welcome 2007!

Brrr...it's cold in east TN. I miss the weather in Guatemala this time of year! The kids are dying for snow but I'm not!

Since we last wrote, we are halfway through this school year, Sharon's been accepted to college, Ben finished Driver's Ed, Luke is going to try track this spring and Caleb's in Show Choir (performing "Jungle Book") -- he's going to be a "rock"?? Some new experiences for us!

I've continued to substitute teach and January's been busier than December, which is rare. I'm also trying to get out to DRG and work on the Inventory in the Gift Shop with another staff wife. So far, we haven't made much progress but we really hope to soon :) Volunteers anyone?

It's been one year since my mom was diagnosed with uterine cancer. She finished all the chemo and radiation at the end of September and she is feeling fine! Isn't that great? Thank the Lord with us!

Jeff and the Activities Team are planning for Adventure Quest 2007. As always, there are changes in activities and structure but I'll let him tell you all about that next time.

~ Pam