Orientation and Mt. Albert Edward: Week 1 & 2

A New Beginning

Well, here we are in the middle of a pandemic kicking off the Kaleo 2020/2021 year. Who knew we'd be here? We are so thankful that were are still able to run our program in the midst of a trying time. As of today, we have just finished our two-week COVID 19 protocol, and can officially start function as a learning pod. The students are VERY excited to not be wearing a mask all the time.

Students from provinces all across Canada arrived at Camp Qwanoes on September 16th to start off their school year and we are so incredibly excited to do life with them this year. After all the students got settled into their new home and finished registration, we began orientation week.

Kicking off with Some Fun

Students got to shake off some of their first-day jitters with some mini-games the first night. After a few panicked name guesses, some awkward Mad Cow positions, and a massive game of Mafia, we got to see a little bit more of the personalities that we'll be spending the rest of year with. 

The next day we competed in some All-Star games, thankfully many of the students knew Disney Trivia. We later had a beach party with some tubing, wakeskating, the Jetstream, and fun on the Aqua Park. 

Introduction to Church Groups and Staff

The next day, students also got to know the staff during the first week. We all introduced ourselves to each other and each student was assigned a "Qord". A Qord is a Qwanoes based mentor/spiritual friend that students will get to know and hang out with throughout the year.

Students were later introduced to their churches that they will be partnered with for the year. Pastors from each church got to spend time getting to know the students, finding out about their passions, and explaining what their church is all about. We're partnered with 5 different churches including New Life Community Church, Duncan Pentecostal Church, Departure Bay Church, The Meeting Place, and Oceanview Community Church.

Time to Get Trained

Soon, the students jumped into the challenge course workshop. Our challenge course consists of zip lines, swings, rock climbing walls, and high ropes courses. Students were also trained in safety and leadership workshops. Throughout the year they will have opportunities to run the challenge course alongside the staff here.

Finally, we ended off the week with a really nice steak dinner with all the staff, students, and family members as a send-off. The staff gathered around at the end and we all prayed together as a community for this upcoming year.

Switching Over to the First Out Trip

For the second week, we embarked on our first out-trip together: backpacking Mount Albert Edwards. This was very exciting for everybody, leaders and students alike, as the first out-trip is an awesome chance to bond through shared experience, adversity, and overall a really fun camping trip. For many students, it would be their first time summiting a mountain like this. We knew that the weather was looking rainy and somewhat gloomy, but off we went.

Day One

    On the first day, we got an early start with a 6:30 breakfast at camp, then we quickly packed up the vans and the bus and headed to Strathcona Park. Once we arrived, we split into our hiking groups and set off on the trail. During that first day's hike everyone got a chance to share their testimony. We split into two separate groups for camping that night. One group headed to Circlet Lake and the other to Kwai lake. 

That first night a search and rescue crew member came to Circlet and told us not to attempt to summit the next day due to a big rain and wind system that would be coming through. The weather was already foggy enough that we could not even see across the lake, so we knew a summit hike would be difficult to navigate. That night it rained lightly and, for the most part, we all slept soundly.

Day Two/Three

    The next morning, we had to wait for the Kwai group to reach us so we could break the news to them that we would not be summiting. As an alternative to summiting, we took a loop trail to Moat Lake for the day. We revealed our theme for this year: Allegiance. Korey, our program leader spoke about this at the lake. It was a nice little lake and gave us lots of time to hang out, eat some lunch, and just spend time together. It was a much more relaxed day than a summit day usually would be. It was a very on and off foggy kind of day, definitely was wise to not attempt the summit.

    That night we switched campsites. The rain system came in at around 8 pm. And did it ever pour. It was a very rainy and windy night, if anyone didn't set up their tent and rainfly correctly, they definitely knew.  Even if people did set their tents up right, most of them got wet to a certain extent. As a result, many people didn't get as much sleep as they would have liked, however, in the morning the morale was very high. Everyone had a good attitude and helped each other with preparing breakfast, taking down tents and tarps, and distributing gear in backpacks. Everyone had fun and rolled with it, which made for an awesome last day as we hiked back to the vehicles and headed back to camp.

If you want to check out more about the Kaleo program, you can follow us on Instagram @kaleoprogram for more updates. We'll be posting more blogs updating our experiences, so give us a follow if you would like to stay in the loop.

Things to be praying for our Kaleo program:

- Transition for students into a new environment and new people

- Vulnerability and growth within the students and leaders together as a community

- good weather for our upcoming kayaking trip

- Good time management for classes

Week 28: Wrapping Up

After our crabbing adventure, we stepped into a bit of a whirlwind of a week. Gearing up for our French Beach camping trip on Wednesday things across the country began to shift very quickly, which meant that things for us were about to look very different.

We went into the weekend given the government making the statement of no gatherings of 250 people or more due to the COVID-19 outbreak we decided not to send students to church on Sunday. Hoping this would soon pass we carried on beginning our week as normal, prepping for our camping trip coming up. 

We quickly saw that things were shifting across Canada faster than we had anticipated. When British Columbia declared no gatherings over 50 people on top of the action that most post-secondary institutes were taking, we knew we had to take some form of action. 

