NTM

Do you have questions about Jungle Camp? Others have, and someone even ventured to ask their questions (Jason’s aunt). Here they are, and of course the answers to the questions.

How many houses were there?
There were 10 temporary student houses, and two staff homes (that stay up year round).

Where did they get their water supply from?
The school has a full size van with an old milk tank in the back of it. It is filled with water from down in civilization, and then parked at the top of the hill and hooked into a network of plastic pipes which bring the water to each home. We as students had to bring it into our home and make use of it.

What about "toilet" facilities"?
In the past, there were 2 outhouse buildings (one for each gender). Each building had three stalls. Over time they have come into need of repair, so this spring new "toilet facilities" were built. They have the same number of stalls, but have flush toilets instead of holes in plywood.

Did they bring in all of the materials except for the logs, wood, etc.?
When the class before us took down their house, they leaned all the poles they used up against a tree for us to use this year, and we did the same for next year’s class. While we were building, our trainers "harvested" fresh cedar poles from a nearby grove. This is needed as each year the poles are sawed shorter and shorter and become unusable.

The Home Hardware in Durham is a huge blessing. They are in the habit of donating all the duct tape we will realistically need (something like 8 rolls per household). They also donated some clear and black plastic for the walls. We had to purchase as a class a little but more, but they give us a discount on all supplies we need for Jungle Camp. The roof plastic is also donated. It is really thick (8 mil.) and came off of greenhouses when it got some holes it in. Most of our class’ homes used window screen from previous years’ homes, and a little was bought from Home Hardware.

Food supplies and diapers and things – were they only brought in when they first got there?
We had to plan for a whole month what Delena would need, and what we would need for food, and brought it all in on the initial move up day.

Do they totally dismantle the homes when they leave?
Yes. We leave the lot clear of everything, including the holes in the ground. The poles are left against a tree for the next year’s class.

Did they put all the stones in lining the paths to the houses?
Once we got moved up and settled, we had a work bee day. We raked all the leaves off the trails and straighted the stones. It is amazing how they help to illuminate the paths at night in the moon light.

We are officially done our first year of missionary training. With only 4 weeks till we start the second year of training, we are hoping to get some visiting in.

This Friday (July 18) we are planning driving to Port Colborne and spending Friday through Tuesday with our church and friends there. Then we are going to join Angie’s family in NY State for the rest of the week at a family camp.

The first three weeks in August we have plans to make plans to visit family and friends half a week at a time, but nothing is nailed down. Then August 20th we start back to school.

In jungle camp, most of the wood-fired oven/stoves also have a 5 gallon pail built into the side of the fire box to hold and heat water by convection. This year, myself and two other classmates built new stoves, and changed the plans in a number of ways, one being the hot water system.

Instead of a 5 gallon mail sitting next to the firebox, we installed a hot water coil and adjacent water barrel. I placed my water barrel a couple of feet above my stove. The barrel had two 1/2 inch pipe fittings that I installed; one near the bottom and one near the top. Once the water barrel was filled, the cooler water would leave the bottom of the barrel and flow through a hose into the aluminum water coil in the stove, entering in the bottom of the stove. As the fire heated the water in the coil, it would rise and return to the water barrel above. The water temperature different (resulting in a difference in density) would force the water to circulate without the need of a water pump. The cold water falls and the hot water rises, circulating through the heating coil and water barrel, heating the water barrel in the process.

From the barrel I had the hot water plumbed over to the kitchen sink and the shower (along with cold water too).

A definite highlight from our last year has been this past month—Jungle Camp. The official description: "The Jungle Camp Practicum (4 weeks) involves planning and executing a simulated move into an isolated area as well as discipline for living with limited resources. The ‘do-ability’ of some of the practical aspects of tribal missions is taught and demonstrated with firsthand experience." What it amounted to was living isolated in the bush for a month, and so much more.

After weeks of planning (actually years for me), we were allowed to start building our Jungle Camp house. Between June 4 – 15 we took day trips into the bush to build our "Jungle Camp" home (about 10 minutes from our student housing). We were only allowed to use 4 nails in the construction of our home; used to connect the table legs to the table top. No milled lumber was to be used (except for a piece of plywood for a table top). The frame of the home was cedar poles held together with baler twine and duct tape. Both clear and black plastic were used along with window screen to enclose our home. The plastic and window screening was stapled on. Our home had 12 volt electricity for night lighting, supplied by our car battery charged by a solar panel. Another "luxury" was running water supplied to our home via gravity from a water truck parked at the top of the hillside.

We moved into our Jungle Camp home June 16th. From 1am till 5pm, we moved all of our household possessions from our apartment into our Jungle Camp home. It is a 10 minute walk through a gravel pit (LOTS of hills). The challenge comes in that we had to carry everything in — we were not allowed to use any wheels. This helped to simulate hiking through jungle to move to a tribal village. To further help us understand the physical challenges of being a tribal missionary, the men went on a 3 day, 2 night hike along the Bruce Trail from Crane Lake to Tobermory during the second week of building. The ladies went on their own 2 day, 1 night hike (Angie joined them for day 1) during our last week in Jungle Camp.

After moving up, we lived in the bush from June 16 to July 13. For one month, we lived in isolation, kind of. All ten of the households in our class built their homes on lots all clustered together along a creek. There were also two staff homes in the same hamlet. We couldn’t go out of the "wilderness" and couldn’t have people in to visit us randomly. No phones were allowed, but we could send and receive snail mail daily. Being cut off from communication (ie. email) was one of my personal frustrations.

The first of the four weeks we finished building our homes (I still needed to do all my plumbing and electrical). We also had a chicken kill our first Friday in the bush. Everyone learned how to skin and gut a chicken. Our homes had no refrigerators or freezers, so meat was either brought live, or canned (each family has to personally can meat and fruit for this training exercise).

During the second week in the bush I was expected to put in 6 hours of independent Bible study on top of surviving (ie cutting fire wood and maintaining a fire).

One of the exceptions for the "no visitors" rule was the Jungle Camp Open House held July 7 and 8. Although we couldn’t have friends and family drop in on us randomly, many came for the open house. We had a great time being overwhelmed with literally hundreds of people coming through. Jason enjoyed sharing, with anyone who was interested, how his hot water system worked.

All good things must come to an end and Move Down Day was Friday the 13th. What took weeks to build took only a couple of days to destroy. Strategic long term planning (ie. no nails used) allowed for a quick erasing of all evidence we were ever there.

We loved our time in the bush, and would have enjoyed staying up there a couple more weeks. One thing I won’t miss is all the mosquitoes. Good riddance!

Many have asked how it was living in the bush with a 4 month old daughter—we found it to be a joy. Delena was the perfect age. She wasn’t crawling, so we weren’t doing mounds of laundry. We didn’t need to bring any food up for her. And she was old enough to entertain herself. We couldn’t have had a better aged child for living in the bush.

Would we do it again? Definitely. Not only was it a great "practical" exercise, but it was a great "spiritual" exercise.

During the week of independent Bible study, I had trouble focusing my thoughts on the Word of God. I was distracted by bitterness. The Lord brought different classmates and trainers along who were able to encourage me to correct my wrong thinking. I now have a renewed understanding that God is sovereign — He is in control and I need to rest knowing that He will bring difficult situations to a close. I was reminded of the importance of "bringing every thought into captivity" (2 Corinthians 10:5).