Embracing November Chills

We have been taking classes from the full time staff. We have learned what goes into preparing, faciliatiating, and debriefing a paintball game. We have learned about the history of River Valley Ranch. We have scratched the surface on all that was involved with RVR becoming the ministry we all love today. We got to visit WRBS and see all that was involved in a radio broadcasting. Tom Bisset shared with us encouragement for the year. For fun and learning we worked together and planned 3 day trips. The first day we went canoing. The second day we went climbing at a climbing gym. We finshed our 3 days of adventuring with a day hike on the Appalachian Trails with the whole Bonawitz family. November has been a time to really enjoy one and another change of season after the intense month of October.

Fall Festivities!!!

It's that time again!! The weather is cool, the leaves are vibrant... Let the fall festivities begin! By now we have support hosted retreats, hosted the workers, prepared and worked with the corn maize, and helped facilitate outdoor education groups. It has been both exciting and exhausting being apart of all these things. We have gotten to facilitate the different activities. We have been able to put into practice our training on both high and low adventure elements. We have learned how to serve the outdoor education groups on a personal level. Our awesome director surprised us with a trip to the Inner Harbor. We were able to experience the city life through some chill time in the coffee shop and on Federal Hill.

Getting Oriented

We, the Interns of '08-'09 arrived from Florida, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Maryland, and South Carolina. With a staggering ratio of 4 girls and 1 lucky boy we have all become acquainted. As we have ventured to know one another it has been fun to realize how God shook all our previous plans and brought each one of us to the Ranch. As one of our initial experiences we spent 24 hours alone in the woods praying, reflecting and preparing our hearts for the year. The solo challenged us to learn what it means to "be still". So far we have gotten to know full time staff, explored the property, ridden horses (thanks to Morgan's expertise), and have been introduced to our goals and responsibilities of the upcoming year.

Trip to Prettyboy!!

For the day, Chad, Erin, Cole, and B. (his wife and kids), and the interns went around the town nearby the Ranch and prayed for different places and people involved in those places. We went to the local Elementary School, Middle School, High School, Churches, Skate Park, and Thrift Shop and prayed for the people there -kids, teachers, leaders, employees. Then later on that afternoon after lunch we went to the Prettyboy Dam that is kind of close to the Ranch. It was a fun time of hiking, relaxing, and some of us building our own path across the water moving rocks and anything we could!

CCCA Conference

Dan decided to jump into the water - in his flip-flops - near the end of January!


We went to the beach nearby, checking out the view, and having a little photo shoot on the rocks :)

Sharonda playing around with the view finder, it doesn't work without money silly :)
Chad going crazy as usually, jumping from rock to rock seeing how high he could get!

The interns, along with a few other full-time staff members took a trip to New Jersey for the annual Christian Camp and Conference Association Conference. It was a great time getting to know people from other camps, learning more about what we can do to take our camp to the next level, playing games, and just relaxing.

Intern Recruiting Trip to Baptist Bible College

We had fun one free evening walking out on a frozen lake at Harmony Heart camp - We got to drill a hole in the ice for an ice fisherman!