After much thought about the safety of our students and what the government was recommending, we had to make the unfortunate decision to wrap up Kaléo 2020 as we knew it this week. While the Kaléo program has concluded for this year, students are continuing to wrap up their Pauline Epistles and Camp & Youth Ministry classes online with their professors. 

So with the help of the staff here at Qwanoes, we quickly put together a banquet celebration. It was a fast turn around but we had to make things happen quickly because many of our students decided to go home before the weekend came. 

After the banquet, we all hung out together as one big group and shared memories, things we had learned, and ways we saw God move throughout the year. 

Then Friday morning we wrapped up our time together with one last chapel from Korey. He reminded everyone of the theme that we have tried so hard to embrace this year, 'The Way of Jesus'. He encouraged everyone to continue to pursue the way of Jesus even as life unfolds in ways that we never expected. 

This year we saw the students press hard into community. All year long learning what it means to love God and love others while learning about the Way of Jesus. The ways we were able to see our students embody that over the past 7 months has been really amazing to be a part of. We have had so much fun sharing so many different experiences with our students this year, and we are very thankful for the time we had them. We are so proud of them for the way that they pressed into the Kaléo program pursuing growth and discovering the way of Jesus together.


Please Pray For:

- our students as they reintegrate back into their home life and church communities
- our students to continue to discover what the Way of Jesus looks like in their lives outside the Kaléo program
- our students to continue to invite the people they find themselves with into the Way of Jesus with them

Week 27: Crabbing

After a week of class, we had some nice weather for us to be able to do some crabbing off our dock here at Qwanoes anticipating a crab feast at the end of the week. 

With an exam Monday afternoon we took a quick study break in the morning and we all went down to the dock to learn how to set the traps, replenish the bait, identify the crabs that we can keep and the ones to throw back into the water. 

Everyone was separated into teams and the teams were put into time slots to go and check the traps and replenish the bait. This way, everyone had a chance to pull up the traps and handle the crabs over the course of our crabbing days. 

We put the exam behind us and began to focus on crabbing and homework for the upcoming class. 

The first day we only pulled up a couple crabs. and the second morning and afternoon only a few more. We were not quite sure why we were not pulling up more crabs and we began to ask ourselves; do the crabs just not like our bait? are they escaping from the traps? are there just not many active crabs this year? So Tuesday afternoon we added a few things to our bait and sure enough that night when we checked the traps, we pulled up many more. Our total number of crabs doubled and tripled very quickly and with our crab cooking in sight, it began to look less like a snack and more like a feast.

Wednesday, we had another day pulling up crabs having a blast in the nice weather while picking away at some homework.

Thursday was the day of the feast, we pulled up our last trap and had collected enough crabs for everybody to have their own crab and then have some leftover. 

We gathered around a fire at the beach and learned how to break open the crabs to get at the meat. Then we cooked them up, dipped them in butter and had a blast snacking on crab and hanging out around the fire for the afternoon. 

We had an absolute blast crabbing and spending that time together. Since then, we have had a whirlwind of a time with the rising outbreak of COVID-19 in Canada and the world, so stay tuned for a blog post later this week for an update on how we have responded here at Camp Qwanoes with the Kaléo program in the midst of this global pandemic. 

Please pray for:

- Our students to continue to press into what God has for them in their lives. 

- Our students to continue to stay on top of their academics and that they would allow God to speak to them through what they are learning. 

- Our students to be a light to those around them during a fearful time.

Week 26: Interdisciplinary Studies

We arrived back from our mission trips and celebrated our teams reuniting once again, everyone quickly reintegrating with each other eager to hear about one another's trips.

For the days following the trips, we went through some debrief with the students to help them process what they had experienced, asking questions like; What was hard? How did you see God move? How does this experience change the way you walk in your life now? The goal was to have intentional time to reflect on and acknowledge what had just happened and allow that experience the shape who they are becoming.

We had a time where the students prepared a presentation of photos and information from their trips that they presented in front of the staff here at Camp Qwanoes. This was an amazing opportunity for the staff who have been praying for and supporting the students to hear in detail some of the things that happened on their trips.

At the end of the week, we quickly transitioned from mission trips into class mode. Monday morning we welcomed back our first prof of the year Cal McFarlane to teach Interdisciplinary Studies.

Throughout the week students learned about philosophy, dealing with terms like modernism and postmodernism in relation to identifying different eras of time that have shaped the world and culture we live in today ultimately affecting the lense in which we view our relationship with Jesus and understanding of who God is.

This class has been one of the more challenging classes academically and is pushing the students to think deeply about the things that they have been learning all year and understand the root of some of the concepts they have been wrestling with.

We are proud of our students as they continue to push hard into their academics even as the end of the year is coming into sight, but we are anticipating God doing and teaching us all so much more as we continue to press into the next month and a half together.


Please Pray For:
Students to continue to be open to seeing the ways in which God wants to use them for the remainder of the year.

Students to press into community with one another as the end of the year approaches quickly.

Students to continue to learn what living in The Way of Jesus means practically for them.