It’s only the second week of March, but I feel the crunch of summer coming like a freight train. We only have nine weeks left until guides arrive. That is exciting and frightening at the same time. I love it when the guides show up and we begin training, but there is a lot that needs to get done between now and then. I have been spending a lot of time the last couple of weeks over in the gear room trying to make sure we have the gear we need for the summer. Right now there are 18 tents set up in the Hemingway Ops Building. I can barely move around because the floor is covered in tents. Last year tested the limits of our gear and I want to make sure that we are ready this year. I’ve also been working to create a good inventory of our gear so that I can track what we have, and the useful life cycle of each piece of gear. I would like to get to the point where we have all of our gear on a lifecycle rotation. That way we can purchase 20% (or so) of what we use every year, so that we never have all of something wearing out at the same time. So needless to say this has been a much bigger undertaking than I anticipated.
I am very close to locking in all of our instructors for this year. This isn’t much later than usual, but once we get to this point I always start to get a little nervous.
We are looking really good for guides this year. We have several that are going to return from last year (which is always a huge blessing). I also have 14 new people who have requested applications. Praise God! A few years ago I hired the only 4 people that applied. What a blessing it is to already have 18 applicants to choose from. Now my problem is that I want to hire them all, but don’t have that many slots. My hope is to hire 10 staff this summer, but some of that will have to wait until we know how registrations look for the summer.
Right now we are doing pretty good for our FTA registrations, but have not started to receive any RMH registrations. Again, this is not abnormal for this time of year, but it’s easy for me to start getting nervous.
Please pray for our programs this summer. Please pray for God to open the door for people to come. Please pray for wisdom for me as I assemble the guide staff team, and pray for them as they prepare to be a part of this ministry. Please also pray for the instructors. Pray that God would give them a vision for the things he wants them to present this summer. Most importantly please pray for the ministry that is going to happen this summer. Pray that God uses these programs to do work that will have an eternal impact.
Thank you all for the prayer and support that you provide for this ministry. We can’t do it without you.
