Dear family, friends and supporters,
It is November and maintenance season is upon us here at camp. We will not host any guests for the next two months but are preparing to welcome them back at the beginning of January. Our preparations include: making plans, deep-cleaning, writing menus, attending food shows and conferences for cooks, and training other staff to labor with us.
As I look back on the last 6 months of living at Camp Barakel and going through our spring, summer and fall seasons, I am filled with thankfulness. Camp Barakel exists to give a thorough proclamation of the Gospel of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. It is why we do what we do. Each morning when we have campers on property, I lead devotions with my kitchen AVS. I feel it is very important to start a busy day in God’s word. One of the main ideas that I talked about a lot this summer comes from Luke 17 where Jesus heals ten lepers. When they cry out, Jesus tells them to go and show themselves to the priests. As they went, they were healed. Here is the sobering part of the story for me. Starting in verse 15 it says this: 15 Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice; 16 and he fell on his face at Jesus’ feet, giving him thanks. Ten were healed, yet only one came back and thanked Jesus. Thankfulness. It is easy for me to allow my old, selfish heart to be ungrateful. Working in the kitchen is hard work. Long hours on your feet in a hot kitchen while managing people all day can sure take a toll on you, both physically and mentally. What keeps me going are the spiritual wins: children and teens accepting Christ as their Savior, families growing closer to God and each other, men discipling and strengthening younger men, and women encouraging each other in their walk with God. Rita and I are eternally grateful for this opportunity to be here working to help build up God’s Kingdom and encourage members of His Church.
This past summer was an amazing one. We had a very talented kitchen assistant who was able to lead the kitchen on Thursdays so Rita and I could have a day off. We were able to spend Thursdays as a family going to the beach, shopping, putt-putt golf, and just doing fun things as a family. It was awesome. Out of the 4 summers so far Rita and I both agree that this was the best one to date. Everything seemed to just go smoother for us. Rita was able to manage special diets for both sides. She wrote the menus and worked alongside the other special diet cooks to make sure they were doing what they needed to do. I said it before and I will keep saying it, but I could not do this job without my wife as my biggest helper, and more importantly, my greatest encourager.
As we are still without a full-time cook on the West Side, I had the opportunity to work with two different cooks: Paul, our camp director, ran the kitchen for the summer and Jon Ford, ran the kitchen for the fall. We still have a tremendously great need for a full-time cook to join us on staff and run the west kitchen. Please pray for this need.
By mid-fall, we were planning for a different kind of winter. A winter where we would need to turn away close to 600 teens. Six hundred teens not hearing the gospel! How heart breaking of a season this would be for any missionary. To deny someone an opportunity to hear the gospel of Jesus just breaks my heart. I got saved as a teen here at Barakel and not be able to host teens would be devasting. We exist to proclaim the good news of our Lord. Yes, we want to do that right and sometimes that means making difficult decisions. We are so low on staff right now. Especially in food service. So as Jesus said in Matthew 19:26 “But Jesus looked at them and said, ‘With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.’” Praise God from whom all blessings flow! God, as he does, came through for us. God has brought us a young man named Ryan to come and work in the kitchen! Ryan was here this past summer and has decided to come back for the winter. God answers prayers and just keeps demonstrating how great a God he is! As of October 10th, we were planning to only have one side of camp open for winter retreats. In the next couple of weeks our registrar will be working hard to register teens for our winter retreats! This is such good news. There is a young lady who is about 98% sure that she will be coming to serve in the kitchen this winter and has even talked with Rita and I about cooking this next summer! Wow! A lot can change in a few weeks.
Rita and I are doing very well. We just celebrated our 18th wedding anniversary in October. We are healthy. We will be traveling to New York for Thanksgiving to be with Rita’s family. We are looking forward to that time with them as we only see them once a year. Please pray for safety as we drive. We also were able to find a newer vehicle to replace our older vehicle that had a lot of mechanical issues. Celia and Eli are doing well in school. Celia is a freshman now and the captain of her volleyball team. She is vice president of her class and is even taking her first college class. She is looking forward to starting driver’s training after the first of the year. Eli is in 7th grade and in his final year of being homeschooled. He will be attending Fairview next year. He is a very smart kid and is really enjoying learning about Astronomy. He would love to drive race cars and be the first man on Mars. He has been studying and memorizing the New City Catechism and is most of the way through the book. We pray this will stay with him for a lifetime, and that God will continue to sanctify him and increase his knowledge and love for the Lord. Support wise, we are close to where we need to be. We can save and invest for retirement and meet all our needs. God is good!
I hope this update finds you all well. Many of you have worked with us in the kitchen this year and we appreciate you. Others have sent words of encouragement just when we needed it the most.
Thank you all for your prayers, love and financial support.
With a grateful heart,
Dave Miron
on behalf of the Mirons
Many answered prayers
Dear Dave & Rita,
We are so grateful for your willingness to serve full time at Camp Barakel and for your positive attitudes week after week. We had the opportunity to come up four times this year and I can say, it was a lot of work. We loved your morning devotions and saw you put God first everyday before we started our busy day in the kitchen. Your heart of gratitude shines through. I heard it once said, if you only had tomorrow what you thanked God for today, what would your life look like? We appreciate the posture of your heart in thanking God, praising God, studying His word and loving God. ❤️
God is good! Thankful for you guys and your ministry
Thanks for letting us know of your needs. I didn’t know.
Thank you for the update, Mirons! Praise God for His faithful provision.
Hey Dave& Rita I’m very blessed by reading your families update on serving Christ at Camp. Although I was feeling shame at myself for not having been an integral part of any of it as I was reading through to the end I’ve asked the Lord for His forgiveness & now I’m asking you both will you please forgive me & pray for me that I will in turn start in some small way to support & encourage you both & your kids on as we enter yet another one of God’s glorious seasons. It does my heart happy & proud to not only see how God is working & providing for you & your family but also how you as a family have grown in your personal walk of faith & love for Him with such humble, servant hearts. Truly God has used you & your family not only at camp but in countless many other ways to people whom you may never even know about you & your family are 100% proof of how we are only clay in His hands until the Potter gets ahold of us and starts to fashion & mold us into His glorious image. He has been your Potter molding & shaping all of you & your llives so that you can be used to further advance His kingdom I do pray and will continue on praying for all of you faithfully every morning . It is my hope that someday I will be able to come visit you & your family but until then you remain in my thoughts, heart & prayers daily my love 💓 to all of you Aunt Debbie xoxo xoxo one for each of you