State of the Art!

John’s been diligently working on the stove that we’ll be using in Jungle Camp. Jungle Camp?...some of you may ask. OK, let me explain for those of you who don’t know.

At the end of this academic year is 6 weeks of training known as Jungle Camp. This is a time when our family will build a temporary dwelling (we WILL take pictures) and then we move into a wooded area (A.K.A. "the bush") for 4 weeks. All of the marrieds build their own dwelling and singles pair or triple up to build their homes.

On "move up" day we have one 24 hour day to hand carry all of our belongings to our new home...which is about ¼ to ½ mile walk. Then, we’re not to leave that area until the end of the four week period. So, that mean’s we need to bring not only our clothes and bedding, but also all of the food that we’ll need for 4 weeks of living.

Our refrigerators consist of a couple of metal buckets that are placed in the ground, so most of our food will be canned. Since we’ll be using solar power to operate our lights, we need to use wood to cook and John has constructed our stove from a 55 gallon drum. He had a model to work with and spent about 25 hours building it. All of our cooking will be done using this stove and it will also provide heat for the house if the nights are chilly.

This is the stove top surface. Everything that is painted blue will eventually be covered with clay once we're in the building phase. This will help to insulate the stove and it will be more efficient.




This is the oven.




This is our hot water source. A hose can be tapped into the bucket and run to the kitchen sink and our shower. Finally, indoor plumbing!

For those of you who don't know us very well, we're not "Joe" campers. Our idea of camping is Motel 6 so we need to ask for prayer because this experience will stretch us far out of our comfort zone. However, since our children are a bit older, we know that this is 4 weeks that they'll never forget. No TV's, computers, radios, MP3 players, DVD's, phones etc. are permitted during this time. When can a family get away from all of that for 4 weeks? We're looking forward to the time that we'll have with our family and classmates and pray that God will use it to draw us closer to Himself and one another.